Rabochaya Tribuna

June 4, 1997

[translation for personal use only]

Article by Lev Rokhlin,

chairman of the Russian State Duma Defense Committee, attributed to "Dumskaya Panorama" (Duma Panorama) and published under the "Emergency Situation" rubric: "What Awaits a Power Which Ceases To Be a Nuclear Power"

The Russian Federation Armed Forces are in a critical condition. The Armed Forces Ground Forces and Russian MVD [Ministry of Internal Affairs] Internal Troops could not even carry out localized missions to impose constitutional order in Chechnya. The country's mobilization readiness has been destroyed. Mobilization exercises and training courses were discontinued in 1990.

Such branches of service of the Russian Armed Forces as the country's Air Force and Air Defense Forces are incapable of carrying out strategic missions to defend the state.

The work of the Russian Federation Comptroller's Office has shown that aviation equipment is going out of commission catastrophically while new equipment is not being ordered. Because of the lack of kerosene, aircrew are not getting the chance to fly and few of them are capable of carrying out combat missions. Thousands of kilometers of the state border have no air cover.

The Navy is rapidly disintegrating. Because of the lack of funding for repairs, warships which could serve the country for at least another 10 years are being taken out of service. The number of submarines with nuclear reactors which have been taken out of service and which require salvaging has passed the 100 mark. To ignore this problem is to consciously create a precondition for a disaster no less severe than Chernobyl. The strategic nuclear deterrent forces are in a grave condition. Although there is currently a vast quantity of nuclear munitions and delivery systems, a wholesale process of taking them out of service is scheduled from 2003 through 2005. The maximum guaranteed shelf life of missiles produced in the last few years is up to 2008, and that is provided that there is funding for their maintenance and for work to extend their shelf life. At the same time practically nothing is being done to bring in new nuclear deterrent weapons. Implementation of the Topol-M program is three years behind sched

ule. To finance it the Russian Federation Federal Assembly allocated funds under a separate heading in the federal Law "On the 1997 Federal Budget." But even this did not help. During the current year not a single ruble has been allocated for the program. The "Bark" naval program is also interminably behind schedule.

Just what is going on? Maybe Russia does not need an Army? What, is nobody threatening us?

Russian Federation Armed Forces Ground Forces and MVD Internal Troops showed in Chechnya that currently the Army is not a factor that is checking Russia's disintegration on a national and separatist basis.

Of course, mutually advantageous and good-neighborly relations with both nearby countries and foreign countries further away should form the basis of the ensuring of the country's defense and the state's security. But experience shows that partners are forced to consider the country's interests when it has a fairly powerful deterrent factor in terms of military potential.

There was, as they say in the West, a "monster" -- the Soviet Union with its vast military "machine," the Warsaw Pact. But for all the West's hostility to the Union, no question anywhere in the world was resolved without its being consulted first.

As soon as "democratic," pro-Western Russia lost its military potential, the West stopped taking notice of it and did not even deem it necessary to consult our leadership when making the decision to move NATO eastward.

But the course of the debate that has developed on this question shows that the nuclear deterrent forces which we still have left are the only thing shielding Russia from America's limitless diktat and its direct interference in our country's affairs of state.

Given the huge U.S. superiority in conventional weapons and its very powerful fleets with mobile aircraft carrier groups, our strategic nuclear deterrent forces are the only thing deterring them.

The United States is separated from other powers by the sea. What could threaten them, you might wonder. But the United States maintains a very strong army and, for all its parsimony, does not begrudge it money, spending 20 times more than Russia every year.

Knowing the time when our strategic nuclear deterrent forces will be taken "wholesale" out of combat service (2008), the U.S. side agreed at the talks in Helsinki not to review the 1972 ABM Treaty before 2009. This is the same deadline whereby, given the current attitude toward the Army's needs, Russia will not have a sufficient quantity of nuclear deterrent weapons left, or else the minimum number of missiles that we will have left will effectively be neutralized by the deployment of very powerful U.S. ABM defense.

Thus, by 2009 Russia will cease to have any substantial nuclear deterrent forces at all.

Like "the swan, the crayfish, and the pike" [fairy story characters all pulling in different directions], the power ministries are still pulling the "blanket" of liquid funding only over themselves, often creating parallel structures, and cannot agree on united actions to achieve the objectives associated with the country's defense and the state's security. To this day there is no single body in charge of these departments to concentrate their efforts on the main areas and ensure their effective implementation without raising additional funds.

The catastrophic underfunding of the Armed Forces has led to their failure to be combat-ready, while the introduction of sequestration of the federal budget will destroy them once and for all.

Judge for yourselves. The Armed Forces funding for 1997 set aside for sequestration is two and a half times less than in 1996, the hardest year for the Army, when the actual amount of defense expenditure totaled R130 trillion. Thus, the R83 trillion allocated in accordance with the 1996 federal defense budget lasted only until July, after which delays began in paying servicemen's pay, sometimes lasting up to three or four months. Actually money was allocated only for wages and meager food provisions.

In order to ensure that the Army somehow survives until the end of the year the Russian Federation Government has allocated an extra R20 trillion-plus for its upkeep. But the Army's debt for public utilities, food purchased but not paid for, military equipment, other property, and transportation totals over R25 trillion.

Bearing in mind that the level of inflation in 1996 was 150 percent, the R83 trillion allocated in the budget for defense in 1997 (in accordance with sequestration) will amount to R55 trillion at 1996 prices, that is to say two and a half times less than last year. The implementation of such plans will lead to the complete collapse of the country's defense capability. The state's most important institution will cease to exist.

This will also be facilitated by the adoption of the Tax Code, which will deprive impoverished servicemen even of the privileges which help them to make ends meet.

The results of research show that depriving servicemen of privileges will lead to wholesale resignations, especially of young officers, from the Armed Forces.

Does there exist in Russia a single concept for the development of all power structures aimed at ensuring the country's defense capability and the state's security?

For around a year the State Duma has been trying get the government to provide a "blueprint for the development of nuclear deterrent weapons" in the light of the START-II Treaty and an idea of its economic feasibility in order to make a decision regarding this treaty's ratification. But things are right where they started.

It is sad to see what was once the pride of our country -- the defense complex -- disintegrating. In its report the U.S. Rand research organization stated that, given another year of such funding, a whole generation of Russians would not be enough to bridge the catastrophic gap in this sphere. The situation that has developed requires the country's leadership without delay to determine the breakthrough projects in the military sphere for the next 10-15 years. And to carry out an inspection of all existing scientific research institutions and design bureaus with the aim of deciding which to cut and which to develop, based on the blueprint for building the future Army.

But circumstances force us to acknowledge that the leadership of Russia's executive branch is not taking the appropriate measures to ensure the country's defense and the state's security. In these conditions the Russian Federation Federal Assembly does not have the right to remain an impassive observer of the collapse of the country's Army and defense complex.

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Johnson's Russia List

11 June 1997

djohnson@cdi.org