#7 - JRL 7306
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
August 29, 2003
UNIFORMS IN POLITICS
A few words about the secret services people
Military and security people in government are becoming a danger to the nation
Author: Alexander Bovin
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
THERE HAS BEEN A STRIKING RISE IN THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE FROM A MILITARY OR SECURITY BACKGROUND AT ALL LEVELS OF STATE ADMINISTRATION IN RUSSIA. AND WHAT PUTIN VIEWED AS HIS RELIABLE PROP HAS DEVELOPED A LIFE OF ITS OWN. THE PRESIDENT IS SEEING THE WORLD THROUGH THE EYES OF THE SECURITY STRUCTURES.
The ideas and postulates set out here were generated by this year's presidential address to the Federal Assembly, which I analyzed rigorously. The address was discouraging. It did its best to avoid what I consider to be a vital issue: the direction Russia is heading. The address did not include a list of strategic elements in our policy (unless you count the calls to revive Great Russia).
It is possible to assume that the difficulties of drafting a road map for Russia, with a precise and detailed description of socioeconomic and political strategy, can be attributed to the striking rise in the number of people from a military or security background at all levels of state administration.
I do not have exact figures on that score. I read somewhere that the proportion of officers among the elites amounts to 25.1% these days (compared to 3.7% under Mikhail Gorbachev). So about a quarter of members of the elite are officers. Officers from security structures hold over half of Security Council seats, even though it is common knowledge that the major dangers threatening Russia cannot be effectively countered by the Defense Ministry or Federal Security Service (FSB), for example. The president has seven envoys in federal districts, augmenting the hierarchy of governance, and five of them are generals. There is another detail: there are over 6,000 former KGB officers holding senior positions in the state apparatus. They are also known as "chekists", or even "the chekists from St. Petersburg."
It's actually easy to follow the reasoning of the president who has initiated this unprecedented militarization of the upper echelons of state administration. Intent on continuing the democratic reforms, he faced an urgent need to prevent the spread of chaos, restore basic order, and fortify state discipline. The chain of reasoning used by a career officer is simple: order is present where people in uniform are present.
There is something to it, actually. With all reservations and exceptions, our generals and officers were known as people committed to duty, fairly well-educated and politically unaligned professionals. I understand why Putin perceived the people in uniform as the force that would help him stabilize the situation. But I don't know whether Putin understood that in promoting senior officers to serve as the pillar of the state, and surrounding himself with the military, he would have to satisfy their corporate interests, at least partially, sooner or later. Perhaps he didn't understand that. Perhaps he failed to see the inevitable link, or to attach appropriate importance to it. In any case, this is something he has to deal with now. And it is becoming dangerous for the nation.
What Putin viewed as his reliable prop has developed a life of its own. The channels linking the president to real life have gradually become clogged by mechanisms that make the president view real life through the eyes of the security structures; and - what really counts - to make appropriate decisions.
Here are two examples.
I remember heated and lengthy debates over the presidential pardons commission. The chekists got the upper hand and persuaded the president to abolish this panel. It was abolished. These days, instead of a single truly independent commission, we have 89 pardons commissions incorporated into regional administrations. The institution of presidential pardons has become a sham.
The security structures forced on the president a new law on citizenship, a law that makes life easy for the bureaucracy of the Interior Ministry. On the other hand, it's a downright harmful law from the point of view of national economic development, consolidation of the ethnic Russian diaspora, and Russia's prestige. The president's self-criticism becomes him, of course, but the mistake has not been corrected yet.
It may be added here that Putin could have picked a better time to place the chekists, senior police officers, and army generals in charge of rescuing Russia. The security structures have certainly seen better days. As things stand, the first thing that needs to be rescued is the reputation of the rescuers themselves. Chechnya's guerrillas expose the inability of the Russian army to meet the challenges it is supposed to meet. Chechen terrorists expose the helplessness of secret services and their incompetence in preventing crime. Chechnya exposes the secret services' reluctance to tell the nation the truth.
Although he has hoped for a solution to the problem of Chechnya ever since taking office, Putin has seriously restricted the freedom of his subordinates in this area. Hence his connivance, hence his consent (tacit consent, but still consent) to inhumane and sometimes quite barbarous methods; hence the support for restrictions imposed on free speech. Hence the lack of the necessary stringent standards. Take the arrest of the senior doctor at the Mozdok hospital! A vivid example if I ever saw one.
There are, however, some things even more important than Chechnya: like the necessary and long-overdue reforms in the Armed Forces.
Society, Russia, and all of us need a relatively small, mobile, properly-equipped army of professionals under civilian oversight. A military that can win wars of the sixth or even seventh generation. As usual, however, our generals are preparing themselves for yesterday's wars.
Here is a question. If the people in uniform cannot solve the problem of Chechnya, and are only simulating dramatic changes in the Armed Forces, can we expect them to be successful in implementing other reforms throughout the country? I don't think we can; especially since senior officers already blame the president and the government for what they call "abandoning Russia's interests", withdrawing from around the world, and capitulating to the "cunning Americans."
I admit that every officer currently in the upper reaches of state administration does improve things in close proximity to himself. But since their actions are not coordinated by any common strategy, the overall situation in Russia is only deteriorating. Chaos is gaining the upper hand.
As for the macropolitical level, the picture in general is clearer here. The positive aspects are fortification of the hierarchy of governance and federal discipline. The negative aspect is the constant increase in defense spending.
Why is that a negative aspect? Because the situation is such that raising defense spending simultaneously diminishes Russia's chances of becoming a world power. The human factor will be the main driving force of socioeconomic development in the 21st century, and in Russia this factor can only be based on three elements: science, education, and health care. All the rest (including national defense and oil production) are secondary or tertiary.
Now, a few statistics. The developed nations spend around 3% of their GDP on science; Russia spends only 0.4% - or $2,000 per scientist per year, just like some backward country in Africa.
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