DOCSLIB.ORG

HH Gaffney Dmitry Gorenburg

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
HH Gaffney Dmitry Gorenburg CIM D0012804.A3/1Rev August 2005 CNA’s Russia Program, 1991-2004: A Valedictory H. H. Gaffney Dmitry Gorenburg Contents Summary.............................................................................................................1 Key Themes from Our Dialogues with the Russians..............................................................................................5 Fear of Humiliation ...................................................................................5 Perceptions of U.S.-Russian Relations ......................................................6 The Future of the Russian Navy ................................................................7 The Future of Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control................................9 Russian Military Reform ..........................................................................10 NATO Enlargement and NATO-Russian relations ................................11 Economic Issues.......................................................................................12 New Security Concerns: The Far East and Terrorism............................12 But what about Russia itself? ...................................................................13 The Seminars and Other Discussions Between the Center For Naval Analyses (CNA) and The Institute For USA and Canada Studies Of The Russian Academy Of Sciences (ISKRAN) .......................................................................................................15 The Inaugural Visit to Russia ..................................................................15 September 1992: Washington, DC..........................................................19 Russia into Yeltsin's First Term and through the Crisis of 1993............................................................................................17 October 1993: Washington and the Naval War College ........................18 February 1994: Moscow, the Bor Hotel, and St. Petersburg .........................................................................................20 June 1994: Washington, DC ....................................................................22 Late October-early November 1994: Moscow and Severomorsk ...........................................................................................23 April 1995: Washington, Newport, and Groton .....................................24 December 1995: Moscow and Kaliningrad.................................................. 27 Russia by 1996 ..................................................................................................29 September 1996: Bangor and Anchorage ..............................................30 February 1997: Moscow and Vladivostok................................................32 March 1998: Washington, DC .................................................................34 Russia's Situation in 1998-2000........................................................................35 December 1998: Moscow and Suzdal......................................................36 i June 1999: Washington, DC and Norfolk...............................................38 June 2000: Washington, DC ....................................................................39 July 2001: Moscow ....................................................................................41 Russian-American Relations After 9/11/2001 ...............................................42 December 2001: Washington, DC...........................................................43 December 2002: Washington, DC...........................................................44 October 2003: Washington, DC, Mini-Seminar......................................46 The Successes And Frustrations of Cooperation............................................47 APPENDIX A: A Dialogue on Defense Planning, Operations, and Deterrence in the New Era................................................49 APPENDIX B: Russian and American Participants in Seminars and Visits ........................................................................................55 APPENDIX C: Reports of the Seminars and Other Papers, including those written by the Russians for us................................61 APPENDIX D: A Tribute to Dr. Sergey Mikhailovich Rogov ........................65 APPENDIX E: Great Promise Unfulfilled: How Russia Lost Its Way After Independence..................................................................69 Yeltsin's First Term: The Disappointment with the Western Model .......................................................................................70 The failure of economic reform .....................................................70 Internal political conflicts and the stalemate over reform.....................................................................................72 Center-periphery conflicts and the weakening of the Russian state ........................................................................74 The decline of the Russian military ................................................74 Foreign Policy: Conflicts on the periphery, disenchantment with the West......................................................76 Yeltsin's Second Term: Muddling Through ...........................................78 Reelection campaign .......................................................................78 Yeltsin's health and the health of the Russian political system ...............................................................................80 (Temporarily) solving the Chechen War .......................................80 The economy hits bottom and begins to rebound ........................81 ii Relations with the West hit bottom ................................................82 The rise of Putin and the fall of Chechnya ....................................84 Putin's First Term: Centralization, Fighting Terrorism, and Economic Growth...........................................................................85 Establishing the vertical of power ...................................................86 Growing the economy and reaping the profits ..............................89 Joining the world alliance against terrorism ..................................90 Military reform under Putin in his second term ................................. 92 Responding to disasters and homegrown terrorists........................93 Russia's Future: Putin and Beyond..........................................................96 iii iv CNA’s Russia Program, 1991-2004: A Valedictory Henry H. Gaffney and Dmitry P. Gorenburg Summary CNA has ended its Navy-sponsored program with the Russians after 14 years. The program is not of any particular interest to the U.S. Navy anymore, especially as it is more deeply engaged on a continuing basis in the Middle East and in the Global War on Terrorism. Russia, like Europe, is a quieter place these days. Of course, the situation in the Caucasus and in Central Asia may well become even more unstable in the near future, but these regions are rather distant from naval operations at this time. Other work is being done in CNA on naval relations and operations in the Black Sea area, but that work has not involved the Russians. CNA had extensive contacts with the Russians since the end of the Cold War. Our cooperation began in 1990 with the invitation of four Russians to CNA's Conference on small wars and continued with 16 seminars, two mini-seminars, at least 13 separate speaking engagements here by Sergey Rogov, visits by other Russians, other visits by us to Russia, plus a series of visiting Russian speakers arranged by Ty Cobb with the help of Jonathan Geithner in the early 1990s. Our closest association was with the Institute for USA and Canada Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ISKRAN), first with its then-Deputy Director Andrey Kokoshin, and after he went to the Ministry of Defense with his successor and later Director of ISKRAN, Sergey Rogov.1 Thanks to a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, CNA also cooperated for a couple of years in the mid-1990s with a school in St. Petersburg that was training officers to go into business; CNA provided speakers with small business experience. Our main objective in this continuing program was to promote cooperation between the U.S. Navy and the Russian Federation Navy (RFN). To this end, we included senior naval officers, active and retired, in our seminars and reciprocal visits. Dr. Rogov arranged appointments with the Commander in Chief of the RFN in Moscow 1. Kokoshin was one of the four Russians invited to CNA’s Annual Conference in September 1990. He invited President of CNA Bob Murray to visit Russia in return. The visit was scheduled for Fall, 1991, when he promised to introduce us to Vice President Yanayev. The coup intervened, and we wondered what side Kokoshin would be on. It turned out that ISKRAN (then ISKAN), its Director and founder, Georgiy Arbatov, and Kokoshin were on Yeltsin’s side and were using their xerox machine to reproduce fliers in support of Yeltsin. 1 and with other senior naval and military officials, as well as members of the government and parliament, and arranged our visits to the RFN bases of the Northern, Baltic, and Pacific Fleets and their commanders. We in turn arranged their visits to U.S. Navy bases in Norfolk, Groton, and Bangor as well as to the schools in Newport and Annapolis. We also arranged appointments with senior U.S. Naval officers and government officials in Washington, including U.S. senators. Unfortunately,
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Northern Sea Route Cargo Flows and Infrastructure- Present State And
    Northern Sea Route Cargo Flows and Infrastructure – Present State and Future Potential By Claes Lykke Ragner FNI Report 13/2000 FRIDTJOF NANSENS INSTITUTT THE FRIDTJOF NANSEN INSTITUTE Tittel/Title Sider/Pages Northern Sea Route Cargo Flows and Infrastructure – Present 124 State and Future Potential Publikasjonstype/Publication Type Nummer/Number FNI Report 13/2000 Forfatter(e)/Author(s) ISBN Claes Lykke Ragner 82-7613-400-9 Program/Programme ISSN 0801-2431 Prosjekt/Project Sammendrag/Abstract The report assesses the Northern Sea Route’s commercial potential and economic importance, both as a transit route between Europe and Asia, and as an export route for oil, gas and other natural resources in the Russian Arctic. First, it conducts a survey of past and present Northern Sea Route (NSR) cargo flows. Then follow discussions of the route’s commercial potential as a transit route, as well as of its economic importance and relevance for each of the Russian Arctic regions. These discussions are summarized by estimates of what types and volumes of NSR cargoes that can realistically be expected in the period 2000-2015. This is then followed by a survey of the status quo of the NSR infrastructure (above all the ice-breakers, ice-class cargo vessels and ports), with estimates of its future capacity. Based on the estimated future NSR cargo potential, future NSR infrastructure requirements are calculated and compared with the estimated capacity in order to identify the main, future infrastructure bottlenecks for NSR operations. The information presented in the report is mainly compiled from data and research results that were published through the International Northern Sea Route Programme (INSROP) 1993-99, but considerable updates have been made using recent information, statistics and analyses from various sources.
    [Show full text]
  • Foreign Visitors and the Post-Stalin Soviet State
    University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2016 Porous Empire: Foreign Visitors And The oP st- Stalin Soviet State Alex Hazanov Hazanov University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Hazanov, Alex Hazanov, "Porous Empire: Foreign Visitors And The osP t-Stalin Soviet State" (2016). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2330. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2330 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2330 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Porous Empire: Foreign Visitors And The oP st-Stalin Soviet State Abstract “Porous Empire” is a study of the relationship between Soviet institutions, Soviet society and the millions of foreigners who visited the USSR between the mid-1950s and the mid-1980s. “Porous Empire” traces how Soviet economic, propaganda, and state security institutions, all shaped during the isolationist Stalin period, struggled to accommodate their practices to millions of visitors with material expectations and assumed legal rights radically unlike those of Soviet citizens. While much recent Soviet historiography focuses on the ways in which the post-Stalin opening to the outside world led to the erosion of official Soviet ideology, I argue that ideological attitudes inherited from the Stalin era structured institutional responses to a growing foreign presence in Soviet life. Therefore, while Soviet institutions had to accommodate their economic practices to the growing numbers of tourists and other visitors inside the Soviet borders and were forced to concede the existence of contact zones between foreigners and Soviet citizens that loosened some of the absolute sovereignty claims of the Soviet party-statem, they remained loyal to visions of Soviet economic independence, committed to fighting the cultural Cold War, and profoundly suspicious of the outside world.
    [Show full text]
  • 15 the Party's On
    The Party’s On: The Impact of Political Organizations in Russia’s Duma Elections Henry E. Hale Harvard University October 1999 Do political parties matter in Russia? From one perspective, they clearly do. Half of the Russian parliament (the Duma) is elected on the basis of proportional representation (PR), according to which system only registered political movements can compete. Observers frequently charge, however, that political parties1 matter little outside the boundaries of the “all-federation district” in which the PR race takes place. These political organizations are said to be ephemeral, weak and rootless, shifting with the political winds and having little connection to the Russian electorate. At best, they are the political vehicles for specific individuals who have focused little energy on building strong organizations capable of surviving them, and who seek mainly to build up their own personal authority. Only the Communist Party, the argument goes, maintains a “real” political party, and this is only because of the rich institutional heritage bequeathed it by the predecessor organization that ruled the USSR for seven decades. Comparative political science, however, suggests strong reason to believe that political organizations may, in fact, be coming to play an important role in Russian elections since parties can provide candidates with an “instant reputation” and organizational support that are otherwise hard to obtain. 1 Here I use the term “party” very loosely to include all political organizations legally able to compete in elections for seats in Russia’s representative state organs of power. 1 2 The Party’s On This paper tests these hypotheses on data from Russia’s first two multiparty elections since Communist rule, seeking to determine whether Russia’s myriad and multiplying political parties significantly affect the performance of candidates in the single-mandate district (SMD) elections for the State Duma.
    [Show full text]
  • 1016" House of Representatives
    1016" CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE DECEMBER 21 To be lieutenant colonels mind, with the healing love of a big heart; and with the William W. Buckley. Philip H. Torrey. bracing energy of a courageous spirit. May we live for men William D. Smith. Robert ·L. Denig. for whom he died and pledge ourselves to labor for a justice­ Harold B. Pratt. Charles F. B. Price. loving, a freedom-loving, and a warless world. Through Randolph Coyle. Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. To be majors The Journal of the proceedings of Saturday, December 19, Thad T. Taylor. 1931, was read and approved. James M. Bain. To be captains MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE Moses J. Gould. William J. Whaling. A message from the Senate by Mr. Craven, its principal George R. Rowan. Herman H. Hanneken. clerk, announced that the Senate had passed a bill of the Richard H. Schubert. Daniel R. Fox. following title, in which the concurrence of the House ·is George W. Walker. William Ulrich. requested: Theodore H. Cartwright. Ralph W. CUlpepper. S. 1357. An act for the relief of Nancy H. Rouse, Clara H. Simmons, W. H. Hays, Hallie H. Hamilton, and Bradford P. To be first lieutenants Hays . Walter I. Jordan. Andrew J. Mathiesen. The message also announced that the Senate had agreed Arthur W. Ellis. Joseph C. Burger. to the amendment of the House to the amendment of the Edwin C. Ferguson. David L. Cloud, jr. Senate to the joint resolution (H. J. Res. 142) entitled Homer L. Litzenberg, jr. Calvin R. Freeman. "Joint resolution making an additional appropriation for Wilburt S.
    [Show full text]
  • The Mujahedin in Nagorno-Karabakh: a Case Study in the Evolution of Global Jihad
    The Mujahedin in Nagorno-Karabakh: A Case Study in the Evolution of Global Jihad Michael Taarnby 9/5/2008 WP 20/2008 The Mujahedin in Nagorno-Karabakh: A Case Study in the Evolution of Global Jihad Michael Taarnby Summary The current volume of publications dealing with Islamist militancy and terrorism defies belief in terms of its contents. The topic of this paper is a modest attempt to direct more attention and interest towards the much overlooked sub-field of historical research within Jihadi studies. Introduction The current volume of publications dealing with Islamist militancy and terrorism defies belief in terms of its contents. This can be perceived as part of a frantic effort to catch up for the lack of attention devoted to this phenomenon during the 1980s and 1990s, when this field of research field was considerably underdeveloped. The present level of research activity is struggling to keep pace with developments. Thus, it is primarily preoccupied with attempting to describe what is actually happening in the world right now and possibly to explain future developments. This is certainly a worthwhile effort, but the topic of this paper is a modest attempt to direct more attention and interest towards the much overlooked sub-field of historical research within Jihadi studies. The global Jihad has a long history, and everyone interested in this topic will be quite familiar with the significance of Afghanistan in fomenting ideological support for it and for bringing disparate militant groups together through its infamous training camps during the 1990s. However, many more events have been neglected by the research community to the point where most scholars and analysts are left with an incomplete picture, that is most often based on the successes of the Jihadi groups.
    [Show full text]
  • Russia: CHRONOLOGY DECEMBER 1993 to FEBRUARY 1995
    Issue Papers, Extended Responses and Country Fact Sheets file:///C:/Documents and Settings/brendelt/Desktop/temp rir/CHRONO... Français Home Contact Us Help Search canada.gc.ca Issue Papers, Extended Responses and Country Fact Sheets Home Issue Paper RUSSIA CHRONOLOGY DECEMBER 1993 TO FEBRUARY 1995 July 1995 Disclaimer This document was prepared by the Research Directorate of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada on the basis of publicly available information, analysis and comment. All sources are cited. This document is not, and does not purport to be, either exhaustive with regard to conditions in the country surveyed or conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. For further information on current developments, please contact the Research Directorate. Table of Contents GLOSSARY Political Organizations and Government Structures Political Leaders 1. INTRODUCTION 2. CHRONOLOGY 1993 1994 1995 3. APPENDICES TABLE 1: SEAT DISTRIBUTION IN THE STATE DUMA TABLE 2: REPUBLICS AND REGIONS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION MAP 1: RUSSIA 1 of 58 9/17/2013 9:13 AM Issue Papers, Extended Responses and Country Fact Sheets file:///C:/Documents and Settings/brendelt/Desktop/temp rir/CHRONO... MAP 2: THE NORTH CAUCASUS NOTES ON SELECTED SOURCES REFERENCES GLOSSARY Political Organizations and Government Structures [This glossary is included for easy reference to organizations which either appear more than once in the text of the chronology or which are known to have been formed in the period covered by the chronology. The list is not exhaustive.] All-Russia Democratic Alternative Party. Established in February 1995 by Grigorii Yavlinsky.( OMRI 15 Feb.
    [Show full text]
  • WATCH February 2019 Foreign News & Perspectives of the Operational Environment
    community.apan.org/wg/tradoc-g2/fmso/ Foreign Military Studies Office Volume 9 Issue #2 OEWATCH February 2019 FOREIGN NEWS & PERSPECTIVES OF THE OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT EURASIA INDO-PACIFIC 3 Radios in the Russian Ground Forces 21 Chinese Military Launches Largest-Ever Joint Logistics 50 IRGC: Iran Can Extend Ballistic Missile Range 5 Northern Fleet Will Receive Automated C&C System Exercise 51 Turkey to Create Space Agency Integrating Air, Land and Sea 23 Luo Yuan Describes an Asymmetric Approach to Weaken 52 Iran’s Army Aviation Gets UAV Unit 6 The Inflatable Sentry the United States 53 Turkey to Sell ATAK Helicopters to the Philippines 7 The S-350 Vityaz Air Defense System 25 Military-Civil Fusion Cooperation in China Grows in the 54 Chinese Military and Commercial Cooperation with Tunisia 8 Bigger is Better: The T-80BVM Tank Modernization Field of Logistics 10 The Power Struggle for Control of Russia’s Arctic 27 Chinese Military Completes Release of New Set of Military AFRICA 11 The Arctic Will Have Prominent Role in 2019 Operational- Training Regulations 55 Anger in Sudan: Large Protests Against al-Bashir Regime Strategic Exercise “Center” 28 China Defends Xinjiang Program 56 Africa: Trouble Spots to Watch in 2019 12 Preparation for the 2019 Army International Games 29 Is Pakistan Acquiring Russian Tanks? 57 Can Businessmen Bring Peace in Gao, Mali? 13 Cossacks – Hybrid Defense Forces 30 Russia to Deploy Additional Anti-Ship Missile Batteries 58 Chinese Weapons in Rwanda 14 Update on Military Church Construction Near Japan by 2020
    [Show full text]
  • Welfare Reforms in Post-Soviet States: a Comparison
    WELFARE REFORMS IN POST-SOVIET STATES: A COMPARISON OF SOCIAL BENEFITS REFORM IN RUSSIA AND KAZAKHSTAN by ELENA MALTSEVA A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Political Science University of Toronto © Copyright by Elena Maltseva (2012) Welfare Reforms in Post-Soviet States: A Comparison of Social Benefits Reform in Russia and Kazakhstan Elena Maltseva Doctor of Philosophy Political Science University of Toronto (2012) Abstract: Concerned with the question of why governments display varying degrees of success in implementing social reforms, (judged by their ability to arrive at coherent policy outcomes), my dissertation aims to identify the most important factors responsible for the stagnation of social benefits reform in Russia, as opposed to its successful implementation in Kazakhstan. Given their comparable Soviet political and economic characteristics in the immediate aftermath of Communism’s disintegration, why did the implementation of social benefits reform succeed in Kazakhstan, but largely fail in Russia? I argue that although several political and institutional factors did, to a certain degree, influence the course of social benefits reform in these two countries, their success or failure was ultimately determined by the capacity of key state actors to frame the problem and form an effective policy coalition that could further the reform agenda despite various political and institutional obstacles and socioeconomic challenges. In the case of Kazakhstan, the successful implementation of the social benefits reform was a result of a bold and skillful endeavour by Kazakhstani authorities, who used the existing conditions to justify the reform initiative and achieve the reform’s original objectives.
    [Show full text]
  • The Future of the Caucasus After the Second Chechen War
    CEPS Working Document No. 148 The Future of the Caucasus after the Second Chechen War Papers from a Brainstorming Conference held at CEPS 27-28 January 2000 Edited by Michael Emerson and Nathalie Tocci July 2000 A Short Introduction to the Chechen Problem Alexandru Liono1 Abstract The problems surrounding the Chechen conflict are indeed many and difficult to tackle. This paper aims at unveiling some of the mysteries covering the issue of so-called “Islamic fundamentalism” in Chechnya. A comparison of the native Sufi branch of Islam and the imported Wahhaby ideology is made, in order to discover the contradictions and the conflicts that the spreading of the latter inflicted in the Chechen society. Furthermore, the paper investigates the main challenges President Aslan Maskhadov was facing at the beginning of his mandate, and the way he managed to cope with them. The paper does not attempt to cover all the aspects of the Chechen problem; nevertheless, a quick enumeration of other factors influencing the developments in Chechnya in the past three years is made. 1 Research assistant Danish Institute of International Affairs (DUPI) 1 1. Introduction To address the issues of stability in North Caucasus in general and in Chechnya in particular is a difficult task. The factors that have contributed to the start of the first and of the second armed conflicts in Chechnya are indeed many. History, politics, economy, traditions, religion, all of them contributed to a certain extent to the launch of what began as an anti-terrorist operation and became a full scale armed conflict. The narrow framework of this presentation does not allow for an exhaustive analysis of the Russian- Chechen relations and of the permanent tensions that existed there during the known history of that part of North Caucasus.
    [Show full text]
  • The Siloviki in Russian Politics
    The Siloviki in Russian Politics Andrei Soldatov and Michael Rochlitz Who holds power and makes political decisions in contemporary Russia? A brief survey of available literature in any well-stocked bookshop in the US or Europe will quickly lead one to the answer: Putin and the “siloviki” (see e.g. LeVine 2009; Soldatov and Borogan 2010; Harding 2011; Felshtinsky and Pribylovsky 2012; Lucas 2012, 2014 or Dawisha 2014). Sila in Russian means force, and the siloviki are the members of Russia’s so called “force ministries”—those state agencies that are authorized to use violence to respond to threats to national security. These armed agents are often portrayed—by journalists and scholars alike—as Russia’s true rulers. A conventional wisdom has emerged about their rise to dominance, which goes roughly as follows. After taking office in 2000, Putin reconsolidated the security services and then gradually placed his former associates from the KGB and FSB in key positions across the country (Petrov 2002; Kryshtanovskaya and White 2003, 2009). Over the years, this group managed to disable almost all competing sources of power and control. United by a common identity, a shared worldview, and a deep personal loyalty to Putin, the siloviki constitute a cohesive corporation, which has entrenched itself at the heart of Russian politics. Accountable to no one but the president himself, they are the driving force behind increasingly authoritarian policies at home (Illarionov 2009; Roxburgh 2013; Kasparov 2015), an aggressive foreign policy (Lucas 2014), and high levels of state predation and corruption (Dawisha 2014). While this interpretation contains elements of truth, we argue that it provides only a partial and sometimes misleading and exaggerated picture of the siloviki’s actual role.
    [Show full text]
  • OOB of the Russian Fleet (Kommersant, 2008)
    The Entire Russian Fleet - Kommersant Moscow 21/03/08 09:18 $1 = 23.6781 RUR Moscow 28º F / -2º C €1 = 36.8739 RUR St.Petersburg 25º F / -4º C Search the Archives: >> Today is Mar. 21, 2008 11:14 AM (GMT +0300) Moscow Forum | Archive | Photo | Advertising | Subscribe | Search | PDA | RUS Politics Mar. 20, 2008 E-mail | Home The Entire Russian Fleet February 23rd is traditionally celebrated as the Soviet Army Day (now called the Homeland Defender’s Day), and few people remember that it is also the Day of Russia’s Navy. To compensate for this apparent injustice, Kommersant Vlast analytical weekly has compiled The Entire Russian Fleet directory. It is especially topical since even Russia’s Commander-in-Chief compared himself to a slave on the galleys a week ago. The directory lists all 238 battle ships and submarines of Russia’s Naval Fleet, with their board numbers, year of entering service, name and rank of their commanders. It also contains the data telling to which unit a ship or a submarine belongs. For first-class ships, there are schemes and tactic-technical characteristics. So detailed data on all Russian Navy vessels, from missile cruisers to base type trawlers, is for the first time compiled in one directory, making it unique in the range and amount of information it covers. The Entire Russian Fleet carries on the series of publications devoted to Russia’s armed forces. Vlast has already published similar directories about the Russian Army (#17-18 in 2002, #18 in 2003, and #7 in 2005) and Russia’s military bases (#19 in 2007).
    [Show full text]
  • Russian Conventional Armed Forces: on the Verge of Collapse?
    Order Code 97-820 F CRS Issue Brief for Congress Received through the CRS Web Russian Conventional Armed Forces: On the Verge of Collapse? September 4, 1997 (name redacted) Specialist in Russian Affairs Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress Russian Conventional Armed Forces: On the Verge of Collapse? Summary All quantitative indicators show a sharp, and in most cases an accelerating, decline in the size of the Russian armed forces. Since 1986, Russian military manpower has decreased by over 70 percent; tanks and other armored vehicles by two-thirds; and artillery, combat aircraft, and surface warships by one-third. Weapons procurement has been plummeting for over a decade. In some key categories, such as aircraft, tanks, and surface warships, procurement has virtually stopped. This has led not only to a decline in present inventory, but implies a long-term crisis of bloc obsolescence in the future. Russian Government decisions and the budget deficit crisis have hit the Ministry of Defense very hard, cutting defense spending drastically and transforming the Defense Ministry into a residual claimant on scarce resources. Many experts believe that if these budgetary constraints continue for 2-3 more years, they must lead either to more drastic force reductions or to military collapse. Military capabilities are also in decline. Reportedly, few, if any, of Russia’s army divisions are combat-ready. Field exercises, flight training, and out-of-area naval deployments have been sharply reduced. Morale is low, partly because of non-payment of servicemen’s salaries. Draft evasion and desertion are rising.
    [Show full text]