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Moscow: Vladimir Putin's speech in Munich has provoked a debate in Russia on the state of the country's army. There is no reason to simply reduce his speech to Moscow's complaints against Washington for not observing the letter and spirit of agreements on curbing the arms race. Experts in Russia are analyzing how solid Moscow's arguments are for preventing a new arms race.
In his capacity as first deputy prime minister, former Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov will concern himself, among other things, with upgrading Russia's defense shield. Whatever is said about new Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, who has more experience with money than with the army, he may do well at handling the budget. Russian military expert Ruslan Pukhov believes that the Russian defense budget is not spent wisely. In the last four years it has grown by almost four times to reach $31 billion. One third of this sum has disappeared without a trace.
Serdyukov will have a difficult task maintaining Russia's defense capability at a proper level in the face of the U.S.'s wild military expenditures. Even the Pentagon's new director has spoken about his country's “ballooning” defense budget. During its time in office, the Bush administration has doubled military expenditures, which will reach $620 billion this year.
The Russian president did not go to Munich to shock his audience. He was equipped with facts, one of which was that the U.S. has not had such a huge defense budget since the Korean War.
Moscow knows that the U.S. is currently at war in Iraq and on the verge of invading Iran. But in any case, the Pentagon has enough money to rapidly improve its military hardware. Russian generals are asking the Kremlin questions that not only demand political answers, but also imply their unequivocal assessment of the army's military and technical condition in the face of the American challenge.
Now that arms control treaties are falling to pieces, Russian analysts say that the U.S.'s arms buildup is becoming dangerous and making Russia vulnerable. They are writing about the U.S.'s capability to destroy tanks without combat contact. Radars can barely detect American Stealth aircraft. But Russian experts are primarily concerned about the modernization of U.S. ballistic missiles because it casts doubt upon Russia's capacity to retaliate.
Sergei Ivanov is proud of his country's ground-based Topol-Ms and submarine-based Bulavas, but experts do not consider these missiles 100% failsafe. In the past few years Bulava tests have left much to be desired, and the army has received only 50 Topol-Ms out of the planned 200.
Maybe, if the world situation were different, the Kremlin would not be showing such a touchy reaction to the placement of 10 missiles in Polish silos, or the deployment of an ABM system in the Czech Republic. Bush would probably be able to convince Putin that these systems will serve as protection against rogue states and the growing threat posed by the Middle East. But when it comes to a strategic issue of national security, Russia can only perceive these steps in the vicinity of its borders as posing a threat to itself. Regardless of their friendship, Putin and Bush are bound to heed what their top generals say about a change in the strategic situation. The Munich speech bears this out. It calls for a calm discussion, not the start of a new cold war.
Opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily coincide with those of the editorial board
