to all hegemonial cycle and global conflict watchers

kind regards arno tausch (stressing, as always, that the transmission of
such materials does not in any way reflect an opinion on the part of my
government)


> ----------
> Von:  alert@stratfor.com[SMTP:alert@stratfor.com]
> Gesendet:     Montag, 17. Juli 2000 06:12
> An:   redalert@stratfor.com
> Betreff:      Russia - Defense
> 
> Stratfor.com's Weekly Analysis - 17 July 2000
> __________________________________________
> Know your world.
> 
> Beyond Beijing: The Struggle for Power Moves to the Regions
> http://www.stratfor.com/asia/commentary/0007142327.htm
> 
> Africa's Power Politics
> http://www.stratfor.com/MEAF/commentary/0007142310.htm
> 
> A Tale of Two Republics
> http://www.stratfor.com/CIS/commentary/0007142253.htm
> _________________________________________
> 
> Superpower vs. Great Power: Inside the Russian Defense Debate
> 
> Summary
> 
> A critical debate inside the Russian defense establishment has
> burst into public view. Moscow's military and civilian leaders are
> weighing continued dependence on nuclear weapons versus a new
> conventional focus. Russia is at a crossroads, forced to choose
> between a global role and a regional one. At stake are the future
> of Russian national security and the fledgling presidency of
> Vladimir Putin.
> 
> Analysis
> 
> Last week, a critical debate that had raged inside the Russian
> defense establishment broke into public view. Russian Chief of
> Staff Anatoly Kvashnin recommended that Russia's strategic nuclear
> force - long a separate branch of the military - be absorbed into
> one of the other branches of the armed forces. He also proposed
> that spending on nuclear forces be instead directed toward
> conventional forces.
> 
> On Friday, Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev publicly blasted
> Kvashnin's arguments, calling them a "crime against Russia and just
> plain madness." President Vladimir Putin was forced to intervene.
> Interestingly, he did not intervene on either side; instead, he
> demanded that the public battling cease. But clearly, the private
> battle will continue.
> 
> In a sense, the mere fact that the subject is being debated
> represents a major victory for the Russian president. Post-Soviet
> Russia has not had a coherent national security policy. Former
> President Boris Yeltsin neglected national security on the premise
> that building the Russian economy, with the bricks and mortar of
> Western investment, took priority. It followed that political and
> military confrontation with the West was essential. Both
> deliberation and investment in national security were deemed
> counter-productive and anachronistic.
> ________________________________________________________________
> Would you like to see full text?
> http://www.stratfor.com/SERVICES/giu2000/071700.ASP
> ___________________________________________________________________
> 
> Yet, Russia under Yeltsin grew not only poor but also powerless. In
> Kosovo and elsewhere, the West has treated Russian national
> security with an indifference bordering on contempt. The explosive
> debate in Moscow indicates that the new Russian president is
> succeeding in reviving the notion that Russia requires a national
> security policy.
> 
> The outcome of this debate will define not just policy, but how
> Russia views its place in the world. Nuclear weapons constitute
> less an instrument of war than a measure of Russia's self-image.
> The debate over them and the way that Moscow constitutes its forces
> in the coming years will reflect whether Russia intends only to be
> a great power or whether it aspires, again, to the status of
> superpower.
> 
> The definition of each is more complex than it seems at first
> blush. The Soviet Union saw itself as a superpower. But unlike the
> American definition - projecting power globally - the Soviet Union
> relied instead on covert operations in support of wars of national
> liberation to influence events.
> 
> Another definition of superpower lies in the ability to strike
> globally. Although the Soviets had nuclear weapons during the
> 1950s, they did not have an intercontinental delivery system until
> the mid-1960s. Nor did they have facilities close enough to the
> United States for basing intermediate range ballistic missiles and
> bombers. The United States, however, could strike both from the
> continental United States and from bases surrounding the Soviets.
> One half of the debate in Moscow carries at least faint echoes of
> this bygone era.
> 
> Himself a career missile officer, Sergeyev certainly recalls the
> era of the big bluff, during the 1950s and early 1960s, when the
> Soviets tried to convince the world that they had the ability to
> annihilate the United States when, in fact, they had nothing of the
> sort. Sergeyev participated in the process where the Soviets first
> gained the ability to strike and then achieved parity with the
> United States. For Sergeyev, this was and remains the definition of
> a superpower. Giving up ground so painstakingly won is unthinkable.
> _______________________________________________________________
> 
> For more on Russia, see:
> http://www.stratfor.com/CIS/countries/Russia/default.htm
> __________________________________________________________________
> 
> Sergeyev has a case. Washington must calculate the potential threat
> posed by those weapons. As important, the mere threat of use can be
> a wedge between the United States and its allies. So long as it
> enjoys formal nuclear parity Russia can at least lay claim to being
> a superpower. Without these forces, Russia is just another vast,
> Third World country.
> 
> Kvashnin, on the other hand, is confronting Russia's immediate
> geopolitical requirements. These consist of four elements:
> 
> 1. The territorial integrity of the Russian Federation must remain
> under the control of Moscow. This means preventing secessionist
> tendencies in places like Chechnya. Russia must also be in a
> position to defend its frontiers and territorial waters.
> 
> 2. Moscow must insist on the neutrality of the rest of the former
> Soviet Union. Russia cannot afford to have NATO extend its
> membership to the Baltics or Ukraine. Nor can Central Asia fall
> under Western or Chinese influence.
> 
> 3. Russia must have military forces sufficient to influence the
> calculation of NATO, as well as the strategies of the former Soviet
> republics. Beyond a buffer zone, Russia must work to create a
> sphere of influence throughout the former Soviet Union and as far
> away as Eastern Europe. Forces must be available both to threaten
> operations and to execute them
> 
> 4. Russia must create a force capable of the first two missions
> within the constraints of the Russian economy. This is actually a
> more complex issue than it appears, since defense spending can
> dramatically stimulate economic growth as well as drain resources.
> Nevertheless, in the immediate future, there are limits to what
> Russia can do.
> 
> Ultimately, Kvashnin is arguing for a great power strategy rather
> than a superpower strategy. Instead of projecting power globally,
> he seeks the ability to project power regionally. A great power can
> defend itself from all neighbors and project power along its
> frontiers and even, to some extent beyond. Germany and China are
> both examples of great powers.
> 
> Kvashnin's faction is also arguing that nuclear weapons are, in
> general, irrelevant to the actual correlation of forces. The
> ability to launch a first strike against the United States is
> devoid of meaning, since there is no political circumstance under
> which such a strike would be meaningful. Deterring Washington from
> a first strike is similarly meaningless. In addition, deterrence
> does not require massive capability. A much smaller force, on the
> scale of France's or Israel's, is sufficient.
> 
> But Kvashnin's argument is really rooted in economics. If he is
> smart as this debate unfolds, he can make the economic argument in
> two ways. The first is to argue that Russia cannot afford
> everything; decision makers must choose the essential strategy,
> influencing regional events.
> 
> The second approach is to point out the antiquated nature of
> nuclear forces: These are technologies that matured more than a
> generation ago. Sustaining them doesn't help Russia's contemporary
> economy. But spending money on a modern conventional force would
> involve developing new technologies in areas like communications,
> computing and logistics, all of which would have a major
> stimulating effect on the Russian economy. Both the American and
> Israeli economies, for example, have been stirred by defense
> technologies.
> 
> In this debate, Kvashnin holds all the cards, and Putin's
> sympathies probably lie with him. Kvashnin is essentially making
> the same argument that Yuri Andropov and Marshall Ogarkov made in
> the 1980s; Putin is their intellectual and political heir. The
> president also shut down the debate after Sergeyev went public -
> not when Kvashnin did. The president is setting the stage for a
> great power strategy.
> 
> Cutting back on the cost of pretending to be a superpower makes
> sense, but Sergeyev has the upper hand both psychologically and
> emotionally. For older Russians nuclear parity represented an
> essential achievement. Whatever else is said about the Soviet
> Union, it instilled Russians with great pride, particularly in
> their missiles and rockets. That pride is the emotional link
> between Russia and its superpower pretenses.
> 
> Abandonment means breaking the last link with greatness - and
> opening a dangerous window into the future. Russia, after all, is
> still an economic cripple. Putin would be open to the charge of
> having finally turned Russia into a Third World nation.
> 
> In office only a few months, Putin will find himself in a tough
> spot in this debate. He needs to move on to a regional great power
> strategy. But he does so only by placing himself at risk. Indeed,
> one of the themes of the public debate can be found in Sergeyev
> accusing Kvashnin of serving U.S. interests. Endorsing Kvashnin
> means that Putin will severely weaken his power base among
> nationalists. This is a loss the Russian president cannot afford.
> 
> So far, Putin has done the one thing he could: He told everyone to
> shut up. This is only a political holding action, though. The
> Russian leader can contain the debate behind closed doors, but he
> can't end it there. If Putin does nothing, Sergeyev wins by
> default. If the president acts in favor of Kvashnin, the power base
> will crumble.
> 
> As a result, Putin is likely to try to have it both ways: contain
> the debate and then try to quietly edge toward Kvashnin's solution.
> The president, as a result, will run the risk of temporarily trying
> to pursue both strategies in an economy that can't really quite
> afford one. If that happens, the only solution will be to cut
> investment in the civilian sector, focus on defense and hope for
> spin-offs. It will also mean the heavy nationalization of the
> economy as defense expenditures soar. This is an opportunity for
> half-measures where clear-cut decisions will be required.
> 
> But this is one of the key issues that will define both Putin's
> presidency and Russia's future. Watching him solve this problem -
> or not solve it, as the case may be - will tell us a great deal.
> 
> _______________________________________________________________
> 
> For more on the CIS & Russia, see:
> http://www.stratfor.com/CIS/default.htm
> __________________________________________________________________
> 
> 
> (c) 2000 Stratfor, Inc.
> _______________________________________________
> SUBSCRIBE to the free, daily Global Intelligence Update. Click on
> http://www.stratfor.com/services/giu/subscribe.asp
> UNSUBSCRIBE by clicking on
> http://www.stratfor.com/services/giu/subscribe.asp
> _______________________________________________
> Stratfor.com
> 504 Lavaca, Suite 1100 Austin, TX 78701
> Phone: 512-583-5000 Fax: 512-583-5025
> Internet: http://www.stratfor.com/
> Email: info@stratfor.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>       
>