Russian Press at a Glance, Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Russian Press at a Glance, Tuesday, May 3, 2011

WORLD

The youngest son and three grandchildren of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi were killed last week during a NATO airstrike on Tripoli

Trials of former presidential candidates continue in the Belarusian capital of Minsk asPresident Alexander Lukashenko refuses to bow to international pressure

ECONOMY & BUSINESS

Russia's largest Internet search engine, Yandex, which posted a 61.7% year-on-year increase in its first quarter net profit to 820 million rubles ($29.8 million), says it is worried of being consumed by a financial group or oligarch

(Vedomosti)

A stress-test conducted by the Russian Central Bank showed that almost a third of Russian banks are not ready for a possible recurrence of the 2008 global financial crisis

Howard Schultz, the chairman and CEO of the U.S. Starbucks coffee house chain reveals how he "implemented his American dream"

SOCIETY

A study conducted by popular Russian web portal Mail.ru suggests that women are more interested in loan products than men and are more likely to look for ways to avoid returning the money they have borrowed

MOSCOW

The Moscow metro plans to increase its income from underground advertising up to 1.03 billion rubles (37.6 million) annually

CULTURE

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/05/02/moscow-aims-to-have-one-of-worlds-top-five-militaries/print/

Posted By Andriy Tsintsiruk On May 2, 2011 @ 1:30 pm In Ongoing Priorities

Moscow recently announced ^[1] its aspirations to have one of the five best militaries in the world. This ambitious plan will require that Russia replace 70 percent of its military materiel with modern military equipment by 2020. Such optimistic statements are not a rare occurrence, as the Kremlin has made similar statements on numerous occasions in the past.

According to Sayid Aminov, editor of the Russian air force magazine, “missile troops are the cornerstone of Russia’s defense capability.” As such, Russia’s Ministry of Defense plans to acquire 36 ballistic missiles, 20 airborne cruise missiles, 5 spacecraft, 35 jets, 109 choppers, and 21 air defense systems. Aminov also states that the Russian navy will obtain eight Borei-class nuclear submarines configured to deploy Bulava missiles. However, the plans for modernization will cost the Kremlin a quarter of the state subsidies allocated toward Russia’s defense.

Nevertheless, there is a long way to go before Moscow develops and deploys professional armed forces with modern intelligence-gathering; command, control, and communications systems; and precision-guided military systems on the level of modern Western armies. These challenges are further hampered by the need to reform a Soviet-era military bureaucracy, which is plagued with corruption and opposes the necessary reforms.

As noted ^[2] by participants in a recent Jamestown Foundation event regarding the Russian military, even though Russia’s main military focus has been NATO, it has become increasingly concerned with China’s military resurgence in the past few of years. The Chinese military exercise in 2008–2009 postulated projecting a military force 2,000 kilometers. The scope of power project suggests the Russian Federation and/or Central Asia as a target. In 2010, Russia responded with its own exercise aimed at countering a hypothetical move by China.

The Russian military is focused on how China’s massive army and military modernization is surpassing Russia’s overstretched military, especially compared to those forces east of the Ural Mountains. Russia is seeking to have a military with 40 brigades in a rapid deployment mode, which will be the focus of future modernization.

However, observers note that the state of conventional Russian military units in the Far East is poor and that the Kremlin continues to place heavy emphasis on tactical nuclear weapons. Russian military doctrine calls for initial strikes with tactical nuclear weapons on enemy command-and-control sites.

Despite popular slogans and well-publicized efforts to reform the Russian army, the Russian media is full of allegations of rampant corruption, hazing of recruits, and human rights abuses by Russian servicemen, which continue ^[3] to occur on a regular basis. Yet Russia’s generals and senior military officials frequently attempt to downplay these abuses. At the same time, top political leadership in the Kremlin remains reluctant or lacks the political will to fight hazing and violations of the law by the Russian military and security forces.

Not surprisingly, the conflicts in Chechnya (1994–1996, 1999–2004) and Georgia (2008) demonstrated low level of preparedness and effectiveness in Russia’s military forces. In the future, Russia’s ability to fight even limited, regional wars depends on successful modernization. Moreover, Russia’s military spending fluctuates and is dependent on revenues from energy and raw materials exports.

Russia’s current military doctrine envisions military conflicts in the “near abroad”—the areas that the Kremlin considers to belong to its “privileged sphere of influence.” Indeed, Moscow claims that Russia maintains the right ^[4] to engage in armed conflicts on its borders or in the event of “aggression against its citizens.” In addition, in a recent report released by Russia’s security council, President Dmitry Medvedev envisioned possible future military conflicts ^[5] over energy resources and emphasized Russia’s need to modernize its armed forces.

Rampant corruption, an obsolescent science and technology base, and poor quality of both conscripts and contract personnel—including poor physical and mental health, alcoholism, and drug abuse—pose serious obstacles to building the modern and professional army that the Kremlin is seeking to achieve. The Russian government might be throwing petro-rubles from high oil prices to fulfill its military reform aspirations, but both strategy and implementation are badly lacking. There is a long list of serious structural problems that will require long-term commitment.

Andriy Tsintsiruk currently is a member of the Young Leaders Program at the Heritage Foundation.
Article printed from The Foundry: http://blog.heritage.org

URL to article: http://blog.heritage.org/2011/05/02/moscow-aims-to-have-one-of-worlds-top-five-militaries/

URLs in this post:

[1] announced: http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/04/04/48448381.html

[2] noted: http://www.capalphadc.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/defense-russian-erosion-note-4-29-11.pdf

[3] continue: http://www.newsru.com/russia/11jan2011/armycorruption.html

[4] maintains the right: http://www.armscontrol.org/print/658

[5] envisioned possible future military conflicts: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,3938485,00.html

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/05/02/russia-fighting-to-save-arms-sales-to-the-middle-east/

Posted By Ariel Cohen On May 2, 2011 @ 6:30 pm In American Leadership

Ambitious efforts to modernize Russia’s defense and industrial base undertaken during the Putin administration have been paying off—at least, in some cases. The Russian leadership uses arms sales for economic gain, but also as a tool of influence in the recipient countries.

The Russian military-industrial complex, one of the few national industries that maintain some competitive advantage in comparison with the West, is a source of the Kremlin’s cash and prestige. Leftover stockpiles from the Soviet military past were large enough to keep Russia active in arms sales in the post-Soviet years. To capture and maintain market share, Russia sells equipment at deep discounts or fosters joint weapons development.

The recent instability in the Middle East, however, is likely to have a negative impact ^[1] on the country’s arms sales, because in the past decade this region has been one of the most significant recipients of weapons “Made in Russia.”

The government of Russia is actively engaged in assisting the export efforts of the country’s domestic arms industries in the competitive international arms market. Russia is the world’s second-largest arms exporter after the U.S. and was one of the main suppliers of weapons to Libya. To facilitate exports, in 2008, Russia forgave ^[2] $4.5 billion in Libya’s Soviet-era debt.

In January 2010, Libyan Defense Minister Yunis Jaber signed a number of arms sale agreements ^[3] with Russia. These contracts were aimed at delivering combat planes, modernizing Soviet-made tanks, and launching a plant producing Kalashnikov automatic rifles in Libya. The Libyan army currently has some 4,000 units of Soviet-era armored vehicles, a large number of surface-to-air systems, and ships. Since 2005, Russia negotiated ^[1] numerous contracts with the Libyan government on modernization of its tactical ballistic missile force, tanks, infantry vehicles, training aircraft, and fighter jets.

Following the United Nations Security Council resolution ^[4] from March 17, 2010, which Prime Minister Vladimir Putin criticized ex post facto (though Russia abstained from the vote), Moscow has suspended its arms contracts with the government of Colonel Muammar Qadhafi. According to estimates by the Russian state arms exporter Rosoboronexport, it lost close to $4 billion ^[4] in Libya alone.

Russia has been actively proliferating its weapons in other Middle Eastern countries as well, especially Syria. Russia is likely to lose revenues from these contracts should Qadhafi and/or President Bashar Assad be replaced.

Libya is not the only country in the Middle East where Russian arms exporters have been active. Russia’s weapons sales to Iran and Syria ^[5] have improved these two terror sponsors’ air defense capabilities. Russia (and China) also voted against a U.N. Security Council resolution to impose sanctions on Syria, among other things, because Moscow resents losing another weapons market.

And there is more. Russia’s arms contracts with Algeria ^[1], yet to be fulfilled, are worth more than $17 billion. Despite EU and U.S. weapons embargoes on Sudan and Zimbabwe, Russia continues to provide ^[6] these unstable regimes with weaponry. Importantly, some of the customers, e.g. Algeria, chose not to expand ^[1]their weapons acquisitions in Russia, citing the lower quality of the Russian arms, especially the aircraft, compared to the West.

As the “Arab Spring” unfolds, through meaningful carrots and weighty sticks Washington should initiate consultations with Moscow, seeking to ensure that the government of Russia avoids supplying arms to conflict zones and helps prevent destabilization in the already volatile Middle East.

This blog was co-authored by Andriy Tsintsiruk