Source: Munich Calling
By all accounts, Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister, revealed little new. It was the timing that mattered. It was countdown time to the Russian presidential election on March 4, an event that is expected to restore Mr. Putin to the presidency when he wrote last week an article for the Moscow daily Rossiskaya Gazeta. In it, Mr. Putin announced Russia would spend 23 trillion roubles ($777 billion) through to 2020 on its military.
In his 6,500 word text entitled: “Being Strong: National Security Guarantees for Russia”, Mr. Putin argued it was especially necessary to strengthen Russia’s defences at a time when “new regional and local wars are being sparked before our very eyes." There were “attempts to provoke such conflicts in the immediate vicinity of the borders of Russia and out allies,” Mr. Putin added.
Observers wondered how much substance there was to Mr. Putin’s announcement. Was Russia trying to set off another arms race? Only one year earlier, the defense ministry led by Anatoly Serdyukov, a former tax inspector, had announced a major spending package. It would amount to 19 trillion roubles. Priority would be given to nuclear weapons and strategic missile defense.Russia’s military too would, if necessary, go shopping on foreign markets if the domestic armaments industry was too expensive or not good enough. Mr. Serdyiukov lived up to his word when he bought two Mistral French amphibious assault ships last June. That created a backlash among the top brass of the military industrial complex opposed to any changes. It has long been accustomed to state handouts, a monopolistic position and guaranteed contracts.
So when Mr. Putin penned last week’s article, he stuck to the same spending priorities. There were only two differences: he added an extra 4 trillion roubles to the plan. And he lambasted Russia’s enemies who surround the country from all directions.
Analysts are skeptical about the priorities and indeed whether such large sums of money can be found. “It is not clear that the level of spending can be sustained unless oil and gas prices really stay very high for some time,” said Stephen Flanagan, Senior Vice President and director of the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Furthermore, added Mr. Flanagan, “who are the unnamed enemies provoking regional and local wars on Russia’s periphery? Russia does not need more air, space and strategic forces to ‘counter’ NATO missile defenses. All of this sounds like more posturing for the elections.
Which constituency then was Mr. Putin trying to woo before the election? For months now, the security services that owe their power, status and privileges to Mr. Putin, have become increasingly disenchanted with the kind of leadership and system that has become entrenched under Mr. Putin. Mr. Putin, a former KGB agent, also owes his power and status to the security services.
Yet it now seems that a surprisingly high number of those in the security services sympathize with the demonstrations against Mr. Putin’s leadership, bringing tens of thousands of Russians to the streets this winter. An internal poll conducted by the Moscow City Police Department’s shows a dramatic fall of support for Mr. Putin. It asked the question “what is your attitude to those demonstrating against rigging the [parliamentary] elections”? In the poll conducted between December 8, 2011 and January 1, 2012, 3.5 per cent said they did not know; 11.3 per cent blamed agents of foreign intelligence and a staggering 85.2 per cent replied: “the people are bored of [the] powers’ lies. It is necessary to help them.
That is one of the reasons why, said analysts, that Mr. Putin did not continue using force to quash the demonstrations. Igor Sutyagin, a Russia expert at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said Mr. Putin could no longer take for granted support from the security services. “The limited support to Putin’s ruling powers is not confined to the Ministry of Interior,” Mr. Sutyagin argued.
“According to leaked results of the internal police department surveys, there are only about 10 per cent of the Armed Forces, Ministry of Interior Foreign Intelligence Service and the Federal Security Service officers who do not feel dissatisfaction about Russia’s current leaders and their policies,” Mr. Sutyagin.
To top it, the polls were leaked to the Russian press in January -- at a time when the demonstrations against Mr. Putin were becoming bigger and bigger. Analysts conclude that Mr. Putin is quite vulnerable. He is not going to lose the election, according to opinion polls. But his authority is no longer unassailable. “It seems accurate to say that Vladimir Putin’s support from within Russia’s security community over the last two or three years is limited on the comparatively stable level of between 10 and 20 per cent,” argued Mr. Sutyagin. “That makes Putin’s positions on the domestic front not as solid and stable at they would appear at first glance.
This would explain why Mr. Putin might want to buy off the security forces before the elections. The police recently had their salaries doubled. The military, in turn, gets to spend more, which Mr. Putin said he would do in his Rossiskaya Gazeta. It was all about winning back support with promises of more money, better equipment and a stronger Russia.
For Mr. Putin who likes to present himself as a charismatic and confident leader, this interpretation is not particularly flattering. For the rest of the world, however, it would be very good news if Mr. Putin’s forceful announcement turned out to be nothing but an empty bit of electioneering.
This article was originally published in the Munich Security Conference's Munich Calling.