Pavel Martynov exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza
Last week, Vladimir Putin conducted the session of the Security Council, where he demanded an improvement of military organization by 2020. (Military organization is a complex of structures for the fulfillment of military security tasks by military measures – the Armed Forces, military units, scientific and production centers working on the defense, and so on).
The Russian authorities have decided that it is time to find adequate responses to traditional and new threats. According to Putin, among them are changing of military conflicts’ character, ways of their starting and holding. Putin says that “the military organization should have all opportunities for preventing a potential aggression against our country, giving a firm response to any attempts of forced pressure or blackmailing, providing security of Russia’s independence, and protecting our citizens.”
Adequate responses should be found to robotized military systems, high-accuracy armament which do not yield to strategic weapon and influences the global balance of forces; militarization of space and cyberspace; mechanisms of special operations, and soft power instruments.
Putin named seven problems.
1: He believes a new corrected edition of Statute on Military Planning should be developed. It concerns construction plans and development of the Armed Forces, other troops and departments for the period since 2016 to 2020, as well as the new Plan of the Country’s Defense. These documents should be presented for adoption no later than 2015.
2: The optimization of combat organization, structure, and dislocation of forces involved into the military organization. The priority is development of the system of aerospace defense. Moreover, it is required that the EMERCOM will get wider capacities for activity in any part of the country and abroad.
3: The technical re-equipment of the Armed Forces will continue.
4: An indexation of the income level of the military and military pensioners will be required in the budget.
5: In two years optimization of the military and scientific complex of the Defense Ministry will take place; the system of promising military studies will be established; new motivations for attracting young specialists to military and scientific centers will be found.
6: The quality of pre-recruiting training should be improved.
And lastly, the growth of information technologies in modern military conflicts. According to Putin, “information attacks are implemented for settlement of military and political goals; while their striking force can be more powerful than common kinds of weapon. We should be prepared and resist threats in the information space effectively, we should improve the security level of the infrastructure.”
Most analysts say that cyber command is necessary for the Russian army, but there are different views on staff and technical potential. It is obvious that Russia falls behind its potential rivals in elementary computer competence. It is also not clear whether the Russian military plans to involve their CSTO allies to cyber-developments.
