| dc.description.abstract | Continuity Under Pressure Heritage and Change in Russian Military Thinking 1992-97
Summary
What has been the situation within the Russian armed forces after the break-up of the SSSR? There is little doubt that an answer to this general question is "bad", or at least "not like it used to be". That, of course, raises the question why. What are the prime reasons behind the malaise, and how do the system as such appear today? To look into these questions is a central concern in the study; its empirical project. Preceding this, it is useful to look into how relations such as these may be analysed fruitfully. This is the theoretical - or analytical - project of the study.
Through isolation and analysis of a handful of key issues influencing the Russian armed forces, some empirical conditions seem to appear over and over. Some of them are inherited, carrying the Soviet past into the 1990s, others are new, promoting post-Soviet change. The factors in the first category, perhaps unsurprisingly, have had their strongest representation in mental, rather than in practical, continuity:
a civil-military relationship with minimal exchange or contact between political and military authorities; paving the ground for
an only slightly changed military culture and identity (which as well reflects the existential enemy image of the military system); and
on a more practical note, a heritage of military resources (including the ever more important nuclear weapons).
The factors in the second category, inflicting pressure, have been of a somewhat more practical nature:
an organisational and doctrinal re-organisation, initiated by the political elite of the new Russia, in part as a response to the changes called for by the geopolitical and -strategic shifts of 1989-92,
a severe socio-economic distress, stemming from the post-communist economic restructuring, affecting society at large as much as the military system, has altered the characteristics of the forces by almost stalling both maintenance and development in the fields of military equipment and industry; and
interference from outside both the armed forces as such and of Russia, (issues like arms control and the political test case of NATO enlargement) has altered the provisions for action and policy implementation in post Cold War military affairs.
Taken together, they form the backdrop of an armed forces post-Soviet identity crisis. The traditional Russian ambiguity on strategy versus Europe has locked the forces in a continued confrontational perception of the West. This is, among several factors, due to NATO's role as defining enemy. The Soviet military culture persists in spite of open economic distress, the Near Abroad is viewed as a destabilising element and the West is an opponent to be deterred. As the conventional resources are in bad shape, the role of nuclear weapons is amplified for deterrence and military balance. In turn, the threshold of first-use is lowered, perhaps even in originally low-intensity conflicts, a brought into Russian doctrinal documents. Combined with the Soviet-style military culture, and the economic malaise, these conditions contribute to the preserving of an uncertainty factor in European security politics. | nor |