May 12, 2011: Russian president Dmitry Medvedev is not happy with the senior leadership of the Defense Ministry. He is now publicly criticizing them for delays in spending money for new weapons and equipment. The military has been asking for this stuff since the 1990s, and has been quite specific about what it needs. But the Defense Ministry bureaucrats can't seem to get the purchase orders out to cash-starved Russian defense firms. Medvedev says he wants to know who is responsible for this mess, and made mention of how in the bad-old-days, such people would be sent to labor camps. This is not the first time Medvedev has had problems with the Defense Ministry leadership, and the senior officers who came up during the Soviet days.  The message does not appear to be getting through.

Russia's attempts to revive, reform and rebuild its armed forces keeps running into problems. There has been progress, but new problems keep appearing. Russia has cut its armed forces twelve percent (to about a million troops) in the last three years, and received billions of dollars for new equipment. But a lot of that money has still not been spent. Military bases are being refurbished, with special attention paid to housing for the families of career troops. Yet Medvedev keeps getting reports that the housing is often shoddy, and Defense Ministry corruption is blamed. The government is trying to make good on its pledge to rebuild the armed forces. All this is part of an effort to save the Russian armed forces, especially the glorious, Soviet era "Red Army." But as Medvedev has noted, things aren't going so well.

The senior political leadership is finding out that some problems are not getting fixed simply by applying more money. Efforts to purge the forces of over 100,000 unneeded (and not very effective) officers is running into stiff resistance. The senior generals and admirals want to at least let these men remain until they reach retirement age, and leave with dignity, rather than being, in effect, fired. Technically, the politicians could push this purge through. But this would make a lot of senior officers, including bright ones that the country really needs, very angry. So there's something of a standoff, despite the corruption that still persists among officers, especially those the government wants to get rid of. Medvedev now proposes using force, and prosecution, to move things along.

Meanwhile, attempts to improve the quality of the lower ranking troops is running into one problem after another. Soviet era habits and customs leave the troops surly, unresponsive and not very effective in combat. This is overcome by having some elite units (with higher pay and better leadership). But this still leaves most of the troops wallowing in the past. The government is upgrading training and pay for NCOs and officers, but this will take a decade to have any meaningful effect, and might even fail. Despite all that, the reform efforts press on.

Two years ago, former Russian president, and current prime minister, Vladimir Putin, announced that, despite the current recession, and low oil prices, Russia would continue the big spending begun two years earlier, to rebuild the armed forces. This was a popular move, and considered necessary for "restoring Russia's place in the world" (becoming a superpower again), and making the "Red Army" a feared force once more. But the effort often doesn't get past the press releases.

Russia can't become a superpower again, because, while all those nuclear weapons are great for defending the country, you need non-nuclear forces to throw your weight around. Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, Russia has lost over 90 percent of its non-nuclear (troops, ships, aircraft) combat power. It was disarmament by starvation (massive cuts in the defense budget) and neglect (the military leadership tried to hold on to more equipment than they could afford to maintain or operate, making the situation worse.) Digging out of the hole is going to cost over half a trillion dollars and over a decade of effort. To that end, the government increased the annual defense budget to $38 billion four years ago, and is spending over $25 billion a year (through most of this decade) to rebuild the conventional forces. It takes time to rebuild fleets and armies.

The Russian government has tallied up the costs of modernizing their aging military forces equipment and concluded that it will total about $700 billion. To pay for this, the military wants another 1.5 percent of GDP, meaning 5 percent of GDP will be devoted to defense. The military may get it, if Medvedev can figure out how to make them spend it.

This modernization plan has been underway for most of the last decade, as the government realized it had to do something about rapidly aging military equipment. In many cases, these purchases are essential, because buying new gear basically halted (with a few exceptions, like ballistic missiles) during the 1990s. So most of the armed forces are still using Cold War era gear manufactured in the 1970s and 80s. Fortunately, even older (50s and 60s era) equipment was junked as the armed forces shrank 80 percent in the 1990s.

According to the new government plan, in the next decade, at least a third of current gear will be replaced, and in some categories (usually high tech), over 80 percent. President Dmitry Medvedev is going around giving speeches to the troops, featuring these promises. If the government does not deliver, morale will take a big hit. This will happen quickly in the navy, for they have been told that more ships, will spend more time at sea, and very soon. Existing ships can't handle that kind of workload. Thus there is some grounds for optimism in the fleet, for in the last five years, the air force has resumed long range air patrols over areas off the Russian coast, which have not seen Russian navy or air force activity in over a decade. Since 1991, Russian warships have spent most of their time tied up at dock, meaning an entire generation of sailors have little experience at sea. This spells defeat in wartime, and the sailors, especially the senior commanders, know it. Medvedev is threatening to fire some high level people, in part, to maintain morale among the long-suffering troops.

Back during the Cold War (1947-91), the armed forces had five times as many troops (over five million) and dibs on over ten percent of the national GNP (no one is sure of the exact amount, as the communists were not big fans of accountants and accurate financial reporting.) Currently, Russia is playing by West European rules when it comes to military spending, meaning no more than 3-4 percent of GDP going to the military. With a $1.7 trillion dollar economy, growing at 7 percent a year, the generals can expect a lot more cash to work with. But most of this money is going to replace Cold War era weapons, which are now considered out-of-date and of limited usefulness.