Medvedev promises to rearm Russia

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said yesterday that Russia would boost its military spending by 50% over the next three years; he explained it was a necessary move to counter NATO efforts to encircle Russia. The speech came as a surprise to many since just two weeks ago Russia welcomed US intentions to ‘reset’ (albeit with a wrongly-worded button) relations between Russia and the West, Medvedev’s speech, of course, sparked talk of a ‘new arms race’.

But let's not go too overboard on the rhetoric just yet. First, look at the audience; Medvedev was speaking to a gathering of Russia's to generals. This speech came shortly after he announced a plan to trim about 200,000 officers from Russia’s military as part of a reform package, so a rousing “let’s spend on the army” speech is probably what the generals needed to hear to boost morale.

Second, Russia’s military has been under-funded since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991 (and even for sometime before that); it is in desperate need of modernization. Only 10% of the equipment in the Russian military is deemed ‘modern’; even with the jump in spending by 2015 that number will still be just 30%. The Russian Navy will take delivery this year of a frigate named the Yaroslav Mudry, construction of the ship started way back in 1990 - a lack of funds meant it's taken almost 20 years to get the Yaroslav Mudry into service. Russia has announced plans to build several aircraft carriers in the next decade; the one problem is that Russia lacks any shipyards that can build a ship that large. One official talked about contracting with Ukraine to build the ships (they built the Soviet Union’s aircraft carriers), though given the poor state of Russian-Ukrainian relations this seems like a pretty bad idea.

The conflict with Georgia last summer showed the problems faced by the Russian military, the army that went into Georgia had no unmanned drone aircraft, precision-guided weapons, reactive vehicle armor, or any of the other gee-whiz technology routinely fielded by the United States; in terms of gear the army that rolled into South Ossetia was basically the same as the Soviet one that entered Afghanistan in 1979.

So when you read excited pieces in the press about a new arms race or new Cold War, don't get too worked up over it. Yes Russia is planning to spend a lot more to modernize their military, but they need to just to keep up with the top Western armies (the US, UK, France and Germany) and to not fall behind the rising power of China. And also expect to hear a Medvedev much more interested in a partnership with the West when he meets with Barack Obama at the G20 summit two weeks from now.