#11
BBC Monitoring
Russian military seen in the political ascendant as defence minister disappoints
Source: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Moscow, in Russian 13 Nov 01

A perceived contrast between the efficient performance of Russian Chief of General Staff Anatoliy Kvashnin and that of Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov in the conduct of the war against terrorism would appear to have encouraged the military to believe they have increased political influence on the president. The reactionary views of many serving commanders have been expressed in a public appeal issued by former top military men, but President Putin seems to have left for the USA confident that his armed forces policy is secure. The following is the text of an article by Vadim Solovyev "Generals go into opposition to the Kremlin. Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov is losing control of the armed forces, all hope is pinned on the president" in Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta on 13 November

In literally the last few hours before his departure for the USA, President Vladimir Putin deemed it necessary to hold a lengthy meeting behind closed doors with the top Russian military leadership. And there were serious, not to say critical, reasons for doing so. The more closely Moscow cooperates with the US administration, the sharper the reaction to these actions in the "Trans-Arbat Military District" [allusion to Defence Ministry headquarters on Moscow's Arbat Square].

And the configuration of the political alignment in this district itself has also changed. Disagreements with the Kremlin have been developing for a long time, but the mechanism of political leadership of the armed forces had stopped them coming to the surface.

War against terrorism shifts civilian-military balance

Putin placed at the head of the Defence Ministry the civilian Sergey Ivanov, former head of the Russian Federation Security Council. However, with the start of the antiterrorist war a military man came to the fore - Chief of the General Staff Anatoliy Kvashnin. He was the one who would report to the Kremlin on the course of combat operations, make predictions about the situation and prepare recommendations. And Kvashnin did all this very competently. As for Sergey Ivanov, he did not shine in this kind of knowledge. Indeed, at first he even used to make military-political statements that were "inappropriate to the moment" (for which, apparently, he was scolded by the Kremlin bosses).

Now career military men believe they are capable of exerting even a strictly political influence on the president and his entourage. There are at least three key issues on which the military want to influence the country's leadership - strategic parity with the USA, geopolitical alignment in Central Asia and the Middle East and the social position of servicemen.

Whatever statements the president may make about readiness for compromise with the USA on the 1972 ABM Treaty, serving generals adhere to their own view in full accordance with the tradition of the Soviet period - the treaty cannot be changed in any circumstances! It would be better to let the Americans secede from it unilaterally than to compromise.

Putin's entourage sees this position as a return to cold war times. The Kremlin's current man in the Defence Ministry, Sergey Ivanov, admitted this the other day when he called the ABM Treaty a "relic of that period". That statement was bound to annoy the generals, especially in the context of the policy of reducing Russian nuclear missile capacity by approximately three-quarters, down to 1,500 nuclear weapons. The generals cannot help intuitively feeling that their own social weight is falling by the same proportion, if not more.

Russian military resent US presence in Central Asia

From the geopolitical viewpoint, there is also a growing disagreement within the Defence Ministry with the way in which the Kremlin is structuring its participation in the antiterrorist coalition. To put it in agitprop style, the boot of the American soldier is trampling the recently-Soviet soil of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. That is absolutely at odds with the philosophy of the rulers of the "Trans-Arbat District". And the reason is clear - throughout their professional lives they have trained to destroy that very enemy. That was why in many of them the New York events of 11 September caused undisguised glee. The presence of the Pentagon in the former Soviet republics with Russia's consent is only intensifying these sentiments. Furthermore, the Americans seem to be achieving in Afghanistan something that the Russian military failed to do in 10 years of war. And many of those who are high up in our military now received a career boost thanks to the ill-fated Afghan war of 1979-89.

The dissatisfaction is also spurred by the Kremlin's decision to close the bases in Vietnam and Cuba, the reduction in the Russian peacekeeping contingents in Bosnia and Kosovo and the reduction in the Russian military presence in the Transcaucasus and the Dnestr region. And NATO is coming closer all the time.

The president's military policy with regard to his own armed forces is also not inspiring. Almost two years of Vladimir Putin's presidency have brought nothing new either as regards re-equipping the army and navy or as regards the impoverished status of military men. The promised pay raise, the increase planned in two stages, for the beginning and the middle of next year, has itself proved ephemeral. Foreboding that the military will be let down yet again is instilled by the rather sluggish situation on the world oil market - the lower the prices, the fewer illusions among officers and generals that the Kremlin will keep its word.

Retired generals express serving commanders' resistance to change

And then last Saturday [10 November] an appeal from "generals and admirals of the Soviet armed forces and the Russian army to the Russian president, State Duma deputies, government members and governors (presidents) of the regions of the Russian Federation" was published in a radical left newspaper. "Reforms of death" - that is how the authors describe the current changes in Russia, including the military-political reforms. "This is a lie and deception of the people" - that is how the armed forces reforms are described. The solution to the crisis is seen in restoring power to the people and dealing in the cruellest way with the former and present leaders of the state.

Here there is a slogan: "The people must decide their own fate", and a definition of the goal: "The people must have returned to them not only their stolen wealth but the social gains that they had secured under Soviet power." Incidentally, this is a call for the violent revision of everything that has taken shape in the Russian state in the past decade.

Sometimes the tone is more important than the words. In this case the tone leaves no doubt that what they have in mind is chiefly the violent path of achieving the goal. The signatories' jobs speak for themselves. All of them without exception held various leadership posts at the head of the branches of service and certain service arms in the armed forces. And it does not matter that they have now retired. "There is no such thing as an ex-St Bernard," as Bunin once said. Ranks such as commander of the navy, commander of a military district or fleet, commander of airborne troops or the air defence Forces, or chief of a directorate of the Russian Federation armed forces general staff are borne for life.

In addition it is reliably known that all the high-ranking signatories are in close contact with the General Staff and the attribution in the heading "Appeal of general and admirals...of the Russian Army" certainly does not indicate that they are retirees. No, the retirees are speaking in the name of serving generals and admirals, acting in this case as the mouthpiece of offices at the General Staff. The retirees have said what is on the minds of serving personnel.

Putin most likely went to the conference with the military with a fairly light heart: After all, propagandist appeals are in the spirit of Soviet times.

People in the know say that if two or three generals happen to strike up a confidential conversation, it will be known to the competent bodies literally straight away, before they even part. But will the competent organs enter into collusion with the generals? Apparently not, there are people everywhere there who are loyal to the president. As for the General Staff's excessive pugnacity, of course emotions are all very well, but as [popular singer] Vysotskiy said, "somehow there are not many troublemakers nowadays and no leaders" among the generals.

However, you can never tell what might happen when the president goes off to Texas for three days.

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