GEOGRAPHY
Size: 17,075,200 square kilometers.
Topography: Broad plain with low hills west of Urals in European
Russia and vast coniferous forests and tundra east of Urals in Siberia.
Uplands and mountains along southern border regions in Caucasus Mountains.
About 10 percent of land area swampland, about 45 percent covered by forest.
Climate: Ranges from temperate to Arctic continental. Winter
weather varies from short-term and cold along Black Sea to long-term and
frigid in Siberia. Summer conditions vary from warm on steppes to cool
along Arctic coast. Much of Russia covered by snow six months of year.
Weather usually harsh and unpredictable. Average annual temperature of
European Russia 0°C, lower in Siberia. Precipitation low to moderate in
most areas; highest amounts in northwest, North Caucasus, and Pacific coast.
Land Boundaries: Land borders extend 20,139 kilometers: Azerbaijan
284 kilometers, Belarus 959 kilometers, China 3,645 kilometers, Estonia
290 kilometers, Finland 1,313 kilometers, Georgia 723 kilometers, Kazakstan
6,846 kilometers, Democratic People's Republic of Korea 19 kilometers,
Latvia 217 kilometers, Lithuania 227 kilometers, Mongolia 3,441 kilometers,
Norway 167 kilometers, Poland 432 kilometers, and Ukraine 1,576 kilometers.
Water boundaries: Coastline makes up 37,653 kilometers of border.
Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific oceans touch shores.
Land Use: 10 percent arable, 45 percent forest, 5 percent meadows
and pasture, and 40 percent other, including tundra.
TRANSPORTATION AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Roads: 934,000 kilometers in service in 1995, of which 725,000
kilometers paved or gravel and of which 445,000 kilometers serve only specific
industries or farms. Automobile travel expanding, but roads inadequate
in quality and quantity.
Railroads: 154,000 kilometers wide-gauge in 1995, of which 87,000
kilometers for common carrier service. 49,000 kilometers diesel, and 38,000
kilometers electrified. Proportion of cargo shipping by rail high by Western
standards. System in need of large-scale repair.
Civil Aviation: 2,517 airports, of which fifty-four with paved
runways over 3,047 meters. In 1990s hundreds of private airlines formed.
Aeroflot, the state monopoly of Soviet Union, now joint-stock company with
majority of stock held by government. Major international airports include
Sheremet'evo in Moscow and Pulkovo in St. Petersburg. Flights to most major
world capitals and major cities within Commonwealth of Independent States
(CIS).
Ports and Shipping: Main ports Arkhangel'sk, Astrakhan', Kaliningrad,
Kazan', Khabarovsk, Kholmsk, Krasnoyarsk, Magadan, Moscow, Murmansk, Nakhodka,
Nevel'sk, Novorossiysk, Petropavlovsk, Rostov-na-Donu, Sochi, St. Petersburg,
Tuapse, Vladivostok, Volgograd, Vostochnyy, and Vyborg. Merchant fleet
800 vessels in 1995. Some 235 ships operating under Maltese, Cypriot, Liberian,
Panamanian, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Honduran, Marshall Islands,
Bahamian, and Vanuatu registry.
Inland waterways: Total navigable routes in general use 101,000
kilometers.
Pipelines: Crude oil, 48,000 kilometers; petroleum products,
15,000 kilometers; natural gas, 140,000 kilometers.
Telecommunications: 24,400,000 telephones; 20,900,000 in urban
areas and 3,500,000 in rural areas in 1995. Development of modern communications
lines and acquisition of advanced equipment slow. Diversity in radio and
television programming increasing since late 1980s. Access to Internet
and cellular phones expanding, but poor state of telecommunications hinders
country's modernization.
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Government: Democratic, federative form of government under 1993
constitution. Divided into executive, legislative, and judicial branches.
President, elected to four-year term, sets basic tone of domestic and foreign
policy, represents state at home and abroad. Prime minister appoints Government
(cabinet) to administer executive-branch functions. Forty ministries, state
committees, and services; reduction in Government size planned late 1996.
Prime minister administers policy according to constitution, laws, and
presidential decrees. New Government named August 1996 following presidential
election, retaining some key members from previous administration. Boris
N. Yeltsin president, first elected 1991. Viktor Chernomyrdin prime minister,
reap-pointed August 1996. Parliament, bicameral Federal Assembly, has lower
house, State Duma, with 450 members serving four-year terms; last election
December 1995. Upper house, Fed-eration Council, has 178 seats (two members
representing the executive and legislative bodies of each of the eighty-nine
subnational jurisdictions). Three highest judicial bodies Con-stitutional
Court, Supreme Court, and Superior Court of Arbi-tration. Judges appointed
by president with confirmation from the Federation Council required. Jurisprudence
advancing slowly toward Western standards; jury trials held only in some
regions.
Politics: Largest party representation in State Duma by Communist
Party of the Russian Federation, Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia, Our
Home Is Russia, and Yabloko coalition. More than a dozen other parties
have representation in State Duma. Personal connections, personalities
retain impact in politics as national parties develop slowly, government
figures avoid party affiliation; shifting coalitions typical in State Duma.
Seventy-eight nominal independents in State Duma.
Administrative Divisions: Twenty-one autonomous republics, forty-nine
oblasts (provinces), six territories (kraya; sing., kray), ten autonomous
regions (okruga; sing., okrug), one autono-mous oblast. Cities of Moscow
and St. Petersburg with separate status at oblast level.
Foreign Relations: In early 1990s, basically pro-Western, drastic
change from Soviet era. Russia cofounded Commonwealth of Independent States
(CIS) in 1991 and assumed Soviet Union seats in many international organizations.
Dependence on foreign assistance greatly increased in 1990s. Beginning
in 1993, substantial domestic political pressure mitigated stance toward
participation in Western-dominated organizations and treaties, reemphasis
of independent national power. So-called Eurasianism assumes unique role
in world affairs and primary concerns in Asia rather than Europe. Chechnya
crisis and nuclear transactions with Iran bring international criticism,
although summits with United States president continue, 1997. Policy toward
successor states marked by interest in reinte-gration of CIS countries
and well-being of Russians living outside borders of Russian Federation.
Expansion of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) into Central Europe
major issue in 1996. Other key issues include improvement of relations
with China and insistence on strict interpretation of the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty). Member of Council of Europe, European Bank
for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), International Labour Organisation
(ILO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), International Criminal Police
Organization (Interpol), NATO Partnership for Peace (PfP), United Nations
(UN) and its Security Council, and World Bank.
Armed Forces: Approximately 1.5 million personnel in 1996, but
sharp cuts and reorganization forecast. Term of active duty two years.
Units filled mainly by conscription, with some contract personnel. Women
may serve if they possess specialized skills. Armed forces divided into
ground forces, naval forces, air forces, air defense forces, strategic
rocket forces. Ground forces personnel 670,000 (210,000 conscripts); naval
forces 200,000 (40,000 conscripts); air forces 130,000 (40,000 conscripts);
air defense forces 200,000 (60,000 conscripts); strategic rocket forces
100,000 (50,000 conscripts).
Military Presence Overseas: Transcaucasus Group of Forces--9,000
personnel in Armenia, with one air defense MiG-23 squadron. 22,000 personnel
in Georgia, with one air force composite regiment of thirty-five aircraft.
Azerbaijan refuses Russian troop presence. Forces in other former Soviet
republics: Moldova 6,400 personnel, Tajikistan 12,000 personnel, Turkmenistan
11,000 personnel, and several thousand each in Kazakstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Contributions to UN missions in Angola, Bosnia, Croatia, Georgia, Haiti,
Iraq/Kuwait, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Rwanda, and Western
Sahara. Signal and intelligence personnel in Vietnam, Syria, Cuba, Mongolia,
and parts of Africa.
Military Budget: 1997 defense budget submitted August 1996 allots
100.8 trillion rubles (about US$19 billion), of 260 trillion rubles requested
by Ministry of Defense. Anticipated 1998 budget somewhat higher. Maintenance
and salaries far below required levels. Anti-inflationary budget restraints
cause dissension among ministries and continued military morale decline.
Internal Security Forces: Reorganized after fall of Soviet Union
but with many extraconstitutional functions ongoing and only partial transparency.
Power, but not effectiveness, grows as crime wave continues in mid-1990s.
Ministry of Internal Affairs had 540,000 troops, including regular police
and special units, in 1996. Federal Border Service, 135,000 troops in 1994,
then augmented substantially. Main Guard Directorate (presidential guard),
20,000 troops, 1994. Troops of Federal Security Service and Ministry of
Internal Affairs heavily involved in Chechnya conflict, 1994-96.
The Army
The commander in chief of the ground forces, who in 1996 was Colonel
General Valeriy Patrikeyev (appointed in September 1992), has two first
deputy commanders, three deputy commanders, and a Main Staff. The first
deputies have general responsibilities, and the deputies have specified
functional responsibility for armaments, aviation, and combat training,
respectively. The executive agency for the commander in chief is the Main
Staff of the Ground Forces.
The Ground Forces of the Russian Federation are estimated to number
approximately 670,000 officers and enlisted personnel. Of that number,
about 170,000 are contract volunteer enlistees and warrant officers, and
about 210,000 are conscripts. Presumably, the remaining 290,000 are commissioned
officers. These figures indicate that 43 percent of ground forces personnel
are officers, an extraordinarily high percentage that reflects the Soviet
and Russian tradition of giving little authority to the enlisted ranks,
as well as the vestiges of the much larger military cadre inherited from
the Soviet army. Much of this bulge is made up of senior field-grade officers
and generals who no longer are needed in a smaller military but who are
too young to retire. In the mid-1990s, this situation was one of the most
difficult personnel problems facing the ground forces command.
The ground forces are organized into eight military districts, one independent
army, and two groups of forces (see fig. 14; fig. 15). Although the districts
are ground forces commands, they may include forces from the other services,
in which case they also serve as regional commands. In February 1996, four
of Russia's eight independent airborne brigades were placed under ground
forces command, with one each going to the North Caucasus, Siberian, Transbaikal,
and Far Eastern districts. At the same time, two of five airborne divisions,
stationed at Pskov and Novorossiysk, were assigned for special joint operations
to the Northern and Siberian districts, respectively. These shifts, which
outside observers interpreted as the end of plans to form a mobile force
for rapid insertion in trouble areas, reflected a shortage of the airlift
capacity needed to support independent operations by such troops, as well
as a possible fear of coup activity in independent elite military units.
Altogether, in 1996 the ground forces included sixty-nine divisions:
seventeen armored, forty-seven motorized infantry, and five airborne. Included
in their armaments were 19,000 main battle tanks, 20,000 artillery pieces,
600 surface-to-surface missiles with nuclear capability, and about 2,600
attack and transport helicopters.
Among the specially designated units, the Operational Group of Russian
Forces in Moldova (also known as the Group of Russian Forces in the Dnestr
Region) is part of the ground forces, but operationally the group is directly
subordinate to the Ministry of Defense. This command arrangement probably
derives more from political than military concerns. The second force group,
the Group of Russian Forces in the Transcaucasus, stationed in Armenia
and Georgia, is operationally subordinate to the ground forces command
(see The Commonwealth of Independent States, this ch.). The Northwest Group
of Forces is an administrative title given to ground forces headquarters
in Kaliningrad, whose troops are under the command of the 11th Independent
Army. That army, in turn, is operationally subordinate to the ground forces.
The eight military districts are the Northern, Moscow, Volga, North
Caucasus, Ural, Siberian, Transbaikal, and Far Eastern. The Northern Military
District is the successor to the Soviet-era Leningrad Military District,
although the old name still was in use in 1995, and reports in 1996 indicated
that it might be reinstated officially. The district includes the 6th Combined
Arms Army, the 30th Army Corps, the 56th District Training Center, and
several smaller units. One air army also is stationed in the district,
but it appears to be subordinate to the Air Force High Command. The airborne
division stationed at Pskov, formerly operationally subordinate to the
Ministry of Defense, was reassigned for special combined duty in 1996.
The Moscow Military District is an anomaly in the command structure
because it includes the national capital. It has special significance because
of its proximity to the western border with Belarus and Ukraine, traditionally
the routes followed by invaders from the west. The district's official
troop strength includes the 1st and 22d combined arms armies and the 20th
Army Corps. However, CFE Treaty data indicate that operational control
of these forces is vested in the Ministry of Defense rather than the ground
forces or the district commanders. Other forces within the Moscow district
include the Moscow Air Defense District, one airborne brigade, and one
brigade of special forces (spetsnaz ) troops. The Moscow Air Defense District
has boundaries coterminous with those of the Moscow Military District,
but it is under the command of the air defense forces. The special forces
brigade is directly subordinate to the Ministry of Defense.
The Volga Military District, headquartered at Samara, is an interior
district that includes the 2d Combined Arms Army, together with an airborne
division that is operationally subordinate to the Ministry of Defense.
The 2d Combined Arms Army is an understrength unit consisting of the 16th
and 90th Tank Divisions. Also in the Volga district are the 27th Motorized
Rifle Division and the 469th District Training Center, which are directly
subordinate to the district commander.
The North Caucasus Military District, headquartered at Rostov-na-Donu,
faces the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
It is defended by the 58th Combined Arms Army and the 8th and 67th Army
Corps. However, these are not robust forces. The 8th Army Corps and the
58th Army each include only one motorized rifle division, and the 67th
Army Corps has only reserve forces with no heavy equipment. The weakness
of these units has helped motivate Russian proposals to renegotiate CFE
Treaty limitations to allow additional forces along Russia's southern flank.
The Ural Military District lies south of the Northern district and east
of the Ural Mountains, with the Siberian district to its east. The Ural
district, whose headquarters is at Yekaterinburg, includes two tank divisions
and two motorized rifle divisions. The Siberian Military District lies
in the center of Asiatic Russia, with its headquarters in Novosibirsk.
Its ground forces are organized into one corps of four motorized rifle
divisions and one artillery regiment.
The Transbaikal Military District is headquartered in Chita. The district
comprises three combined arms armies totaling four tank divisions and six
motorized rifle divisions. One tank division and one motorized rifle division
are headquartered at district training centers that are believed to be
directly subordinate to the district headquarters. One artillery division
and two machine gun-artillery divisions deployed on the Chinese border
also have district training-center status.
The Far Eastern Military District, headquartered in Khabarovsk, includes
four combined arms armies and one army corps. Among them, those units have
three tank divisions and thirteen motorized rifle divisions, of which one
tank division and two motorized rifle divisions have headquarters that
serve as district training centers. One artillery division and five machine
gun-artillery divisions are directly subordinate to the district headquarters.
Weapons and Equipment
New Weaponry Acquisitions
Despite the general crisis besetting the defense industry, examples
of highly advanced military technology continued to emerge from Russia's
defense plants in the mid-1990s. The T-90 main battle tank, the most modern
tank in the army arsenal, went into low-level production in 1993, based
on a prototype designated as the T-88. The T-90 was developed by the Kartsev-Venediktov
Design Bureau at the Vagonka Works in Nizhniy Tagil. Initially seen as
an entirely new design, the production model is in fact based on the T-72BM,
with some added features from the T-80 series. The T-90 features a new
generation of armor on its hull and turret. Two variants, the T-90S and
T-90E, have been identified as possible export models. Plans called for
all earlier models to be replaced with T-90s by the end of 1997, subject
to funding availability. By mid-1996 some 107 T-90s had gone into service
in the Far Eastern Military District.
In the mid-1990s, the first priority for the air forces was the Su-T-60S
multirole bomber, which had been designed to replace the Tu-22M and the
Su-24 (see Force Structure, this ch.). The Su-T-60S is a long-range supersonic
tactical/operational nuclear-capable bomber with built-in stealth technology
developed by the Sukhoy Design Bureau. Although its development was officially
secret, the Su-T-60S was reported to be in the prototype stage and ready
for flight testing in mid-1996.
The second priority for the air forces was the Su-27IB tactical fighter-bomber
being built for the Frontal Aviation Command. A naval aviation version
was designated the Su-32FN. This side-by-side, two-seat aircraft was in
serial production in the mid-1990s at the Sukhoy Chkalov Aircraft Plant
in Novosibirsk. In its bomber mode, the Su-27IB was expected to be armed
with the AA-11 Archer short-range air-to-air missile, and in its fighter
mode with the AA-12 Adder mid-range, air-to-air, fire-and-forget missile.
Russia's submarine technology developed faster in the mid-1990s than
Western experts had expected, as the fleet underwent reduction from its
1986 total of 186 vessels to ninety-nine. According to one intelligence
estimate, more than half of the 1996 fleet was capable of moving undetected
into Western sea-lanes. In mid-1996 the navy scheduled four submarines
for production, including one upgraded addition to its existing fleet of
Akula-class vessels and three of the new Severodvinsk class, which were
expected to go into service in 2000. The Severodvinsk is a state-of-the
art submarine that allegedly is so quiet that it eliminates the United
States technical lead in this area, and it is armed with the new 650mm
Shkval rocket that travels at 200 knots underwater.
The new modification of the SS-25 ICBM, the Topol M-2, is a three-stage,
solid-fuel rocket designed to carry a single warhead. Scheduled to go into
production in 1996, the Topol M-2 is a permitted modernization under START
I terms; it can be deployed in a fixed silo or made mobile. Because it
is earmarked for the elite strategic rocket forces as a replacement for
missiles being destroyed under START I, the Topol is a high-priority project
protected from cutbacks in the acquisitions budget.
Information about the funding of Russia's defense R&D programs remains
hard to obtain because many such programs are secret. The official budget
allocation of US$1.4 billion, even with the addition of the Security Council's
supplemental funding in February 1996, seems extremely modest in an era
of rapid technological advances. Most of the acquisition programs of the
mid-1990s do not have known R&D follow-on programs; instead, they are
products of R&D programs started in the early 1980s.
The MiG-MAPO 1.42 R&D program has been advertised as the Russian
response to the United States Air Force's F-22 advanced tactical fighter
(ATF) program. The MiG-MAPO 1.42, a single-seat, multirole stealth fighter,
is projected to reach operational capability between 2005 and 2008. The
air force R&D funds also reportedly have been shifted to a high-priority
program to field highly accurate precision-guided munitions (PGM) in response
to the United States success with that type of weapon in the Persian Gulf
War of 1991. A shift of funds to the PGM program may further delay the
MiG-MAPO 1.42 program.
Beginning in 1993, the defense industry had an influential spokesman
at Yeltsin's side to lobby for improved support. First Deputy Prime Minister
Oleg Soskovets, long a top metallurgy industry executive in the Soviet
era, was a forceful proponent of bolstering the existing complex with minimum
privatization or conversion to civilian production. However, Soskovets,
who was chiefly responsible for increasing Russia's defense budget by 3
trillion rubles in 1996, was dismissed unexpectedly in June 1996 when Yeltsin
ousted most of the hard-liners from his inner circle in preparation for
the second round of that year's presidential election.
Foreign Arms Sales
In the first half of 1996, defense planners appeared to favor delaying
privatization and civilianization and letting the MIC do what it does best:
make weapons. Instead of depending upon Russia's armed forces as the customer,
Soskovets intensified his pursuit of the international arms market in an
attempt to improve the industry's earnings. Russia offered military hardware
both for sale as a means to raise capital and in barter arrangements to
repay international debts. In April 1996, the State Corporation for Export
and Import of Armaments (Rosvooruzheniye) reported fifty-one countries
as current customers, with the largest sales totals involving China, India,
Syria, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Together with lesser customers
Algeria, Cuba, Kuwait, Malaysia, Turkey, and Vietnam, those countries accounted
for 75 percent of arms sales in early 1996. Arms exports were being produced
at more than 500 enterprises in Russia and more than 1,200 enterprises
in ten other CIS nations having production-sharing agreements with Russia.
Arms sales and military technology transfers to China expanded rapidly
in the mid-1990s, although many defense authorities had strong reservations
about sharing advanced technology with such an unpredictable neighbor.
For China, Russia is a source of sophisticated, reasonably priced armaments
unavailable from the West. For Russia, China is another source of hard
currency (see Glossary). Among China's key purchases in recent years were
Su-27 fighter-bombers, MiG-31 fighters, heavy transport aircraft, T-72
tanks, and S-300 antiaircraft missile launchers. In 1994 and 1995 agreements,
China bought a total of ten Kilo-class diesel submarines, the first four
of which cost US$1 billion altogether. Russia received repeated warnings
from the United States about the dangers of enhancing China's military
capabilities. Such a warning came in May 1996 against the sale of technology
for SS-18 ICBMs, which China had requested ostensibly for its space program.
Russia has agreed to repay part of its trade debt to Finland with its
modern SA-11 air defense missile system in a deal worth US$400 million.
The SA-11 is an army-level, mobile, low- to medium-altitude, surface-to-air
missile system that went into serial production in 1979. The SA-11 can
successfully engage any aircraft at altitudes from fifteen to 22,000 meters
at a range of up to 35,000 meters using its tracking and engagement radar
system. It has an on-board identification friend-or-foe (IFF) system and
an electronic countermeasures suite. Experts predicted that Finland would
employ the SA-11 as its national air defense system. The SA-11 also is
in service in India, Poland, Syria, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
(Montenegro and Serbia), and several former Soviet republics.
In yet another debt reduction arrangement, Russia is furnishing Hungary
200 BTR-80 wheeled armored personnel carriers (APCs) as replacements for
the thirty-year-old Hungarian-manufactured FUG APC. The BTR-80 is a modern,
lightly armored vehicle with a diesel power plant. It is manufactured at
the Gorkiy Automobile Factory in Nizhniy Novgorod and has been in service
since the early 1980s. The BTR-80 is a lightly armored amphibious vehicle
with a collective chemical-biological-radiological (CBR) protective system.
Operated by a crew of three, the vehicle can carry a squad of seven infantry
troops.
In the mid-1990s, the Russian defense industry was anticipating the
end of the arms embargo against Serbia as an opportunity to generate hundreds
of millions of dollars in sales. Russia's long association with the Serbs
has established a traditional Russian arms market in the Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia (Montenegro and Serbia). However, in the aftermath of an
extremely expensive economic embargo, it is not clear that the Ministry
of Defense of Yugoslavia has the funds to purchase large quantities of
Russian military matériel.
Russia is aggressively promoting its combat aircraft in the East Asian
arms market. Russia and India signed a defense agreement in November 1994
during a state visit by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. This agreement
marked the end of the strained relations that had resulted from India's
loss of access to generous Soviet credit terms and low prices when cash-strapped
Russia demanded hard currency (see Glossary) after the fall of the Soviet
Union (see Other Asian States, ch. 8). During a related visit to India
in March 1995, First Deputy Minister of Defense Andrey Kokoshin made a
sale of ten MiG-29 aircraft for US$200 million. At the time, Kokoshin asserted
that this and future defense deals with India would save several hundred
thousand jobs in the Russian defense sector.
India and Russia have a tradition of cooperation in armaments that began
in the 1960s; in the mid-1990s, India needed new equipment from Russia
to modernize its armed forces in view of ongoing arms imports by traditional
enemy Pakistan and persistent suspicion of neighboring China. In early
1996, India and Russia signed a treaty of military technical cooperation,
estimated to be worth US$3.5 billion through the expiration date of 2003.
Among key purchases are Russian technology for armored vehicles, artillery,
and naval systems in addition to aircraft. In early 1996, experts estimated
that as much as 70 percent of India's armaments had been purchased from
Russia.
In early 1996, MIC chairman Pak astounded the United States Army by
marketing the Russian SA-12 surface-to-air missile system in the UAE in
direct competition with the United States Army's Patriot system. He directed
Rosvooruzheniye to offer the UAE the highest-quality Russian strategic
air defense system, the SA-12 Gladiator, as an alternative to the Patriot
at half the cost. The offer also included forgiveness of some of Russia's
debt to the UAE.
Special Operations Forces
The airborne troops comprise five airborne divisions and eight air assault
brigades. They were designated as a separate service in 1991, at which
time the air assault brigades were reassigned from ground forces units
and military districts to Airborne Troop Headquarters, with direct responsibility
to the Ministry of Defense. The justification for this reorganization was
that airborne troops could not respond as quickly to an emergency under
ground forces command as they could as a separate command. Experts believe
that the decision to reorganize came mainly in response to internal politics
rather than military necessity; at that time, the Russian national leadership
did not want airborne troops under the control of the General Staff or
the ground forces. In early 1996, four of the eight independent airborne
brigades and two of the five airborne divisions were placed under the command
of their respective district commanders, and the remaining three divisions
became part of the strategic reserve. The command adjustments constituted
a return to the pre-1991 arrangement.
The reason given for the transfer of authority was that the military
districts already controlled the helicopter, fixed-wing, and other resources
needed to support the air assault brigades, and that historically air assault
brigades were created to operate in an operational-tactical role attached
to a high-level headquarters. They were never intended to be a strategic
asset. In the case of the Novorossiysk Division engaged in Chechnya, a
chain of command running back to Moscow allegedly proved unworkable. However,
the reassignment of the airborne units brought interservice charges that
the move was an attempt to rein in a service branch perceived as having
a dangerous combination of independence and mobility. The chief of the
General Staff, General Mikhail Kolesnikov, characterized the decision as
purely operational.
The mission of the airborne forces is to make possible a quick response
to national emergencies. The airborne troops are considered an elite force
because they are individually selected from volunteers based on physical
fitness, intelligence, and loyalty. By traditional military standards,
the airborne troops are not a powerful force. Each division is assigned
about 6,000 lightly armed troops with lightly armored vehicles. Their value
is that they have special training and have operational and strategic mobility
provided by long-range aircraft. Their parachute assault capability means
that they can be deployed anywhere within airlift range in a matter of
hours without the need for an air base in friendly hands. However, resupply
and support by heavy ground troop formations are necessary in a matter
of days because the airborne troops lack the self-sustaining combat and
logistical power of regular ground forces.
All of the airborne divisions are based in European Russia. One division
is based in the Northern Military District, two in the Moscow Military
District, and one each in the Volga and North Caucasus districts. The division
in the North Caucasus Military District has taken part in the Chechnya
conflict.
The eight airborne assault brigades are smaller than divisions, and
they lack the armor and artillery assets that give conventional divisions
ground mobility and firepower. Once the airborne brigades are on the ground,
they can move no faster than walking speed. Their role is primarily focused
on helicopter operations, but they also are trained for parachute assault
from fixed-wing aircraft.
I
Military Doctrine
In Russia military doctrine is the official formulation of concepts
on the nature of present and future war and the nation's potential role,
given existing or anticipated geopolitical conditions. In the late 1980s,
the military doctrine of the Soviet Union underwent a dramatic change toward
defensive readiness before the dissolution of the union. After inheriting
the unfinished transition of that period, Russia struggled to develop a
suitable new set of concepts in the 1990s. The first step, the doctrine
of 1993, was considered a temporary document leading to a full statement
of goals and circumstances to be formulated around 2000.
Soviet Doctrine
The Soviet Union's first military doctrine was based on the teachings
of Vladimir I. Lenin about defense of the socialist homeland and on the
military theories of Civil War general Mikhail Frunze. Starting in the
early 1920s, doctrine underwent a series of changes in response to geopolitical
and economic conditions. After World War II, Stalin introduced the concept
of two mutually irreconcilable international coalitions--the capitalist
and the socialist--that inevitably would come into armed conflict. In the
1950s, the Soviet acquisition of nuclear weapons added a new dimension
to Stalin's postwar concept of a massive, combined-arms struggle on the
fields of Europe. Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev (in office 1953-64)
saw adequate nuclear deterrence as a guarantee that socialism would be
able to advance in peace toward its inevitable triumph. Based on that theory,
he shifted support from conventional forces to a new military group, the
nuclear-armed strategic rocket forces. However, in this period the Soviet
military establishment argued for the use of nuclear weapons in fighting,
rather than preventing, a war--including the initiation of nuclear attack.
In the 1960s, that idea was refined with the addition of small-scale nuclear
strikes and a renewed emphasis on conventional warfare. By 1970 the doctrine
envisioned two major possibilities: an entirely conventional war or a nuclear
war fought between the Soviet Union and the United States solely in Western
and Central Europe.
In the 1970s and the 1980s, military thinkers continued to question
the military efficacy of nuclear weapons, although official doctrine assumed
that the Soviet Union could win a nuclear war. In this period, the concept
of a nonnuclear, high-technology global war, advanced by Chief of the General
Staff Marshal Nikolay Ogarkov, attracted substantial support. By the late
1980s, military doctrine had begun to evolve toward a defensive concept
of "reasonable sufficiency" of military force to ensure national security
but not to initiate offensive operations. At the behest of the Soviet Union,
in 1987 the Warsaw Pact officially adopted a defense-oriented military
doctrine and called for reductions in conventional arms in Europe.
DEFENSE INDUSTRY AND INFRASTRUCTURE
The Russian Federation inherited the largest and most productive share
of the former Soviet defense industry, employing as many as 9 million workers
in 1,125 to 1,500 research, design, and production facilities. Those installations
are concentrated in particular regions, whose economies tend to be heavily
dependent on the industry; in the Republic of Udmurtia, for example, more
than two-thirds of workers and industrial capacity were attached to defense
in some way in the early 1990s. Moscow has large plants for air force and
missile components, and St. Petersburg specializes in naval design and
production as well as infantry weapons.
Military Industry
Russia's military-industrial complex (MIC) is coordinated by the State
Committee for the Defense Industry (Gosudarstvennyy komitet po oboronnoy
promyshlennosti--Goskomoboronprom). In 1996 this agency included about
2,000 production enterprises and 920 research organizations with a directly
employed work force of about 5 million. However, a 1996 estimate identified
about 35 million Russians as receiving their income from enterprises linked
in some way to Goskomoboronprom. The research organizations are the heart
of Russian military research and development. They take new weapons and
military matériel projects from concept to prototype, then hand them off
to the production enterprises. Production enterprises do prototype construction,
production runs, and modifications.
Zinoviy Pak was appointed director of Goskomoboronprom in January 1996.
Prior to his promotion, Pak managed a large defense enterprise in Moscow.
His predecessor, Viktor Glukhikh, was dismissed by President Yeltsin for
mismanagement--a move that made Glukhikh the scapegoat for a multitude
of problems that beset the defense industry in the first half of the 1990s.
The Russian MIC includes an industrial base that is wholly owned by
the Russian military. In the Soviet era, defense industries were created
solely to arm the Soviet Union, and as such they had the highest national
priority in the allocation of technology and talent. The complex regularly
consumed 20 percent of the gross national product (GNP--see Glossary) and
15 percent of the industrial labor force. In the drive for privatization
after the fall of communism, Russian planners initially believed that this,
the best supplied and most efficient of Russian industries, could be converted
easily to production for the civilian market and thereafter would become
an engine of economic growth. Such optimism obscured the complex's total
lack of a civilian market for its products and its inexperience in developing
and selling goods in a competitive marketplace. Beginning in the late Gorbachev
era, planners mistakenly expected to achieve conversion by a Soviet-style
centralized program and without additional funding to support the lengthy,
stagewise conversion process.
Although MIC conversion received much publicity and billions of dollars
in Western aid after 1992, government funding for that program decreased
steadily in the mid-1990s, and only a small percentage of allotted funds
actually were spent for conversion. No funds were authorized for conversion
in the 1995 budget. Some defense industries have mounted successful conversion
and restructuring programs, however. Russia's leading aviation firm, the
Mikoyan-Gurevich (MiG) Aviation-Scientific Production Complex, has formed
joint ventures with the Moscow Aircraft Production Association (MAPO) and
enterprises in Germany, India, and Malaysia. The Sukhoy Holding Corporation
has been formed to combine formerly separate design, development, and production
operations for high-performance aircraft; Sukhoy has branched out into
production of business and commuter aircraft, which accounted for about
half its sales in 1995. The MiG and Yakovlev design bureaus also began
developing commercial aircraft in the early 1990s.
Given its intrinsic shortcomings, the MIC became a major liability rather
than a boon to the Russian economy as the initial momentum of conversion
dissipated. In December 1995, the complex's average basic wage rate fell
to two-thirds the average for industries in the nonmilitary sector.
Shortly after assuming the Goskomoboronprom directorship, Pak admitted
that the defense industry could not survive unless it were reconfigured.
He proposed a smaller military and a smaller defense industry--a course
whose wisdom was reflected in statistics on recent performance. In 1995
defense industrial production fell by 21 percent compared with 1994, when
production in turn was 25 percent lower than 1993. In January 1996, orders
were 25 percent below the level for January 1995, and in the first half
of 1996 the Ministry of Defense had not completed payment for its 1994
and 1995 deliveries from defense plants. Hardest hit were the shipbuilding,
radio, electronics, and ammunition industries. The reason for such a steady
decline is that the MIC had only a single customer, the Ministry of Defense,
which had an ever-shrinking budget allocation for repairing and modernizing
old equipment, buying new matériel, and funding research for future models.
Because few enterprises of the MIC had been privatized (a situation that
ensured that complete state control would continue), government subsidies
kept many alive through the mid-1990s.
Between 1991 and 1994, annual production of main battle tanks dropped
from 900 to forty, of infantry fighting vehicles from 3,000 to 400, of
fighter aircraft from 225 to fifty, and of helicopters from 350 to 100.
Those statistics partly reflect the intentional reduction of forces that
began in the late Gorbachev era before the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact
in 1991, but they also indicate the overall deterioration of the industry.
In the first half of 1996, the only fully active production program
was that for the SS-25 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Some
other enterprises were producing relatively small batches of armored vehicles,
most of which were for export. The great majority of the production facilities,
including most of the aircraft and shipbuilding installations, were dormant.
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