#6041
#5
Vremya Novostei
January 25, 2002
WE CAN'T AFFORD PARITY
The Russian military taught to think in terms of economics
Author: Yuri Golotyuk
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
REFORMS IN THE RUSSIAN AND AMERICAN ARMED FORCES HAVE ABSOLUTELY
DIFFERENT OBJECTIVES. THE SUMS OF MONEY INVOLVED ARE LIKEWISE
RADICALLY DIFFERENT. SOMETHING DEFINITELY ODD IS HAPPENING IN THE
SPHERE IN WHICH RUSSIA HAS MATCHED THE UNITED STATES UNTIL NOW -
STRATEGIC NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
Russia needs to take a realistic look at its defense spending plans
It does not take a particularly perceptive person to predict that
another colossal "investment" in the Pentagon will certainly make the
Russian military jittery. In claiming that the military reforms
implemented in the Russian and American armed forces at the same time
"are financed in an entirely different manner", Russian generals are
of course correct. For some reason, however, they tend to forget that
the objectives of the reforms initiated by Moscow and Washington are
entirely different too.
Talking of restructuring in the US Armed Forces, Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld formulated four tasks the army should be
capable of seeing to when the reforms are over: reliable defense of
the territory of the United States, prevention of regional hostile
actions against the American interests anywhere in the world, a
decisive victory in one significant regional conflict, and the ability
to participate in small-scale regional conflicts in other parts of the
world.
Russian defense minister has never outlined goals and objectives
of the military reforms precisely. According to numerous assurances
from the Russian government, the reforms are needed to bring the
military structure in line with the tasks specified in the National
Security Concept President Vladimir Putin endorsed in January 2000.
Paradoxical as it may appear at first sight, it is a dramatic
reduction of the Russian armed forces and poorer finances are
precisely in line with provisions of the Concept. The Treats to
National Security listed in its Chapter III are concentrated first and
foremost in the sphere of domestic policy. They include the condition
of national economy, reduction of investment activeness, brain-drain,
economic disintegration, etc... Military threats as such are mentioned
closer to the end of the fairly long list. The next chapter of the
Concept (Maintenance of National Security of the Russian Federation)
confirms all this. "Increase of the military potential of the state
and its maintenance on the proper level" is the tenth (!) task only.
All recent meetings of the Security Council where the military
reforms were discussed became battlefields where generals complaining
of military programs reductions were expertly cornered and disarmed by
economic calculations of the Gref's team. The Kremlin remembers the
sad example of the Soviet Union whose economy was utterly derailed by
a few factors including unchecked appetites of the military-industrial
complex.
Actually, the Russian military will have to take into
consideration the plans of their American colleagues in any case. It
is tempting, of course, to try to build relations with the United
States on the basis of the provisions of the Concept specifying "equal
and mutually beneficial cooperation between Russia and the leading
states"; but real life shows that sheer strength is going to play as
important a role in international relations in the new century as it
played in the previous century. Something definitely odd is happening
in the sphere in which Russia has matched the United States until now
- strategic nuclear weapons - even though this is a sphere that does
not demand huge financial investments or additional lawmaking efforts
(everything is regulated by the 1999 law "On financing the state
defense order for the Russian strategic nuclear forces"). In
concentrating on restructuring the conventional forces, the Kremlin
has blocked implementation of the law which may be amended only after
2005.
(Translated by Andrei Ryabochkin)
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