Why did Russia adopt an ambitious rearmament plan? - Chinese web portal

July 21 2011 2

The largest Chinese web portal, sino.com, paid attention to the analysis of the latest messages from the Russian and world media about the difficulties of implementing the ambitious Russian plan to purchase new military equipment to replace outdated weapons and equipment.

The portal focuses on the fact that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev urged not to buy “junk” and, if necessary, purchase weapons abroad. Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov reported difficulties in placing defense orders worth 230 billion rubles out of planned 750 billion this year. Designer of the Bulava SLBM Yuri Solomonov said that Russia's ability to create new weapons directly depends on access to modern Western technologies. In his opinion, it is necessary to create an Expert Commission consisting of well-known designers and specialists in the field of armaments, which should identify priority areas in the development and procurement of weapons, and make recommendations to the president of the country. The commander of the ground forces, General Alexander Postnikov, said in April that the technical and technological level of Russian armored vehicles, artillery systems and small arms was significantly inferior to the NATO countries and even to China. This statement caused a storm of indignation in the Russian military industrial complex. American expert Simon Tucker (Simon Tucker) said that over the past ten years, cooperation in the Russian military-industrial complex was "seriously damaged."

Indeed, in recent years, the Russian military industry has not coped well with the supply of arms to the domestic market, the reason for this is the unsatisfactory quality of products and exorbitantly high prices. These are consequences of the recent past, but there are also the fault of the existing leadership of the country. For more than 10 years, Russia has been engaged in economic recovery, while domestic defense purchases remained low, with an emphasis on arms exports, which allowed enterprises to survive. A large number of non-competitive enterprises went bankrupt, many key technologies were lost, in particular, in microelectronics. The Russian president said that he would personally make decisions on the punishment of those guilty of disrupting the state defense order. A large group of high-ranking military and civilian officials were held accountable. Russian media report that the level of corruption in the military sphere is very high.

Why did Russia decide to spare no money on the purchase of new weapons? What is behind this strategic plan? Military observers say that the decision to allocate 10 trillion rubles for the purchase of new weapons in the next 20 years primarily aims to modernize the strategic nuclear forces. Much attention will be paid to the rearmament of the Air Force and Navy. By 2015, the task is to bring the proportion of new weapons to 30%, to 2020, to 70%.

The Russian economy is export-oriented and depends on oil prices. In recent years, the export of raw materials has given Russia a lot of money. But even if in the next 10 years the price of oil will be 100 or even more than US dollars per barrel, plans to spend 65 billion dollars annually to buy new weapons will be a difficult task to implement. Thus, the Russian armed forces will be forced to drastically reduce "everyday expenses", that is, "tighten their belts" for the sake of acquiring new machinery and equipment.

Why does Russia need rearmament? First, Russia will be adopting new strategic nuclear missiles and a number of types of modern weapons with a long range, which will significantly strengthen its military potential. Second, Russia will try to rely more on the military factor in its foreign policy. Third, NATO’s eastward expansion will only increase. Fourth, Russia will be even more active in selling weapons on the world market. The modernization of the armed forces will replace a large number of existing weapons. Consequently, Russia will inevitably increase the amount of exported weapons from the "waste" to earn more currency.