The new Defense Minister did not cancel existing foreign arms purchases, but
did try to renegotiate some of the terms. All this is at the behest of Russian
arms manufacturers and their political allies. This has made many of the troops
unhappy. Many military leaders want Western quality weapons, either from
Russian firms or from Western manufacturers. Now Russian troops will have to
make do with less capable “Soviet” style weapons. The problem is that a lot of
these Russian made weapons suck and efforts to get Russian manufacturers to
shape up have not been entirely successful. Putin was convinced that this was
not a problem because the Russian nuclear forces are still in good shape and
capable of keeping invaders out. The military is effective enough to deal with
patrolling the borders and dealing with outlaws in the Caucasus.
Many military reforms will continue, adapting the smaller, post-Soviet
forces to many Western innovations (brigade centric organization, battlefield Internet,
and improved training). But the Russian forces will continue to have second
rate gear, the kind that Russian manufacturers can produce and that won’t
threaten the jobs of Russian workers. This means less importing of foreign
weapons, except when it means getting new technologies for stuff to be built in
Russia.
What’s at stake here is the $900 billion the government has pledged to spend
in the next decade to replace the many aging (and often not very good when new)
Cold War era weapons. The troops wanted better weapons, like Western forces
have. The Russian arms firms and politicians wanted most of that money to stay
in Russia and,
given the degree of corruption, in their pockets.
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