Lecture
In the current transitional period, when the paradigm of the development of Russian society is changing, the process of forming military potential acquires paramount importance in the context of establishing a new statehood and developing the country's military organisation for the future.
The military potential of the Russian state can be represented as a specific organisational system reflecting the entire totality of social relations that determine its development. The centuries-long history of its formation in Russia is largely bound up with a continuous struggle for existence and for the preservation of sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Owing to the state's unique geopolitical position and the presence on its territory of colossal reserves of natural wealth, its numerous neighbours have constantly sought to revise the established realities. It is therefore entirely natural that over many centuries, under the influence of various factors, Russia's vital interests took shape - to remain under any circumstances an autonomous and independent state while preserving the unity of its space as the principal source of strength.
The evolution of the formation of the Russian state's military potential testifies that throughout its history the state has striven to ensure military security reliably, and that the forms of organising the country's military potential reflected the particular features of the development of Russian statehood.
The main criterion for choosing a form of organising military potential is, as a rule, the degree to which the existing experience of forming military potential corresponds to the country's principal historical traditions and development trends. This criterion reflects above all the geopolitical and historical aspect in the choice of a form for organising the process of forming military potential, and it makes it possible to avoid a rupture between the character of the national culture and its relatively autonomous part - the military culture. It allows one not only to take into account the historical experience of forming military potential in accordance with the political regime, but also to weigh its expediency against the prospects of national development. Ultimately, this criterion makes it possible to determine priorities in choosing a form for organising this process, taking into account the policy being pursued and the geopolitical particularities of the country's development.
Considering the formation of a state's military potential as a complex process subject to the influence of various kinds of factors, it appears necessary to give attention to the theoretical and methodological grounding of its functioning. By this should be understood the analysis of the external and internal political conditions and factors of the formation of military potential, and of the national-political factors that determine the specific character of the formation of military potential at the particular stage of the reform of Russian society and the conduct of military reform.
The foreign policy conditions and factors of the formation of the Russian state's military potential stem from the circumstance that the world community has found itself in a fundamentally new political situation characterised by colossal changes. The new political situation has been largely predetermined by realities that arose in the recent past and that are emerging today. Among these realities the following may be singled out: the presence in the world of large quantities of weapons and of powerful groupings of states' armed forces with high mobilisation capabilities; the existence of territorial disputes between states which, owing to national, economic, religious and ideological contradictions, may become sources of wars and regional conflicts; the persistence of claims by individual states to a dominant position on a global or regional scale; the instability of the international military-political situation and attempts by some states to create nuclear weapons; radical geopolitical changes caused by the disintegration of the Soviet Union; the self-dissolution of the Warsaw Pact; the emergence of sovereign states; the unbalanced process of the "privatisation" of the Armed Forces of the former Union.
The domestic political conditions and factors of the formation of the Russian state's military potential include the socio-political and socio-economic forms of their development.
Among the socio-political forms are political governance; the state of democracy; the participation of the masses in the life of society; the legal status of the individual; the preservation of universal human values.
In analysing socio-economic conditions and factors it should be borne in mind that the process of forming the Russian state's military potential is being carried out amid radical socio-economic changes affecting the mode of production and the system of economic management. Russia's economy is today experiencing a state of crisis, and relations of production are characterised by mounting social tension. The intensive search for directions and means of transition from the old economic system to the new market system has in practice pushed questions of forming military potential into the background. The problems that arise have to be resolved in difficult conditions aggravated by a number of circumstances, such as the sharp reduction of military expenditure and rising rates of inflation against fixed defence spending, which substantially diminish the capabilities of the Ministry of Defence.
Scientific and technological progress must also be counted among the socio-economic factors exerting a substantial influence on the process of forming military potential.
The process of forming military potential presupposes that new geographical conditions are also taken into account. The disposition of military-production capacities and of the troops themselves within one's own territory has the most direct bearing on the emerging system of forming military potential and on the ratio of services and branches of arms in the structure of the Armed Forces.
Among the national-political factors exerting a substantial influence on all aspects of the process of forming military potential one must also include the demographic and national-psychological factors, the national stratification of society, and also specific national factors: the size of peoples and the level of their social and national development; the degree of national kinship; the particularities of economic and cultural-domestic living conditions; the degree of commitment to military service.
In addition, in forming a state's military potential it is important to take account of other circumstances as well: Russia's participation in peacekeeping actions to resolve military conflicts; the intensification of integration processes among CIS countries, including in the military field; the active placing on the agenda of the question of forming a coalition military potential of the CIS countries; and Russia's relations with NATO.
Thus, the formation of a state's military potential is a complex socio-political process subject to the impact of various factors of an objective and subjective nature. It is an important part of state policy, representing the organisational-executive, practical and legal activity of all subjects of policy in implementing decisions in the interests of creating and maintaining the necessary level of military potential.
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