Lecture
The leading role in the structure of military force, as was noted earlier, is assigned to the military element proper, that is, to the armed forces (the army and the navy).
Strong Russian Armed Forces have geopolitical significance. Amid the weakening of a whole range of international institutions in the sphere of security, it is precisely the strengthening of the potential of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation that will be the factor preventing the final collapse of the system of international relations based on the principles of international law. It is precisely the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation that can ensure global stability in the broad sense of that term.
In the years since Russia gained sovereignty, the Russian Armed Forces have travelled a difficult path. They, like the country as a whole, were in a process of active reform connected with the fundamental change in geopolitical conditions in the world and the emergence of a renewed Russian statehood. In effect, the Russian Armed Forces stood at the centre of the processes of forming a new paradigm of the national security of the Russian Federation.
Under conditions of limited funding and the incompleteness of the transformation of society's socio-economic structure, the political leadership set the task of carrying out large-scale quantitative and qualitative changes in the Armed Forces.
In doing so, first priority was given to the understanding that the Armed Forces not only perform the functions of ensuring the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country, but also remain, and will continue to remain, an important instrument in defending national interests and achieving specific political aims.
In the course of the military reform a full-fledged legal framework for the development of the Armed Forces was created. The President and the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation adopted a whole series of major legislative acts defining the structure of relations between the state bodies connected with the country's military organisation.
The fundamental documents in the military sphere are Federal Law No. 61-FZ of 31 May 1996 "On Defence", Federal Constitutional Law No. 1-FKZ of 30 January 2002 "On Martial Law", Federal Law No. 53-FZ of 28 March 1998 "On Military Duty and Military Service", Federal Law No. 31-FZ of 26 February 1997 "On Mobilisation Preparation and Mobilisation in the Russian Federation", and Law of the Russian Federation No. 4730-1 of 1 April 1993 "On the State Border".
In addition, these should include the Military Doctrine (approved by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 706 of 21 April 2000), the Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation on Military Development for the Period up to 2010 (approved by the President of the Russian Federation on 7 August 2002), as well as the Regulations on the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation and on the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
An important step in the development of the Armed Forces was the basic structural transformations that ensured an increase in the effectiveness of the command and control system. At present the Armed Forces consist structurally of three services: the Ground Forces, the Air Force and the Navy; three independent branches of the Armed Forces: the Strategic Missile Forces, the Space Forces and the Airborne Troops; as well as troops not belonging to any service, the Rear Services of the Armed Forces, and organisations and military units for the construction and quartering of troops.
Despite the difficulties, the Russian Armed Forces have preserved the core of their officer corps and their most combat-capable units, and have become more compact while retaining their combat capability.
In the period up to 2010 measures to improve their structure will be carried out. Thus, the main reduction in the strength of the Armed Forces has been completed; their strength has been brought to the level of defensive sufficiency and amounts to 1 million 134 thousand 800 personnel. As of 1 January 2011 it is to amount to 1 million 100 thousand service personnel.
Certain previously existing foundations of military planning were revised. In particular, global nuclear war and large-scale wars using conventional armaments against NATO or another US-led coalition were excluded from the list of the most probable conflicts for which the country's Armed Forces were preparing.
This made it possible to undertake substantial reductions in nuclear potential and in the potential of conventional armaments without detriment to the country's security. In the training of troops (forces), considerable attention began to be given, alongside traditional forms, to such forms of combat operations as peacekeeping, special operations, counter-terrorism, participation in local conflicts and so on.
In the process of improving the system of manning the Armed Forces, the following measures were carried out:
the system of managing the manning of enlisted and non-commissioned personnel was centralised;
provision was made for improving the preparation of citizens for military service in educational institutions, public associations and organisations' training centres;
the procedure for manning enlisted and non-commissioned positions was changed, and the practice of recruiting persons serving under contract into the Armed Forces was expanded. For example, under the federal targeted programme, in the course of 2005 alone 40 permanent-readiness formations and military units were transferred to a contract basis. More than 42 thousand contract soldiers and sergeants serve in them. In 2006 a further 20 units with a total strength of more than 31 thousand personnel were manned by contract servicemen.
On the whole it may be stated that today the Armed Forces have embarked upon their full-fledged development on the basis of the legal, political and organisational-structural preconditions created in the course of the reform, proceeding from newly rethought national interests and from the degree of reality of the threats to Russia's national security.
The changed foreign policy situation of recent years and the new priorities of ensuring national security have set the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation entirely different tasks, which may be structured along four main lines: deterring military and military-political threats to the security or interests of the Russian Federation; ensuring the economic and political interests of the Russian Federation; conducting peacetime force operations; and the employment of military force.
The deterrence of military and military-political threats to the security or interests of the Russian Federation is ensured by:
the timely detection of a threatening development of the military-political situation and of preparations for an armed attack on the Russian Federation and (or) its allies;
maintaining the composition, condition, combat and mobilisation readiness and training of the strategic nuclear forces, of the forces and means ensuring their functioning and employment, and of command and control systems at a level guaranteeing the infliction of a specified level of damage on an aggressor under any conditions;
maintaining the combat potential, combat and mobilisation readiness and training of peacetime general-purpose troop (force) groupings at a level ensuring the repulse of aggression on a local scale;
maintaining readiness for strategic deployment as part of state measures for placing the country on a wartime footing.
Ensuring the economic and political interests of the Russian Federation comprises the following components:
ensuring the security of Russian citizens in zones of armed conflict and of political or other instability;
creating conditions for the security of the economic activity of the Russian Federation or of the economic structures representing it;
protecting the national interests of the Russian Federation in its territorial waters, on the continental shelf and in the exclusive economic zone of the Russian Federation, as well as in the World Ocean;
conducting, by decision of the President of Russia, operations of a specified scale using the forces and means of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in regions of vital economic and political interest to the Russian Federation.
The conduct of peacetime force operations implies:
the fulfilment by the Russian Federation of allied obligations in accordance with international treaties or other interstate agreements;
combating international terrorism, political extremism and separatism, and preventing and suppressing acts of sabotage and terrorism;
partial or full strategic deployment, maintaining readiness to employ, and the employment of, the nuclear deterrence potential;
conducting peacekeeping operations under a UN or CIS mandate according to peacekeeping or peace-enforcement scenarios;
ensuring the regime of martial law (a state of emergency) in one or several constituent entities of the Russian Federation in accordance with decisions of the supreme bodies of state power;
protecting the State Border of the Russian Federation in airspace and in the underwater environment;
enforcing by force the regime of international sanctions imposed on the basis of a decision of the UN Security Council;
the prevention of ecological disasters and other emergency situations, and the mitigation of their consequences;
the organisation of territorial defence;
the organisation and conduct of information warfare.
The use of military force to ensure the security of the Russian Federation. Russia's Armed Forces are prepared for direct participation in the following types of military conflict: armed conflict, local war, regional war, and large-scale war.
Contemporary Russian military planning, based on a realistic understanding of Russia's present resources and capabilities, proceeds from the premise that the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, together with the other troops, must be ready to repel an attack and inflict defeat on an aggressor, and to conduct active operations (both defensive and offensive) under any scenario of the outbreak and conduct of wars and armed conflicts, including conditions in which the adversary makes massed use of modern and future combat weapons systems, among them weapons of mass destruction of every kind.
In doing so, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation must be capable of the following.
In peacetime and in emergency situations — while preserving the potential for strategic deterrence and performing the tasks of maintaining combat readiness — to accomplish tasks successfully in two armed conflicts of any type simultaneously, using permanent-readiness troops (forces) without additional mobilisation measures, and also to carry out peacekeeping operations both independently and as part of multinational contingents.
In the event that the military-political and military-strategic situation deteriorates — to ensure the strategic deployment of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and to contain the escalation of the situation by means of the strategic deterrence forces and the manoeuvring of permanent-readiness forces.
In wartime — to repel the adversary's aerospace attack with the forces on hand and, following full-scale strategic deployment, to accomplish tasks in two local wars simultaneously without the use of nuclear weapons.
The main priorities in the development of Russia's Armed Forces are determined by the nature of the tasks in the sphere of national security and by the country's geopolitical development priorities. One may speak of several fundamental requirements for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation that will define the principal parameters of military development in the years ahead: the capacity to carry out strategic deterrence; a high level of combat and mobilisation readiness; strategic mobility; a high degree of manning with well-trained and well-prepared personnel; and a high level of technical equipment and resource provision.
Strategic deterrence is carried out for the following purposes:
in peacetime — to prevent coercive pressure and aggression against Russia or its allies;
in wartime — to de-escalate aggression: to bring hostilities to an end on terms acceptable to Russia and to inflict a predetermined level of damage on the adversary.
The strategic deterrence forces consist of the Strategic Rocket Forces, the strategic nuclear air forces and the strategic nuclear naval forces. Deterrence will rest on their capacity, in retaliatory action, to inflict damage on such a scale as to cast doubt on the achievement of the objectives of any potential aggression.
At the same time, Russia holds to the position of unconditional compliance with all international agreements it has signed and ratified. This applies to the START I Treaty, under which by 5 December 2001 Russia had reached the following levels: a total number of deployed ICBMs, SLBMs and heavy bombers of no more than 1,600 units, including no more than 154 heavy ICBMs; a total number of warheads (under the counting rules) on deployed ICBMs, SLBMs and heavy bombers of no more than 6,000 units, including no more than 4,900 on deployed ICBMs and SLBMs, of which no more than 1,540 on heavy ICBMs and no more than 1,100 warheads on mobile ICBMs. The aggregate throw-weight of all deployed ICBMs and SLBMs must not exceed 3,600 tonnes.
By 31 December 2012, under the SORT Treaty, the total number of nuclear warheads will amount to 1,700–2,200 units
Taking into account the experience of the combat employment of troops (forces) in the 1990s, one of the main priorities in the development of Russia's Armed Forces is the optimisation of their combat composition with a view to creating groupings of troops (forces) that are united under a single command and capable of performing combat tasks with their peacetime establishment. The principal criteria distinguishing these groupings from those created previously are their mobility and self-sufficiency in materiel and technical terms, the requisite level of manning, and provision of the necessary types of weaponry and military equipment, which enable them to be employed autonomously in any sector within the boundaries of an armed conflict as well as beyond it.
To this end, the territorial principle is used in forming these groupings, which permits joint measures of operational and combat training, combat coordination, the organisation of interaction, operational and combat command and control, and comprehensive support.
The core of such groupings of troops (forces) consists of permanent-readiness formations and military units, as well as the permanent-readiness echelons of reduced-strength formations and military units.
The permanent-readiness category comprises formations and military units capable, in peacetime and wartime, of performing combat tasks without measures to bring them up to strength with mobilisation resources. Today their provision of weaponry and military equipment stands at around 95 per cent, with 90 per cent of it in serviceable condition. These groupings of troops (forces) are assigned the following main tasks:
In peacetime: participation in the defence of the state's national interests, including the conduct of a set of measures to demonstrate military force; participation in peacekeeping operations in accordance with international obligations; assistance to the other troops, military formations and bodies of the Russian Federation in performing the tasks assigned to them in protecting the State Border of the Russian Federation, suppressing internal conflicts and other actions involving the use of armed violence, and mitigating the consequences of accidents, disasters and natural calamities.
In an emergency situation (upon the introduction of a state of emergency): participation in maintaining the state-of-emergency regime, including in areas of internal armed conflict; the elimination of (the delivery of strikes against) illegal armed formations and terrorist groups and organisations, and the destruction of their bases, training centres, depots and lines of communication; the conduct, jointly with the other troops, military formations and bodies, of an active struggle against terrorism, ensuring the security of national maritime shipping and the protection of Russia's airspace.
In wartime: performing tasks to localise (neutralise) possible armed conflicts along all strategic axes, and to repel aggression on a local scale.
A special place in any characterisation of the Armed Forces as an element of the state's military power belongs to their technical equipment and resource provision. At present Russia's Armed Forces are supplied at an appropriate level with the main types of weaponry, military equipment and other materiel. A qualitative analysis, however, shows that the share of modern types of weaponry and military equipment amounts to 20–30%, whereas in the world's modern armies this figure exceeds 70%.
The current state of armaments makes it possible to count on a certain period of time — some 10 to 15 years — during which it will be necessary, on the one hand, to maintain existing systems and, on the other, to develop the available technological groundwork to a level at which, once this period has elapsed, the re-equipment of the army and navy could begin.
Aware of this, the Government of the Russian Federation is devoting its main attention to the direct procurement of new weaponry and military equipment and to the modernisation of the types already in service. This is being done in such a way as to supply the troops not merely with a certain quantity of items of weaponry and military equipment, but to re-equip entire units and subunits at once. Thus, in particular, in 2006 the Armed Forces received a total of 6 intercontinental ballistic missiles, 6 spacecraft and 12 launch vehicles, 31 T-90 tanks (that is, one battalion set), 125 armoured personnel carriers (4 battalion sets), and 3,770 multipurpose vehicles. The Air Force was supplied with 9 aircraft, including a Tu-160 strategic bomber, and 8 new helicopters. In addition, a further 139 tanks, 125 artillery pieces, 104 aircraft and 52 helicopters, as well as other weaponry and military equipment, underwent repair with modernisation.
In the near term, according to the plans of the Government of the Russian Federation, the financing of the development of weaponry and military equipment will proceed along three lines: maintaining the weaponry and special military equipment of permanent-readiness units in a combat-ready condition; completing research and development projects that yield breakthrough results in terms of improving the qualitative characteristics of weaponry; and modernising obsolete weaponry.
Up to 2025, through a phased reduction in the cost of the current upkeep of the Armed Forces, the total outlays on the development, procurement, modernisation and repair of weaponry and military equipment are to amount to around 50–60% of national defence spending.
An important line of military development is the integration of the entire support process of the Armed Forces and the other troops of the Russian Federation through a transition to interdepartmental (interlinked) systems of technical and logistic support (ISTLS) for the Armed Forces, the other troops, military formations and bodies of the Russian Federation.
The principal aim of the transition to ISTLS for the Armed Forces is to increase the effectiveness of the technical and logistic support of all military formations on the basis of integrating the corresponding agencies of the security ministries and departments of the Russian Federation, and also through the joint and rational use of the existing materiel and technical base and infrastructure.
The systems being created will bring together, on a territorial basis, their depot, transport, medical and other infrastructures under the management of a single agency. This will make it possible to provide technical and logistic support to all troops, irrespective of their departmental affiliation and subordination, whether they are stationed within the boundaries of the military district or arriving on its territory to perform various tasks.
Thus the military power of the state constitutes an integral social phenomenon and acts as the most important instrument of policy for ensuring the state's security. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, significant changes have taken place in the content and orientation of military force. At present, military force not only ensures the security of the state but is also drawn into the global peacekeeping process. While striving to deter an aggressor and to be ready to repel his attack, it is at the same time called upon to help improve the international situation and to create a reliable mechanism for blocking wars and military conflicts.
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