General Leonid Ivashov: “Our defense spending cannot be considered overstated”
The US Senate approved the Pentagon budget for 2012-year in the amount of 662 billion dollars. Our opposition insists that Russia spends a lot on defense, although the military budget of the Russian Federation is an order of magnitude less than that of the United States.The situation is commented by the president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, Colonel-General Leonid IVASHOV:
- Our spending on defense can not be considered excessive. Moreover, they are insufficient.
The Liberals have done a lot since the 90s to destroy the material base, the material basis of our defense. Today, they continue to frighten us that we spend a lot of money not on medicine and education, but on the military-industrial complex.
I would stress that if there is no opportunity to ensure the military security of the country, then there will be neither education, nor science, nor medicine, since there will be no country itself. Without exaggeration, I will say: today the question of the existence and survival of the Russian state is seriously facing.
Russia cannot now compete with the United States in terms of the level of the military budget, and this is useless. We have different geostrategic goals. Russia wants only security. Americans seek to conquer, subjugate the whole world. Their strategy is offensive, with a claim to world domination.
But Russia should seriously think about the state of its defense security. We need to understand the trends that are observed in the world - the growth of military spending is going on in almost all countries.
Especially those of our rivals who claim to our resources, want to subordinate our foreign and domestic policy to their interests.
The country's security is the most important function and task of any government. Safety is her main concern.
How much, how little do we spend? Well, given that all 90s have destroyed Russia's defense capabilities, urgent measures are needed to revive its military power.
Requires serious scientific and prognostic studies. It is necessary to identify options for threats, risks to Russia's security and determine measures (and only specialists can do this) how to neutralize these threats.
We need a new concept of our security, taking into account various factors. First of all - foreign policy.
Russia has practically no serious ally. We need to actively form the system of allies.
With China, we must jointly neutralize common threats: to restrain the US nuclear missile potential, their missile defense system. I believe that here China will go for joint actions.
We need allies in other regions. For example, this is India. We need to work in the Middle East, with Iran, with Brazil.
The alliance is not very costly, but very effective.
The second direction is the CIS. We must have a common defense space not only with Belarus, but throughout the entire CSTO space. And it necessarily provides for the coordination of the military-technical program for all countries.
Security policy should be based on a material basis. On the military and military-technical potential of the state. And we must not just allocate money, but there must be a concept for the development of armaments for ten years.
And businesses need to know which types weapons they have to create. A long-term state defense order for specific types of equipment, research and development work is needed.
If we restore our defense-industrial complex, and even skillfully use the defense achievements for civilian innovative programs, our technologies, then we can go on to reduce part of the defense budget.
But only if the military-political situation in the world allows.
Today, however, it is necessary to drastically increase costs in order to restore the former power of our defense complex.
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