A time of troubles: post-Soviet reforms of the Russian military
The Russian armed forces underwent a drawn-out period of neglect and were left to fall into a state of serious disrepair during the Yeltsin years. In part, the lack of substantial reform in the early post-Soviet years occurred because transforming the armed forces simply was not highest on the list of priorities at the time. Russia not only had to build a national military from the remnants of the formerly powerful Soviet armed forces once it had become obvious in 1992 that the preservation of joint military forces covering the entire territory of the Commonwealth of Independent States was not a realistic option. The sudden dissolution of the Soviet Union meant that Russia had to undergo an all-encompassing transformation of the state. Preoccupied with the demands of urgent political, societal and economic problems, the country’s leadership spent little time on rehabilitating the military in a systematic manner. It is also clear that in the tumultuous political times of the early post-Cold War years, Yeltsin prioritized the security of his own political power over the long-term security interests of the country as a whole (Vendil Pallin 2009: 68).
As discussed in the next chapter, rather than strengthening the armed forces as an institution, Yeltsin set out to fragment the Soviet security apparatus, including the Ministry of Defence, in order to avoid any one institution from becoming too powerful and potentially posing a threat to his nascent regime. At the same time, he strengthened individual force structures and security services other than the regular military that were seen as particularly loyal and whose tasks and functions appeared to be more relevant at a time when a clear and present danger from an external enemy was absent. A process of structured military reform was also hindered by the fact that the newly created armed forces of the Russian Federation were literally thrown in at the deep end. As detailed further in chapter 4, before any serious discussions about their future structure and outlook could take place, Russian units were deployed to deal simultaneously with several low-intensity conflicts across a range of former Soviet states and within the country’s own territory.
It has to be borne in mind that creating modern and efficient armed forces from the remnants of the Soviet military was a monumental task that would have been difficult to achieve even under the most conducive circumstances. Russia inherited around 2.8 million servicemen from the Soviet armed forces, which had been maintained at a personnel level of over four million during the Cold War. Russia also took possession of large quantities of tanks, aircraft and other military equipment. Although the quantity of material and personnel assets Russia had at its disposal for the basis of a new national military force was impressive, much of this legacy was not suitable for the early post-Cold War conflicts, such as ethnic conflicts, peace operations, separatism and insurgencies, that Russia was engaged in. The Soviet army had been a mass mobilization military based on conscription that was configured and trained predominantly for high-intensity warfare in the European theatre (Bluth 1998: 75–6). Much of the equipment Russia inherited was obsolete. For geopolitical reasons, most of the best-equipped Soviet units and facilities, such as anti-aircraft units and airfields, had been stationed on the western and southern peripheries of the Soviet Union and were transferred to the national militaries of other former Soviet republics. Having lost many vital assets of the formerly integrated Soviet military structure – including command, control and communications systems, missile early-warning facilities and integrated logistical support – then-Minister of Defence Pavel Grachev noted that Russia had inherited nothing more than ‘ruins and debris’ (Allison 1993: 28).
Military reform was not particularly high on the Russian political agenda, at least for the first decade of the post-Soviet era. It is also likely that the Russian leadership assumed that, with the threat of a large-scale conflict with the West greatly diminished, the sheer size of the conventional capabilities the country had inherited from the Soviet armed forces would be sufficient for dealing with small wars and insurgencies in its immediate neighbourhood. But the fact that military reform was not a top priority does not mean that there was no awareness that reforms were a necessity, at least in principle. Central components of the 2008 modernization programme, such as the need to professionalize and create rapid reaction forces, were discussed as early as 1992. However, although several substantial programmes for reorganization were announced throughout the 1990s, they failed to result in fundamental transformation (Renz 2010: 58). Political reasons for this failure, including the lack of willingness to see through changes unpopular with the military leadership as well as institutional infighting and lack of agreement on the armed forces’ roles and missions, were significant and have been well documented by analysts throughout the post-Soviet years (Vendil Pallin 2009: 9–14).
In addition, the country’s dire economic situation meant that ambitious plans for the Russian military were simply not realistic at the time. As is well known, the Russian economy was in serious trouble throughout the 1990s. Economic decline culminated in the devaluation of the rouble in 1998 and economic recovery occurred only from 2000 onwards, not least owing to the worldwide rise in gas and oil prices. Throughout the 1990s, public spending stalled, leading to a crisis in many state-funded institutions, including education and the healthcare system. The armed forces were no exception. In some ways, the military, which had enjoyed a priority position in the Soviet Union, where the pursuit of military might was a central driver of the economy, was particularly hard hit when it lost this privileged position after the end of the Cold War (Zatsepin 2012: 116).
Although the true extent of Soviet military expenditure is not known due to the secrecy surrounding these issues, the defence budget was vast and comprised around 10 per cent of GDP, with some estimates putting this figure at over 15 per cent towards the end of the Cold War (Cooper 1998; Harrison 2008). In 1992 this figure plummeted to 4.6 per cent and decreased further to its lowest point throughout the post-Soviet period at around 3 per cent in 1998. In real terms, this meant that the defence budget decreased from an estimated US$344 billion in 1988 to US$58 billion in 1992, reaching an all-time low of around US$19 billion per year in 1998 (SIPRI Military Expenditure Database).[2] Such drastic cuts in the funding of the armed forces throughout the 1990s meant that their capabilities and assets degraded due to insufficient money being spent on procurement and upkeep of equipment and training. The necessary withdrawal of Russian military personnel from Eastern Europe and other former Soviet republics and the decommissioning of both excess personnel and assets to reduce force levels were in themselves extremely costly processes. This further diverted scarce funds from efforts to transform the remnants of the former Soviet military into a more modern armed force (Allison 1993: 34).
2
All figures on defence spending in this chapter are taken from the SIPRI Military Expenditure Database 1988–2015, accessed on 11 October 2016. Real-term expenditure is shown in constant US dollars (2014).