The understanding that a strong nuclear deterrent alone is insufficient to uphold the country’s great power status when other countries’ conventional armed forces continued to modernize at a rapid pace, long predated the Russian military’s revival that began in 2008. The first Russian military doctrine published in 1993 envisaged significant cuts to Soviet legacy force levels and prioritized the development of forces able to deal with local conflicts, which were the most immediate concern at the time. However, the idea that strong conventional military power was no longer desirable or required was never a consensus view. Many Russian military thinkers continued arguing in favour of more open-ended defence requirements that would keep the country prepared for a wide variety of eventualities (Arbatov 2000: 7). In fact, the 1993 doctrine already reflected serious ambitions to maintain strong conventional military power in addition to strengthening capabilities for dealing with small wars and low-intensity missions. It imagined investments in research and development (R&D) for the production of advanced weaponry and equipment, including electronic warfare capabilities and stealth technology. This was a direct response to the lessons Russian strategists had identified from the successes of the so-called Revolution in Military Affairs showcased by US conventional forces for the first time in the 1991 Gulf War (Pipes 1997: 75–6). At the time these plans were highly unrealistic and remained nothing but a pipe dream.
The ambition for parity in conventional military power was reiterated in the 2000 military doctrine, which explicitly reoriented priorities away from the focus on small-wars scenarios and towards the need for the creation of Russian conventional forces with global reach. This doctrine was issued in the wake of NATO’s high-tech intervention, Operation Allied Force, over Serbia in 1999 which, as discussed in more detail in chapter 4 and in the words of Aleksei Arbatov, ‘marked a watershed in Russia’s assessment of its own military requirements and defense priorities’ (2000: 8–9).
Russia’s quest for great power status dates back centuries and its self-perception as such certainly did not cease with the end of the Cold War. Military power was central to the making of the tsarist empire and it was also a strong military, above all else, which elevated the Soviet Union to the status of a superpower during the Cold War years. Relinquishing armed strength and accepting the resulting loss of great power status was never an option that was seriously entertained in Russia. From this point of view, the revival of the Russian military was only a matter of time.
The 2008 modernization programme and Russia’s military revival
The Russian armed forces’ fortunes started to change with Putin’s appointment as Prime Minister in 1999 and election to the presidency the following spring, at a time when the second Chechen campaign was in full swing. As discussed in chapter 1, Putin afforded military-related matters more political importance from the outset, as he saw a strong and proud military as a prerequisite for Russia if the country was to regain international recognition as a great power and a strong, sovereign state. The need for military reforms was the subject of several discussions in the Security Council throughout 2000. In a speech to the country’s top military commanders in late November 2000, Putin summarized these meetings’ conclusions, emphasizing the urgent need for modernization in the areas of financial efficiency, discipline, combat readiness and available technology. Although he confirmed that the task of strategic deterrence had been ‘successfully fulfilled’, he pointed out that the Russian armed forces were not sufficiently prepared ‘to neutralize and rebuff any armed conflict and aggression’ that could come from ‘all strategic directions’, as demonstrated by the operations in Chechnya. Recognizing the ‘hard work’ of Russian soldiers in this conflict, he also criticized that the operations there had come at too high a cost and that the losses occurred were ‘unpardonable’. In the same speech, Putin spoke about the need to improve the image of the military profession and to ‘put an end to the humiliating situation of servicemen’. He asserted that ensuring soldiers’ well-being and pride in their profession was as much a major reason for reforms as a requirement for their success. In his words, ‘the problem is directly linked with national security interests. The trust of the army in the state, and having the army “feel good” about itself is the bedrock foundation of the state of the Armed Forces’ (Putin 2000).
Finally, Putin noted that, although the need for military reform was urgent, it could not come at any cost and that the country ‘should not just plan what we need, but plan proceeding from what we can afford’ (Putin 2000). Assisted by a recovering economy and a GDP that experienced consistently positive growth rates from 1999 to 2008, not least due to rising oil and gas prices, the Russian defence budget increased from its low point of US$19 billion in 1998 to around US$58 billion by 2008, growing to more than US$90 billion by 2015. As discussed below, this growth was achieved without significantly raising the percentage of GDP compared to the Yeltsin years, at least initially.
Although plans for military transformation had been long in the making, the short war with Georgia in August 2008 served as a catalyst for the announcement of extensive military modernization in the autumn of the same year. In this war the Russian military had achieved strategic victory in merely five days, but its operational performance was again severely criticized both in Russia and abroad. In particular, there was widespread agreement that it still showed major shortcomings in coordination, command and control, as well as a lack of technology and weaponry fit for the twenty-first century (Bukkvoll 2009; Vendil Pallin and Westerlund 2009).
Continuing the direction envisaged by previous rounds of reforms, the 2008 modernization programme emphasized the efficiency of command structures, the need for more rapid reaction and the modernization of technology. As a whole, it was presented as a package that would allow the Russian armed forces to overcome the shortcomings they had experienced in Georgia and other previous military interventions and to finally do away with the Soviet legacy force (Klein 2012: 30). The programme sought to make the Russian military more useable by increasing its overall efficiency and cost-effectiveness: streamlining central command bodies; decreasing the size of the officer corps, which had made the Russian military particularly top-heavy; cutting the number of military units in favour of a smaller number with permanent readiness status; and driving up the recruitment of professional soldiers in order to lessen reliance on conscription (Sinovets and Renz 2015: 5). The image problem of the military profession was also tackled with improvements to the financial rewards and welfare of soldiers. As discussed in more detail below, a centrally important element of the modernization programme was the updating of weapons and equipment with a view to moving from a figure of 10 per cent of hardware classed as ‘modern’ in 2008 to 30 per cent by the end of 2015 and to 70 per cent by 2020.
Backed up by solid funding and unprecedented political will at the highest level, the complex reform programme, unlike previous attempts, was implemented with determination. The achievements of these 2008 reforms are well documented and there is widespread agreement that they have turned the Russian military into a force that is unrecognizable compared to the demoralized and underfunded organization it had developed into during the 1990s. Structural changes in particular were pushed through with impressive speed. The Soviet-era principle of the mass mobilization army meant that until 2008 the majority of Russian territorial units had been manned by only a skeleton staff of officers during peacetime, waiting to be filled out with mobilized reservists in the event of a major war. As a result, only 17 per cent of Russian military units were permanently staffed and ready to be deployed at short notice. This was not only inefficient, but also unsuitable for a security environment where military units have to be deployed to deal with various contingencies quickly and at short notice. In order to enhance the mobility and combat readiness of Russia’s ground forces, they were reorganized from a four-tier command structure based on divisions to a three-tier command structure based on smaller brigades.