#4
Vremya Novostei
March 21, 2002
THE KREMLIN AND GENERALS VERSUS THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
Putin hands over the defense sector to the military
Source: Yuri Golotyuk
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]

PUTIN IS SEEKING THE MILITARY'S SUPPORT FOR HIS PROGRAM OF RESTRUCTURING THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX. THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX HAS LOST ITS POLITICAL WEIGHT AND INFLUENCE IN THE POST-SOVIET PERIOD, BUT THE KREMLIN IS TOO SMART TO UNDERESTIMATE IT, EVEN NOW.

Russia's military-industrial complex is in for some major changes

President and Supreme Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Putin met with his generals on Wednesday. Only a few of the elect merited an invitation to the conference - the defense minister and chief of the General Staff, their deputies, commanders-in-chief and commanders of branches of the armed forces, heads of main directorates of the Defense Ministry and General Staff. Virtually all of the conference took place behind closed doors, the only exception being the first five minutes: the president needed to say a few preliminary words. Actually, even these few phrases offered several surprises, the biggest of them being this: Putin was clearly looking for the military's support for his program of restructuring the military- industrial complex.

"The Defense Ministry is undoubtedly the central structure in defining objectives in the sphere of military development," the president said. "Meaning that you determine the strategy of development of the defense sector of the economy."

The Russian military-industrial complex is facing some major changes, on a scale comparable with the period of Gorbachev's perestroika. The new plan of mobilization drafted by the economic bloc of the Cabinet will be set in motion next year. It considerably eases the stress of mobilization on enterprises. The number of enterprises that may be viewed by the state's arms procurement order as potential contractors is reduced, a detail spelling doom for many defense enterprises. The military-industrial complex has lost its political weight and influence in the post-Soviet period, but the Kremlin is too smart to underestimate it even now. Even banal demotion of Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov encountered so powerful a resistance that the president himself was forced to give the matter some serious thought. By the way, it seems that it is precisely the episode with Klebanov that made the president seek the military's support. The Defense Ministry had remained carefully neutral all through the battle that resulted in Klebanov's demotion.

Well-informed and trustworthy sources from the Defense Ministry say that the military's point of view was presented to Putin in three reports, delivered by Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, Chief of the General Staff Anatoly Kvashnin, and Deputy Defense Minister for Armaments Aleksei Moskovsky. Needless to say, the cast (politician, officer, technician) had an effect on contents of the reports, but all three proved their pro-Putin standing. Firstly, they did without public quarrels, something the president heartily dislikes. Secondly, they promised the president all sort of support and assistance in case the defense sector began muttering disconsolately in the course of the future reorganization. They did not mean of course that the army was going to take over all defense enterprises and have all workshops supervised by soldiers with automatic rifles. What was meant was that the Defense Ministry would establish stiff control over the finances set aside in the federal budget by the state defense order.

The president and the military left the meeting quite satisfied with one another. The army's support his, Putin told the military that directors of the military-industrial complex might be invited for the next conference and told what was in store for them. Upper echelons of the uniformed power once again had their ego scratched by the president in public (he did emphasize their special status again). Unlike Boris Yeltsin who visited the Defense Ministry once a year only, during the traditional conference with senior officers in November, Putin is a regular visitor there. This was the president's third visit to the Defense Ministry over the last six months. Ivanov himself permitted himself some self-praise. According to Ivanov, "the plan of development of the Armed Forces adopted in 2002 is realistic and not to be radically amended." Ivanov is one of the authors of the plan indeed. It was drafted when Ivanov headed the national Security Council. The Kremlin made Ivanov the defense minister exactly in order to enable him to implement the plan. It will not do to rule out the possibility that Putin's visit to the Defense Ministry also aimed to support Ivanov as the defense minister.

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