RMA Russia
Since
the collapse of Soviet Union, Russian military try to struggle with the
socio-economic and the political transformation within Russia. The internal
crisis and the demands of on-going operations confronts the Revolution in
Military Affairs (RMA) in Russia. Based on the publishes articles and books by
the analyse of Russian military, the impact of the Revolution in Military
Affairs on the Russian military is highlighting the complicated relationship
among the revolution. From
the economic side, it will be very hard for Russia in order to advance and
support the military modernization and the international environment.
During the crisis era of glasnost and perestroika,
military science, social science as well as forecasting in military affairs
became a central feature of the Soviet military system. Foresight military is
cognition the changes in military affairs. Knowledge of the objective laws of
war, the dialectical-materialist analysis of events are the basic of the science of foresight.
The Ministry of Defense had conducted the military
research and development, procurement, and foreign military sales. However in
early 1993, Deputy Minister of
Defense highlighted the contradictions in the research and development production
systems that Russia had inherited from the Soviet Union. This was based on the
command economy that did not match with the new demands of a market economy and
privatization. President Yeltsin had decreed that the Ministry of Defense had a
task in formulating a unified military-technical policy for the Russian Armed
Forces. The state funding for defense industry and research and development had
declined. This created a crisis situation that risked making the relative
backwardness inherited from the Soviet system in the areas as computer
technology, radio-electronic warfare system, stealth materials, night vision systems,
information-control systems, and last but not least the range of laser
technologies a matter of long-term inferiority (approximately 5-10 years) if we
compare with the United States and other developed countries.
Andrei K. Kokoshin, the senior researcher at the
Academy of Sciences Institute of United States and Canada, who became First
Deputy Minister of Defense of Russia in May 1992 had an attention to forgoing the
link between these efforts to fashion Russia’s unified military-technical policy as part of Russia’s response to
the Revolution in Military Affairs. His efforts that he would like to devoted
was to save the Russian Navy and its infrastructure. Russia posses the lion’s
share of the great oceanic navy that Admiral Sergei Gorshkov spent thirty years
building to contest American sea power during the Cold War. Seeing the opponent
with a great vast oceanic navy, a global fleet infrastructure as well as a
well-developed tradition in the oceanic naval combat, the Soviet Navy deployed
in isolated maritime theaters and with a continental tradition of supporting
the Soviet Army on its maritime flanks, had to create and innovate a modern
force. The end of the Cold War removed the ideologically assumed threat of general
war with a global coalition of hostile powers that led by United States. The
impact came into the transformation the immediate threat to more dangers. The
consequences of the collapse of Communism, the break-up of Soviet Union, was
instability socio-economic and political that take top priority in the
assessment of dangers, including a well-developed methodology for forecasting
the role and future requirements of the Soviet Navy in the state defense is now
irrelevant because of geopolitical changes facing Russia.
According to Russian experts, in the next 10-15 years,
Russia will achieve some successes on the theoretical plane. But if we see from
economically side, it will very difficult to produce the required mass numbers
of weapons. There will be some elements for future war, but Russia will be
forced to rely on past wars and drag behind it a train of ground forces and
other traditional branches. For instance, Russia produces state-of-the-art
ALCMs and SLCMs. Unfortunately in economic side, Russia incapable of massively
rearming with them. The writer would like to highlight that theoretically,
Russia sustained the need of new mass weapons that technologically it can
developed them, but economically, its very lack of funding in order to produce
them.
Russian
Military Reform: Ten Years of Failure
From 1993 to 1995, the Russian Armed Forces was
rebuilt with the number of cut up to 2.1 million by 1995. From 1995 to 1999,
military personnel should have been cut to 1,5 million. The Russian soldiers
were starving because the daily regular army food ration in 1996 was no more
than 9.220 rubles ($1,85)
·
The
air force 12.537 ($2,52)
·
The
Submarine 14.269 rubles ($2,87)
·
The
Navy 9.696 rubles ($1,95)
Military reform can only go ahead if there is an
adequate financing and defense procurement. Without extra money, there won't be
any reform. If the Defense Ministry gets the money, there will be no need to
reform at all. Russia could simply resure the Soviet-style defense buildup and
arms race that stopped in 1991.
Russia
Defense Budget Development
In 2015, the Russian Defense Ministry, Tatiana
Shevtsova, will channel more than half of all expenditures to fund the state
armament program. Due to the exchange rate, the Defense Ministry intended to
downplay the risk associated with the price difference. The state expenditure
will not change regardless of the economic conditions in Russia. Government
spending will increase by 25% next year. By 2006, Russia spent 2.7% of its GDP
for military defense. Military leaders could not accept that this was far too
little to achieve foreign policy goals, while civilians leaders resisted
militarizing the federal budget or economy as in Soviet times. In the year between
2004-2014, Russia doubled its military spending. It will increase approximately
from 17.6% of all budget spending to 20.8%, or 3.36 trillion rubles ($84.19
billion) in 2017.
The armed service procurement was estimated to reach
1,7 billion rubles ($52 bilion) in 2014, up from 1.35 trillion rubles allocated
for state defense. Modernization of Russia's defense industry is reach up to
three trillion rubles. Russia's 2011-2020 arms procurement programs stipulates
the upgrade of 11% of the forces' military equipment annually and will boost
the modern weaponary in in the inventory of armed forces to 70% by 2020.
The new technologies, new armed forces, and a new
theory of warfare will be fully assimilated based on United States and Russia
perspective. The process will take approximately 10-15 years or even longer.
However, new technologies and new theories will inevitably appear. Thus, a new
RMA will again be required.
Maria Dwiajeng Anggita
IR Defense 2/2013
016201300092
