Russia’s Defense Policy

On March 5, 2004, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace hosted a meeting on the state of military reform in Russia with Alexei Arbatov, who recently joined the Carnegie Moscow Center as head of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Project there. From 1993 until the December 2003 parliamentary elections, Dr. Arbatov served in the State Duma, where he chaired the Commission for Defense, Security and Ratification of International Treaties, and co-chaired the Defense Committee. Rose Gottemoeller, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment, moderated the session.

Dr. Arbatov began by noting that Russian military reforms and the state of democracy in Russia are closely intertwined. He argued that the military reforms could have been worse, which, in the Russian context, is good news.

Several issues connected to military reform in Russia, such as the disintegration of the Soviet empire, the Russian army's new requirements, as well as the new resources available to it, have been noticed in the West. What has eluded the attention of Western commentators, however, is the new system of defense funding in Russia. Under the Soviet system, the central planners set budgets and prices, and thus money had no real meaning. Now, the process of budget allocation has changed enormously. For one, the army has to pay market prices for all its purchases. Further, defense has to compete with other needs of society. Another stringent limitation on military spending is that defense can now only be funded through the federal budget.

Russian military reforms have gone through three stages. In the first period, 1992-97, Boris Yeltsin was president, and Gen. Pavel Grachev the defense minister. The early part of this period coincided with Yegor Gaidar's economic reforms, which had devastating effects on Russian society as a whole, and the army in particular. For Mr. Yeltsin, civilian control of the military meant that the defense minister and the top generals in the army had to be personally loyal to him. After the president's use of the army against the parliament in 1993 and in Chechnya between 1994 and 1996, there was no prospect of military reform. Nevertheless, this period saw a chaotic reduction in military personnel from 2.7 million to 1.8 million. The armed forces were thus disintegrating.

The second period of reforms began in 1997, after a short interval. The new defense minister, Marshal Igor Sergeyev, pursued a rational and consistent reform policy. His reforms were based on two key concepts. First, Russia's defense required robust strategic forces, and efficient rapid-deployment units. Thus, large numbers of ground forces could be reduced. Second, military reforms should be conducted with funding that was, at a minimum, stable. Expenditures connected with reforms, such as the re-housing of officers, had to be funded from outside the military budget, so as not to compete with the day-to-day needs of the armed forces. Marshal Sergeyev's plans worked very well initially. A reduction in the quantity of the armed forces was expected to open up money to improve their quality. However, the financial crash of 1998 destroyed these plans. The defense budget fell 50 percent in real terms within a few months. Marshal Sergeyev's focus thus moved from reforms to merely preventing a collapse of the armed forces. Military wage arrears reached six to nine months at this stage.

The third stage of reforms lasted from 2000 to 2003, under President Vladimir Putin. The devaluation of the ruble, and high oil prices, had led to extra budget revenue and stable economic growth. In fact, the budget increased by 600 billion rubles, which would have been more than enough to conduct military reforms. However, Mr. Putin's general policy of building a managed democracy and a presidential vertical chain of command kept reforms in check. The federal bureaucracy gained in power at the expense of the legislative and judicial branches of government, as well as society as a whole. Genuine reform is only possible in a democratic process, with open discussion in the media and society. This condition was curtailed under President Putin.

The one question connected to military reform that did make it into the public arena was whether the army should be based on the draft or on voluntary contract service. This issue aroused a lot of interest in various political, military and social segments. The result was a federal program of military reform, under which the armed forces would be reduced from 1.2 million to 1.1 million in number, and the number of contract soldiers would reach 130,000 in the armed forces by 2007, and 23,000 in the other defense services. This number would be enough to fill ten divisions, seven brigades and 13 regiments with volunteer contract soldiers. These soldiers would be based mostly in Army and Interior Ministry forces in the North Caucasus. The number of volunteer privates would go up from 13 percent to 25 percent. The cost of this reform would be 100 billion rubles. This is a modest step in the right direction.

However, compared to the cost, debates, expectations and needs of Russia today, the results of military reform are miserable, as if "a mountain gave birth to a mouse." It would be better to spend the 100 billion rubles earmarked for this project to solve the problem of military housing instead. As it stands, the expenditure on increasing the number of contract soldiers in the army would be extremely inefficient. This is not a surprising outcome, since it was the general staff that planned the reform. When bureaucracies plan reforms by which they are directly affected themselves, their plans are often the least efficient and the most expensive. One should keep in mind, however, that Russia is the only country in the world trying to complete military reforms and maintain a nuclear and space complex at the same time.

There are three principal priorities in Russian military reforms: the improvement of the officers' living standards; the improvement of equipment and training; and finding the right balance between draftees and contract soldiers. All three priorities are expensive, and compete with each other for budget allocations. Moreover, Russia's armed forces budget is under 3 percent of GDP. Currently, resources are spread very thinly among the three priorities, and political will is needed to re-prioritize the checklist.

The Western role in Russian military reforms has, if anything, been counterproductive. Due to the eastward expansion of NATO, Russian military planners do not want to abandon the principle of mobilization, or to reduce the standing army to under 1 million personnel. Indeed, no prudent military would take the expansion of a military alliance to its borders complacently. Further, the Cold-War-era arms control regime ensured transparency, certainty and the ability to plan. Now that the regime has largely been dismantled, the Russian military finds itself in an uncertain environment and thus lacks the stability needed to conduct large-scale reforms.

Dr. Arbatov asked why the West should be interested in Russian military reforms at all. One answer is that, without meaningful reforms, command and control may be jeopardized. This problem may potentially include nuclear forces. Secondly, military reforms imply efficient civilian control of the armed forces. Such civilian control is the sine qua non of Russian democracy and Western security. Further, continued military reforms would imply the abandonment of anti-NATO planning. The most important threats to Russia originate in the south (the Caucasus and Central Asia), and that is an area where Russia and the United States can be allies, "if the politicians don't mess it up." Good and equal relations with the West, the progress of Russian democracy, and military reforms are thus closely intertwined.

In the question and answer session, Dr. Arbatov noted that Russia's strategic relations with the United States and NATO are totally schizophrenic. As in the United States, a significant gap exists between the policies of the defense community and those of the foreign policy establishment. Also, the United States is not prepared to match Russia's offers on arms control for its own strategic reasons. While Russia suggested mutual warhead reductions to 1500, or even 1000, the United States insisted on reducing the number of deployed warheads to only 2200, with additional warheads kept in storage. The United States cannot have many fewer warheads if it is to preserve a balance between its Army, Navy and Air Force (what is known as the "strategic triad"), and also maintain two-ocean deployment.

However, the United States' decline of the Russian offer, and its continued maintenance of tactical nuclear weapons in Western Europe, produce cynicism among Russian generals and politicians. Russia's concerns have not found a genuine understanding among U.S. politicians, whose priorities are different from those of their Russian counterparts. Russia is thus buying thirty intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) from Ukraine, and has announced the existence of a secret "miracle weapon." Such moves are the result of Russia's continued suspicion of the United States.

A friendlier attitude on the part of the West would allow Russia to redeploy its army away from European Russia, and reduce its numbers. Russian military plans have envisaged a major war with a Western country (or the West as a whole) for the past 300 years, and these plans would be difficult to change without an improvement in Russia's strategic environment.

Responding to a question on total Russian military spending, Dr. Arbatov clarified that the budget of the Ministry of Defense amounted to 2.7 percent of GDP. However, 70 percent of the defense budget pertained to other agencies. Furthermore, the national defense budget accounted for only 90 percent of the actual amount spent on defense. Taken together, this would mean that Russia’s total defense expenditure amounts to 5.1 percent of GDP.

The current state of military reforms in Russia is not encouraging. Purely bureaucratic measures are being taken to produce the appearance of change. Raising the number of contract soldiers, but only to 25 percent, would not solve the problems between the army and society. Further, this move may divide the army into an elite and a second class, which would exacerbate the existing cleavages within the army. Perhaps it would be best if the planned reforms are not carried out at all, which might create a new beginning, with a better and more far-reaching program for military reform.

Summary prepared by Rashed Chowdhury, Junior Fellow with the Russian and Eurasian program at the Carnegie Endowment.