#7
Yezhenedelny Zhurnal
November 5, 2002
TIME TO START THINKING
The Russian Armed Forces cannot carry out President Putin's orders
Author: Alexander Golts
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]

THE HOSTAGE-TAKING IN MOSCOW MADE IT CLEAR THAT THE CURRENT STRUCTURE OF THE ARMED FORCES AND THEIR OBJECTIVES DO NOT MEET TODAY'S REQUIREMENTS. SO PRESIDENT PUTIN HAS TOLD THE GENERAL STAFF TO AMEND RUSSIA'S DEFENSE CONCEPT AND DEPLOYMENT PLANS FOR THE ARMED FORCES.

Having destroyed a group of terrorists in central Moscow, Russia's president and supreme commander-in-chief has decided to set about rooting out terrorism wherever it may be.

At a meeting with Cabinet members, President Vladimir Putin said: "International terrorism is growing ever more bold and more cruel. In various places around the world, terrorist threaten to use measures comparable to weapons of mass destruction. I say this will full authority: should anyone even attempt to use such measures against our country, Russia will respond with measures adequate to the threat - against all locations where the terrorists and perpetrators of these crimes, as well as their ideological and financial backers, may be found. I emphasize this: no matter where they are. The General Staff will receive the corresponding instructions today to amend deployment plans for the Armed Forces."

Many people noted the fact that Putin said almost exactly what the US president had said after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. However, when President Bush promised to wipe terrorists off the face of the earth, he had a dozen groups of aircraft carriers, as many expedition brigades of naval infantry, and paratrooper corps ready for immediate landing, about ten mobile ground divisions, and special application forces with over 40,000 personnel. Through the operation in Afghanistan, the Pentagon displayed its ability to deploy its troops in any part of the world, and gain control of any country suspected of fostering terrorism.

In fact, Putin demanded that the General Staff should develop plans for operations such as the one conducted by the US in Afghanistan last year. This would require amendments to not only the National Security Concept, but also direct deployment plans for the Armed Forces. These plans are quite specific and secret documents, and are essentially the General Staff's plans for fighting a war against any states that are suspected of alliance with terrorists. If these states launch an aggression, Russian troops must take action according to the plans.

But this is only theory. The current state of the Armed Forces does not provide a lot of scope for the imaginations of General Staff officials: the range of resources for resisting aggression is extremely limited. Despite the secrecy surrounding the deployment plans for the Armed Forces, it is more or less clear how the Armed Forces intend to fight a prospective war. Since the West '99 Russia- Belarus maneuvers, the Russian Armed Forces have been using the same scenario during military exercises, both for the European and Asian theaters of military activities. According to this scenario, the Armed Forces only have enough resources to prevent the enemy from penetrating Russia in the event of aggression. As for stopping the aggression - the idea is that this can only be done by means of nuclear weapons. For this purpose, strategic bombers would make a "demonstration strike", using cruise missiles with some nuclear materials - striking at targets in deserts or thinly-populated areas on the enemy's territory. After that, according to the theory, the aggressor would fear a full-scale nuclear war and consent to negotiations. If this does not happen, a strike with strategic missiles with nuclear warheads would be made. The General Staff hasn't made any plans beyond that: understanding that the start of a full- scale nuclear war means the end of the world. Most recently, this scenario was drilled in the course of a command-staff exercise on October 7-13. At the final stage of the exercises, there were a number of successive strikes from strategic bombers and launches of three strategic nuclear missiles.

If Putin's words are taken literally, the General Staff is being told to find a way of using this set of instruments for the purpose of combating terrorism (since there are no other instruments). However, nuclear weapons are hardly suitable for that purpose. For instance, say a large terrorist group is threatening to blow up a nuclear power plant or a chemical plant. It is also known that the group's headquarters and funding source are located in a certain other country. Does this mean Russia may use nuclear weapons against that nation, just as if that nation's government were planning large-scale aggression? It is clear that using nuclear weapons under these circumstances would be insanity. Nuclear weapons may serve as a deterrent for a potential aggressor nation which doesn't want a considerable part of its own population to be killed. But the prospect of a nuclear strike will not stop terrorists.

However, there is another interpretation of Putin's words: the matter may only concern the use of conventional forces on the territory of the CIS. Not long ago, the General Staff was told to develop a plan for strikes at terrorist bases in Georgia. The General Staff worked on these plans for several weeks, while the media published rumors "from reliable sources" that the strike was going to take place very soon. However, the strike was never made. Putin has chosen to pretend that he is satisfied with Georgia's promises to deal with the guerrillas in the Pankisi Gorge. This happened because the Russian president, being a sensible person, realized that such an operation would turn out to be yet another disgrace for the Russian Armed Forces. Russia does not have the capacity to conduct a large- scale anti-terrorist operation and contain terrorists within a large territory. Putin will never admit this publicly, but it is clear that the cause of the recent tragedy in Moscow was the ineffectiveness of the Russian military in Chechnya. The results are obvious: after three years of military action, separatists still have quite combat-ready mobile groups.

Therefore, it is not ruled out that Putin's order is just another attempt to speed up the military reforms. It is no coincidence that Russian generals appear to be ready for resistance both in the west and in the east: only a global threat could justify the existence of Armed Forces with 1.5 million personnel, the current conscription system, and a reserve of many millions of people. If new objectives are set for the Russian Armed Forces, this entire structure would become pointless. The necessity of radical military reforms will be evident as soon as the Armed Forces start changing their orientation away from opposition to NATO and the US, and toward carrying out specific anti-terrorist objectives.

For instance, resistance to terrorist attacks requires strong mobile forces. The personnel for such forces simply cannot be conscripts. As soon as a professional contract service division is set up, it will be clear how obsolete all the military regulations and instructions are. It will be clear that Russia doesn't need a vast range of military hardware, but only certain kinds: reconnaissance- attack systems, military transport and multi-purpose combat planes, and high-precision weaponry. Finally, reorientation of the Armed Forces toward anti-terrorism objectives will highlight how unnatural it is to divide the nation's security structure into defense against an external enemy, handled by the Defense Ministry, and maintenance of internal security, handled by over a dozen security agencies.

(Translated by Kirill Frolov)

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