RUSSIAN DEFENSE LEGISLATION AND RUSSIAN DEMOCRACY

Stephen J. Blank

August 17, 1995
LL

*******

The views expressed in this report are those of the author

and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of

the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the

U.S. Government. This report is cleared for public release;

distribution is unlimited.

*******

Comments pertaining to this report are invited and should be

forwarded to: Director, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army

War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA 17013-5050. Comments also may

be conveyed directly to the author by calling commercial (717)

245-4085 or DSN 242-4085.
LLL

FOREWORD

As recent events demonstrate, Russia's political system has

yet to stabilize. This is particularly the case with civilmilitary relations for, as the course of the Chechnya invasion

reveals, control by the government over the military is erratic

and the military is all too often politicized. In this vein,

legislation on civilian control of the military and on

peacemaking operations in Russia and the Commonwealth of

Independent States (CIS) is a particularly important barometer of

the course of Russia's democratization and stabilization.

In this study, Dr. Stephen Blank dissects that legislation

and finds that it reflects and contributes to the drift away from

democratic rule towards a form of presidential power that is

unaccountable to either legal or parliamentary institutions.

Furthermore, these laws will also politicize the military still

further and promote the use of Russian armed forces in so- called

peacemaking operations that actually contribute to Moscow's

openly proclaimed program to reintegrate the CIS around it.

Therefore, these draft laws should arouse considerable concern

among those charged with, or interested in, monitoring Russia's

troubled evolution to democracy.

RICHARD H. WITHERSPOON

Colonel, U.S. Army

Director, Strategic Studies

 Institute
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SUMMARY

Since the Russian Federation is the product of the coups of

August 1991 and September-October 1993, control over the military

is crucial for its survival. Many analysts have looked at issues

of civilian control over the military in Russia primarily from

the military's side. For them the main question then becomes the

loyalty of the armed forces to the government. This monograph

takes a different tack and examines the question from the vantage

point of state policy towards the military. Although that policy

is evolving over time, recent draft laws on defense and

peacemaking indicate the Yeltsin Administration's intention to

formalize a particular type of relationship with the various

types of armed forces in Russia: army, navy, air forces, Ministry

of Interior (MVD) forces (whose function is internal policing and

pacification of territories inside the Russian Federation),

Border Troops (whose function is to guard the old Soviet borders

against military operations, e.g., from Afghanistan into

Tadzhikistan), etc.

Therefore this essay analyzes in detail the provisions of

these draft laws that seek to regulate and formalize the manner

in which the state undertakes different kinds of peace operations

and the general structure and hierarchy of the country's defense

system. These laws also should provide for the pattern of the

separation and distribution of powers between the executive and

legislative branches with regard to military issues. The

conclusions emerging from the body of these draft laws are

disquieting.

Essentially, these laws reserve much, if not all discretion

to the President and his personal office and remove both the

President and the Ministry of Defense from effective, democratic,

parliamentary accountability, scrutiny, and control. The Draft

Law on Peacemaking allows Yeltsin to start peace operations at

home or abroad without consulting either house of Parliament and

to obtain funding and authorization for deployment of troops

without Parliament, yet does not require him to obtain the

approval of the UN for such actions outside Russia.

At home the war in Chechnya that began without any

notification of Parliament (even in violation of Russia's own

Federation Law and the existing Law on Defense) similarly betrays
Y

an indifference to the rule of law and control over military

operations that is very disturbing. Especially in view of the

possibility for "mission creep" to affect so-called peace

operations that then become protracted campaigns, it is all too

likely that Russia could blunder into a long-term war without any

parliamentary examination of or control over those events.

The Draft Law on Defense shares the same problems by

exempting Yeltsin from active parliamentary scrutiny over defense

policy. For instance, there are loopholes in this law that

suggest Yeltsin can commit forces to preventive war and even to a

launch on warning posture without first consulting with

Parliament. Similarly there are references to mobilization and to

conscription that evoke the spirit of the old Soviet military

economy and military manpower system which held the Soviet

Union's economy and manpower in a permanently mobilized readiness

for war.

Likewise, this law contemplates a reorganization of the

defense establishment that goes a long way towards further

politicization of the armed forces under Yeltsin. There are

implications in this law and in recently announced reform plans

that the Ministry of Defense can or will be led by a civilian and

that its functions will be confined to raising, training, and

supplying troops. Operational control will then devolve on the

General Staff, whose Chief will be directly accountable to

Yeltsin and undoubtedly chosen for his loyalty. But this

reorganization, if it occurs, will not strengthen parliamentary

control over the military, which will be effective only under

Yeltsin's control.

As a result, these laws contribute to the broader trend in

Russian politics of 1993-95 that effectively places the President

and his agents above the law and beyond legal or parliamentary

accountability. The draft laws considered here are part of a

broader trend towards what scholars call presidentialism, a

system denoting a President who is virtually unencumbered by the

division of and separation of powers and by a system of checks

and balances. Accordingly, Russian legislation has empowered

Yeltsin to centralize numerous programs and policies in his own

office, not that of the regular government. These decrees allow

him to combine executive and legislative power and control all

governmental activity, e.g., all state spending, without
YL

referring to the Parliament. Recent laws also empower the

intelligence services to reunite foreign and domestic

intelligence and plant informers in government offices, just as

the KGB did.

In short, these draft laws on defense and peacemaking are

part of the broader stream of decrees, laws, and legislation that

are pushing Russia away from democratic forms of governance and

towards a politicized and unaccountable relationship between the

President and the armed forces. The main trend in these laws is

to establish the politicization and division of the various armed

forces so that they cannot constitute a threat to Yeltsin and are

personally under his direction. But the politicization of the

armed forces and their subordination to an authoritarian

leadership is generally a harbinger of antidemocratic, unstable,

and even aggressive regimes. Therefore a close study of these

laws can only lead one to conclude that in civil-military affairs

Russia appears to be regressing from democracy to earlier forms

of governance. If so, we face a most uncertain future with regard

to Russia's internal constitution and external policies.
YLL

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

STEPHEN J. BLANK is the Douglas MacArthur Professor of Research

at the U.S. Army War College and has been an Associate Professor

of Russian/Soviet Affairs at the Strategic Studies Institute

since 1989. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Blank was Associate

Professor for Soviet Studies at the Center for Aerospace

Doctrine, Research, and Education of Air University at Maxwell

Air Force Base. Dr. Blank's M.A. and Ph.D. are in Russian history

from the University of Chicago. He has published numerous

articles on Soviet/Russian military and foreign policies, notably

in the Third World, and is the author of The Sorcerer as

Apprentice: Stalin's Commissariat of Nationalities, 1917-1924

(Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994).


RUSSIAN DEFENSE LEGISLATION AND RUSSIAN DEMOCRACY

Introduction.

The Russian Federation is a child of armed coups: the failed

Soviet coup of August 1991 and the successful anti-parliamentary

coup of September-October 1993 by President Boris Yeltsin. Issues

of civilian control over the armed forces naturally acquire a

special urgency in such circumstances, particularly as the

Russian state remains a very insecure and only partly democratic

structure. For the most part the many analyses of civil-military

issues in Russia have focused on the question of the military's

loyalty to the Yeltsin government, not governmental policy

towards the military.1

 Whether or not they were optimistic about

the future course of those relations, these analyses largely

sidestepped the issue of the military policy of the civilian

authorities, i.e., Yeltsin's military policies since 1991.

While that subject merits an extensive analysis in its own

right, Russia's aggressiveness in Chechnya and throughout the CIS

suggests that Yeltsin's military policy is an evolving one, so it

might best be analyzed by examining the draft laws on defense and

peacemaking that Yeltsin is currently proposing. After all, the

purpose of such legislation is to formalize a civil-military

relationship under his authority. By focusing on these laws we

can see the other side of the equation, i.e., the civilian

government's views on control of the armed forces, and assess

what the trends for the future are.

Current Issues in Civil Military Relations.

In the wake of the 1991 and 1993 coups in Moscow, U.S.

analysts have cited the loyalty of the Russian military to

President Boris Yeltsin and its politicization as factors

contributing to Russia's democratization.2 However, today we see

that this perspective is seriously flawed and even fundamentally

at variance with current trends in civil-military relations. The

Chechnya invasion of December 1994 illustrated how deeply flawed

are Russia's mechanisms of civilian control and defense

policymaking. More recently, in June 1995 when Chechen terrorists

seized Russian hostages at Budyonnovsk and the Russian forces'

botched two efforts to liberate the prisoners by force, this

failure revealed continuing deficiencies in civil-military


relations. Press reports indicated that both operations were

carried out with no plan or orders from Moscow or headquarters in

Chechnya and were undertaken in response to the emotional impact

on the soldiers of the prisoners' crying. As The New York Times

reporter observed, "If true, that is itself a remarkable instance

of the general lack of coordination and control of the Russian

military throughout the war."3

Examining these issues, therefore, should provide a better

grasp of the troubled civil-military relationship and its

negative repercussions for a democratic, less militarized, and

less imperial Russian polity. In 1994 President Boris Yeltsin

submitted to the Parliament draft legislation on defense and

peacemaking. Still before the Duma, these proposed laws

illuminate Yeltsin's and the executive branch's thinking about

these vital issues.

The current situation is particularly disquieting. Chechnya

indicates that the policy process has been restricted to a few of

Yeltsin's cronies who are either the victims of systematic

deception or who have systematically deceived him. As Otto

Latsis, a member of Yeltsin's consultative committee remarked,

"The problem is not so much that decision-making procedures have

been breached, but that there are no procedures at all."4

The recent military legislation is no less disturbing. These

types of laws are, or should be, cornerstones of effective

constitutional governance in all states. To the extent that they

permit the executive to use military forces at home or abroad

without legislative consent, they foster an antidemocratic trend.

This happened in Chechnya where there was no consultation with

Parliament nor an invocation of a state of emergency. Only under

a state of emergency would it be permissible to deploy the troops

and to do so in Russia proper might still be legally moot.5

Yeltsin also violated his own law on Federation as well as the

1992 Law on Defense and flouted the 1993 constitution (which

itself was probably not approved by a majority as was revealed in

late 1994). If future adventures are to be ruled out and genuine

civilian control established, effective legal safeguards are

necessary. A detailed examination of these laws follows.

General Observations.


Unfortunately the general character of these laws highlights

a negative, antidemocratic trend in military legislation and

policy. The Duma's overall evaluation of the Draft Law on Defense

observes that the provisions on the armed forces' structure and

objectives are never really confirmed by legislation, "and they

are left hostage in their entirety to executive structures of

government."6

 Furthermore, they confirm the opinions voiced by

Pavel Felgengauer, Russia's most well-known defense

correspondent, that Yeltsin's notion of civilian control is that

he alone controls the armed forces lest someone else develop a

power base.7

 Yeltsin's "civilian" control is to be exercised by

direct personal and vertical subordination on the basis of

political loyalty, not subordination by statute.8

The Draft Law on Peacemaking.

This law will probably reopen controversy between the

executive and Parliament over control of troops, funding, and

assigning troops to theaters of conflict. It will not allay

foreign suspicions regarding Russian peacemaking and its aims;

rather, it will probably contribute to rising tensions. It

renounces the explicit need for any UN sanction to intervene.

While the law claims Russia will only intervene under recognized

international standards, in fact Russia has done so according to

its own criteria and frequently has shown its disregard for the

sovereignty of CIS members. Nowhere does the law state that

Russia will intervene only if asked from abroad or by UN

invitation. Instead, the Law on Defense (discussed later)

explicitly reserves to Russia the power to decide these issues.

Paragraph 2 of the law gives the President the right to

ratify or establish the instructions to Russia's representatives

for examining the question of such interventions at the

suggestion of the Ministry of Defense or Ministry of Foreign

Affairs. Ratification here apparently implies that these

ministries could draw up those instructions for the President's

consideration. The draft law allows only that the instructions

will be sent in timely fashion to the Federation Council and the

Duma. No preceding legislative authorization is required for

sending troops abroad or for conducting operations. Troops can be

committed by executive order alone. Neither is there an

opportunity for open parliamentary or public debate of any

intervention before it takes place.


However, there is an interesting omission in this law. It

says nothing about MVD forces. Their CINC, MG Anatoly S. Kulikov,

admits that those forces are carrying out various kinds of peace

operations inside Russia and are thus duplicating the functions

of the regular armed forces. Since Kulikov (and presumably the

government as well) maintains that these operations are similar

to peacekeeping as defined by the UN, "namely, carrying out

operations with an international force but without applying the

pressure of force," Yeltsin can use those forces at home without

reference to anything in this law or the Draft Law on Defense

discussed below.9

Paragraph 3 repeats this procedure regarding the monitoring

of ceasefires or "contract volunteer forces" (i.e., volunteers

who are paid by contract with the armed forces) who conduct a

wide range of peacemaking activities. Again, only presidential

authorization is needed and no parliamentary debate, funding, or

authorization is called for or necessary.

According to Paragraph 4, only the Federation Council, i.e.,

not the Duma, legislates, at the President's proposal. It directs

the mobilization and deployment of troops on a volunteer basis

for participation in peace operations "not connected with the

application of the necessary measures and use of the military

forces." That phrase exempts the actual conduct of operations

from any review and freezes out both houses of Parliament (the

Duma and the Federation Council). The Council can legislate only

the term of service and order of replacement, servicemen's

guarantees and pay, and the type and composition of military

formations. It has no input into strategic or operational

questions. Neither must the MOD account to Parliament or report

to it on any of these issues.

Paragraph 5 states that the government, at the MFA's

proposal, directs other state organs to send civilian personnel

to participate in peacemaking operations but again omits the

legislature. Without this legislation the MFA arguably would not

have the power to compel assent from other ministries and state

organs, a sign of the low standing of the MFA in security policy.

While Yeltsin has recently sought to remedy the weakness of the

MFA by legislation, the actual workings of the government, not

laws on the books, will decide the issue of the MFA's real


power.9

Paragraph 6 follows the same procedure for authorizing

material-technical support to troops conducting these operations.

Here again Parliament is left out so the government need not ask

it for fiscal authorization or to authorize service by other,

nonmilitary officials. These clauses deprive the Duma of fiscal

and political control over these operations.

Paragraph 7 discusses operations established by the UN under

Article 42 of its charter, which regulates the establishment of

peace operations. If the Security Council invokes Article 42 to

conduct a peacekeeping or other operation, the President or the

executive branch of the government, acting at his charge,

negotiates and subscribes, on the basis of Article 43 of the

Charter, to a special agreement with the Security Council. This

accord defines the number, type, degree of preparation of forces,

their general deployment, and the means of their service and

support, including the right of departure under the Security

Council's instruction. Since the Parliament is already excluded

from the action, this clause means, inter alia, that the

President or the MFA can negotiate an agreement with the UN as a

member of the Security Council and commit troops without any

public discussion of the merits of the issue.

Furthermore, in the event of an Article 51 situation where

the necessary means, operations, and forces are called for by the

right of states to act in their self-defense or collective selfdefense, then the President consults with treaty partners and

carries out an agreement with them to propose to the Federation

Council and the Duma the use of Russian forces to act abroad on

behalf of international peace and security. The Duma's inclusion

is apparently to avoid a situation of going to war without public

support. But in 1994, Yeltsin did not consult the Duma formally

before sending peacekeeping forces to Yugoslavia at the Serbian

government's request.

Therefore this language implies that under Articles 41-43

(Chapter VII) of the UN Charter, no parliamentary approval is

needed. Absent an international crisis, as appropriate to Article

51, without parliamentary discussion Yeltsin could justify any

CIS "peace operation" under Articles 41-43, even without UN

support, as in Yugoslavia. At the same time, any UN approval of


Russian participation in peace operations need not go to

Parliament. Similarly, Yeltsin can invoke Article 51 and bypass

both the UN and Parliament. As it is, Russian officials claim

they need no UN sanction for their current peacemaking operations

or for Chechnya since it is part of Russia. So in both cases,

abroad and at home, the Russian ruling elite has exploited the UN

charter to freeze out the UN and the Parliament. But this

paragraph could explain why Russia seeks that UN sanction in

current operations and why it also seeks regional status for the

CIS. Those two dispensations would emancipate the government from

accountability to Parliament and the UN and place it in a

position transcending legislative and UN authority.

This paragraph also implicitly reinforces the distinction

between the near abroad which is not considered to fall under

Article 41-43 where the UN may intervene in a crisis, and other,

more distant states. Under Article 51, the self-defense clause,

Russia can bypass the whole UN structure and create a

straightforward "alliance" or collective security justification

as in the Tashkent Treaty of 1992. This paragraph gives the

government tremendous flexibility at home or abroad in justifying

any contingency in terms of either Articles 41-43 or 51.

Paragraph 8 repeats the earlier process in Paragraph 1-2.

Here it states that the Federation Council–not the Duma–takes

resolutions on the staffing (i.e., mobilization and/or

deployment) of troops for either Article 41-43 or Article 51

interventions, or collective self-defense as under that clause.

Once again the lower house is excluded and the Federation

Council, which is much more responsive to the executive, is

empowered to act alone. But since previous paragraphs have

excluded it too and given the government great latitude or

freedom of action in deciding how to proceed, the Federation

Council can also be bypassed, as happened in Chechnya.

Paragraph 8 continues by stating that all international

treaties or accords calling for the possible use of Russian

military or civilian personnel in peacemaking operations are

submitted to the Federation Council for ratification. But once a

treaty is ratified, any individual intervention, especially in

the "near abroad", could be carried out without seeking

parliamentary authorization. The treaty serves as a "functional

equivalent" of an open-ended authority to act with troops, if


need be. This, one may recall, is the justification that the

Johnson administration used for Vietnam to bypass congressional

examination of the facts on the ground. The Chechnya war, if it

continues, could, in its own way, arouse a considerable public

opposition that would shake the status quo.10 The terrorist

episode in Budyonnovsk indicates that protracted war with

terrorist operations against Russians is a real threat and the

public dismay it aroused is no less ominous.

Paragraph 10 refers to the Russian Federation's preparations

to equip, train, call up, and prepare the military- technical

base for peacemaking operations and forces. Once again it is

silent on any submission of a fiscal authorization to the

Parliament for expenses incurred by an unforeseen operation.

Paragraph 11 takes up the question of expenses incurred by

Russia in any UN operation in which it participates. It observes

that if the expenses surpass those allocated for that purpose in

the Federation budget, then the additional funds must be raised,

but only in conjunction with a special federal law for this

purpose. But that does not necessarily mean going to Parliament

since the text omits any mention of it. In that case, one needs

to refer to the constitution and laws in practice concerning

special allocations beyond the budget. Since Yeltsin has governed

by decree and now controls the State Bank and all government

expenditures, he could simply print the money, or decree that

funding be authorized for the UN operation.

Finally, the MFA must report to the government and to the

Federation Council no less than once a year about Russian

participation in such operations. But again the Duma is excluded

and there is no a priori need to report on any individual

operation while it occurs. Nor is there any mention that

Parliament can compel an interrogation or hearing, or report of

the MFA or any other institutions in that event. Furthermore the

MOD, Ministry of Interior (MVD), and the intelligence agencies do

not have to report to Parliament at all. The law's conspicuous

silence on these agencies' obligations and accountability towards

Parliament, either collectively or to individual chambers,

confirms its antidemocratic nature. This is particularly sinister

when one realizes that the MOD has been the agency that has taken

the lead on peacemaking operations, and the intelligence

organizations and MVD have either taken part in those military


operations or launched coups in Chechnya and Azerbaidzhan to

unseat those regimes and replace them with pro-Russian ones. For

these reasons this law does little to calm the fears that Russian

peacemaking operations have aroused with regard to the

accountability of the executive to Parliament or of the military

to civilian authority. Where the MOD and the intelligence

agencies are only accountable to Yeltsin for their activities,

they are effectively free from any true institutional control.

Instead, they become, like their Tsarist forebears, the

President's personal instruments.

The Draft Law on Defense.

Whereas the Law on Peacemaking pertains to one specific type

of military activity, this law naturally embraces the whole of

military organization and all kinds of military activities.

Therefore its purview and legislative scope is much greater, as

is its influence and impact upon all defense policy. This draft

law is crucial to many future aspects of Russian military policy

and Russia's overall democratization. For that reason this law's

language arouses great concern. It magnifies the Law on

Peacemaking's tendency to bypass the legislature and concentrate

exclusive power and discretion–free from any accountability–in

the office of the President.

This trend reflects a continuing quasi-Tsarist legal

tradition towards personalism. It enforces a direct vertical

subordination to the chief executive be he President, Tsar, or

"Vozhd" (Leader–Stalin's title). This trend also personalizes

defense policy and management of the main offices of the defense

establishment by removing them from any effective institutional

or legislative control other than the pleasure of the President.

Accordingly, it becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible,

to develop a nonpartisan defense establishment and institutional

base for the Chief of Staff, the military service, geographical

commands, and the defense minister. Personalism undermines the

whole concept of a nonpartisan, unpoliticized, loyal military

establishment under civilian control. And this warning applies

even if the Defense Minister and the president are civilians,

because the principles of subordination to the law,

accountability to legitimate legal authorities, and

noninvolvement in partisan politics would be undermined by such a

politicization of the military. The consequences of this trend


are still only partly visible. The Chechnya adventure is its

major legacy to date. However, if this law passes Parliament in

its present form, it will legalize those personalist and

politicizing trends and undo Russian democracy.

The preamble to the law contains the phrase "Obshchie

Strukturu i Sostav Vooruzhennykh Sil' Rossiiskoi Federatsii . .

." (general structure and composition of the armed forces of the

Russian Federation) and adds it to the list of organizations or

topics covered in the law and is a change from the old law which

had the word "Organizatsiiu" in place of "Sostav". This latter

word is not only a purer Russian word, it suggests the notion of

the law defining the composition and structure of the defense

establishment and armed forces. Clearly the implication is that

the armed forces' actual composition is now an important issue.

One may speculate why that is, but it might be connected

with paramilitary formations like the Cossacks and questions of

conscription vs. professionals, and perhaps difficulties

associated with the recasting of the forces to make them more

mobile. It may also reflect the attempt to take the Border Troops

away from their own institution and subject them to the MOD, but

that cannot be definitively established. Or it may be connected

with recent efforts to create various new and augmented forms of

special, elite units in Moscow to guard key government centers.11

On June 21, 1995, Interfax reported a further augmentation of

such forces. Possibly in response to the Budyonnovsk incident

23,000 army and interior troops were assigned to help the Moscow

militia protect the city. This included 4,000 elite paratroopers

from the 98th Guards Airborne Division from Ivanovo Oblast and

the 106th Guards Airborne Division from Tula as well as students

and cadets from training establishments.12 This deployment is

another of the continuing examples of the use of Army and MVD

forces jointly for purposes of domestic policing, a degradation

of the army's professional function and a sign of fears of

popular unrest or of anti-government operations even in Moscow.

This also is another case of the Interior forces being equated

to the Army in status and missions. Finally, it may be an attempt

to give the President total flexibility over the structure and

composition of the armed forces, including Ministry of Interior,

Border Troops, and other domestic coercive organizations. As

Kulikov points out, although the law states that the Internal

Troops can only be assigned new duties by passing another law,


Russian Federation laws which are passed in the

interest of other ministries and agencies, in

particular the Ministry of Defense, the MVD, and

counterintelligence organs, do levy additional

responsibilities on the Internal Troops. For example,

the Russian Federation law on national borders made the

Internal Troops responsible for the integrity of the

borders in areas where there are military facilities

and bases.13

Kulikov's remarks suggest that there is no clear demarcation

in practice among the various forces making up Russia's composite

armed forces so that the Internal Troops perform functions of

peacekeeping and border defense that might otherwise be assigned

to the Army and Border Troops. And those forces might substitute

for the Internal Forces. The recent deployment in Moscow would

also tend to confirm this observation. Furthermore, the

government is apparently dramatically augmenting the MVD forces.

Though Kulikov disputes reports that these forces now number

800,000 men, claiming instead to command a force of 264,000, a

number of eyewitness accounts charge that the MVD forces also

have heavy weapons and are structured and organized to carry out

purely military operations against external enemies.14 In other

words, all the forces are, to a considerable degree, fungible

forces operating directly under presidential authority and are

not necessarily or even at all under effective legal or

parliamentary control.

Two other key points would emerge from the upgrading of the

MVD forces in number, training, and mission. First of all, those

processes suggest considerable fear of domestic unrest on the

part of the regime and a desire to preempt any public outbreak of

disaffection by force. Second, the elevation of the MVD at the

Army's expense, and the conversion of the Army into a quasipolice force for quelling internal unrest suggests a conscious

strategy to downgrade the Army, and a policy of politicizing it

while reducing its strength.15

More broadly such a strategy of dividing the instruments of

force, the so-called power ministries, in this fashion apparently

indicates that Yeltsin is pursuing a conscious strategy of

keeping all institutions, especially these critical ones,


disunited, weak, and under-institutionalized, a classic Tsarist

and Stalinist strategy. This would be a step beyond the tactics

reported abroad that,

In recent years, Yeltsin has withdrawn from active

governance but remains an intermittent arbiter between

what is essentially two administrations–[Prime Minister

Viktor] Chernomyrdin's civilian Cabinet and the more

hawkish "power ministries" of Defense, Interior, and

Security who answer directly to Yeltsin. The President

likes to play the Cabinet off against the "party of

war," keeping his options open.16

In that case Yeltsin's sophisticated strategy means introducing

divisions even among the "power ministries" to prevent them from

uniting among themselves.

If that is the intention, it would appear to comport with

the first details of the military reform measures announced on

April 11, 1995, and discussed below in conjunction with the draft

Law on Defense. In any case, the meaning of the text of this

paragraph is not clear here (perhaps deliberately?). But this

concern for control and over the composition of the army is a

distinguishing mark of this law and certainly suggests high-level

concerns about these topics.17

Chapter I, Article I also highlights a theme of this new law

absent in the 1992 law. In the 1992 law, defense meant a series

of policies and measures to guarantee the state's readiness for

defense against armed attack. That language may have reflected

concerns of a possible coup that might drag Russia back towards

authoritarian or even military rule. Here the language is "For

preparation for defense and defense of the country from armed

attack." The distinction between government and country is gone

and the two concepts are fused together in an emotional bonding

of nation and state. It is possible that this language is

intended to reaffirm military men's loyalty to the state and

persuade them that Yeltsin's government is truly pursuing the

"Russian" interest. The concept of preparing the country, an

expanded notion of preparation of the theater, suggests a desire

to retain part, if not all, of the old mobilization system that

was supposed to maximize preparedness and readiness even in

peacetime.


Indeed, Article I, as a whole, expands the nature of defense

to mean the state's military security, including the Federation's

sovereignty and integrity. Obviously there is concern for a

threat to Russia's integrity from within which was not mentioned

in the earlier law even though no such threats are discernible.

One possible impact is that this notion will be used to justify

actions in Chechnya or in response to similar threats. Even

though Yeltsin has stated that there is no threat of separatism,

he did state in his annual report to Parliament that,

The institutions of state power have yet to accumulate

sufficient weight to ensure that force does not have to

be applied to restore Russian sovereignty on their

territory. Today, the state has to resort to the

exercise of its right to use strong-arm methods in

order to preserve the country's integrity. (emphasis in

original)18

Second, there is a stress on the legal organization of

defense by the Federal constitution and laws, Russia's military

doctrine, and international law. The inclusion of doctrine is to

satisfy Defense Minister, Marshal Pavel Grachev's effort to make

the November 1993 doctrine a juridically binding document.19 But

the new law also reinstates conscription and expressly

assimilates all the other forces existing in Russia, railroad

troops, MVD, Border Troops, etc. ("Drugie Voiska"-Other Forces)

to defense. Moreover, this list is said to be exhaustive. The

concern for paramilitary organizations is visible in the last

paragraph that says the existence or establishment of other

military formations staffed by civilians entering military

service is subject to prosecution. Thus there is an apparent

intention to control all formations of armed forces and to

prevent formation of autonomous groups of armed men. That such

laws are needed suggests the government's great anxiety about its

control over the armed forces, the population, and Russia's

integrity. Since the latter appears to be a phantom threat, this

language hints at a traditional Russian military vice, namely an

exaggerated threat assessment which is then used to justify an

excessively large military establishment.

Article II reinforces the stress on the armed forces'

preparation for combat and the old mobilization preparation of


the Federation's governing organs and subjects. The text

expressly cites territorial mobilization as creating reserves of

state material resources and mobilization reserves. It also

offers a new and much more detailed list of factors in the

organization of defense, including military-patriotic education,

civilian control over both the armed forces and the MOD, and

international military cooperation.

This expansion of the list of factors that make up the

organization of defense appears to be a foreshadowing of the

military reform plans announced on April 11, 1995.20 Those plans

outline a long-term process of sweeping military reorganization

but also make many concessions to professional military demands

and concerns. In the context of this article the language of the

Draft Law on Defense apparently accedes to the military's demand

for a revitalization of military education of youth that is aimed

to indoctrinate a feeling of patriotism and service, as was the

case for much of the Soviet period. The idea, evidently, is to

give the military more status, and perhaps more control over that

education.

A second, no less important fact is the mention of civilian

control over the defense forces. The reform plan of April 1995

calls for the appointment of a civilian as Minister of Defense

who would formulate "military and military-technical policy"

(i.e., defense economic policy, R&D, and the equipping of the

troops). He also would be responsible for providing financial and

logistic support to the troops. However, at the same time

President Yeltsin has taken personal control of key institutions

in military-economic policy. On March 3, 1995, he reversed his

own edict of December 30, 1994, concerning the Russian Federation

State Committee on Military-Technical Policy. Now the first

subparagraph of the new Paragraph 2 of the most recent edict

states that the committee is "a federal executive authority and

is under the purview of the Russian Federation Government, but it

is under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation President in

matters assigned to him by the Russian Federation Constitution

and Russian Federation legislative measures."21 Paragraph 3 of

this new edict reaffirms this subordination as well. Consequently

the MOD, while diminished in authority, is still politicized and

its functions are also swept up into those of the President's

office. Or at least those functions that are to be assigned to

the MOD under the new reform plan could, at any time, be taken


away and removed to direct presidential control.

At the same time the command and control over the armed

forces would be vested in the Chief of Staff, who would be

directly subordinate to the President, not the Defense Minister.22

By stating that civilian control of the military is a recognized

aspect of defense organization, the law not only buttresses

Yeltsin's position as CINC, but also that of the projected

civilian leadership of the MOD. This language implicitly gives

legal legitimacy to any future civilian Defense Minister because

his tenure would then enjoy the force of law (or in this case

presidential support and the President's decree as well). This

language could then be used to suppress or rebuff military

pressure to name a general as a future Minister of Defense. If

one remembers that every Soviet appointment of a Defense Minister

after Stalin involved a bruising internal struggle between the

armed forces who wanted an officer, and others pushing for a

civilian, the importance of this statute and reform becomes

clear.

But there are additional, less overt implications of this

language as well. First, because the language of this draft law

states that civilian control of the military is part of the

defense organization of Russia and that the President is the

CINC, the Minister of Defense is statutorily removed from the

chain of command, at least implicitly, if not explicitly. This

not only strikes at his power over the regular armed forces, it

also can be used to prevent the Minister from consolidating the

other forces under his control as Grachev clearly wants to do.

Thus, in the aftermath of Budyonnovsk, where a high degree

of incompetence manifested itself, Grachev stated his intention

to propose that all departments with armed forces–the Border

Troops, the MVD Troops, and those from the Ministry of

Emergencies (Civil Defense, earthquake relief, etc.), as well as

special sub-units of the security service be placed under his

ministry and their leaders reappointed as Deputy Defense

Ministers subordinate to him.23 Clearly Grachev has figured out

that military reform is antithetical to his power, status, and

position, and will resort to all kinds of bureaucratic maneuvers

to ditch the projected reform. But his actions also indicate that

in a system such as Yeltsin's all politics is not merely "local"

but also very much a type of traditional bureaucratic politics.


After all if all the troops are not to be under Grachev, the only

other alternative would be to place them directly under Yeltsin

in one super-organization and there is currently some talk that

this might actually come to pass.24

The second implication of this language is that it reflects

the official line that civilian control exists because the

President is a civilian and has jurisdiction over the main issues

of defense policy. A corollary of this argument is that civilian

control exists because the President, the government, and the

Parliament have legislative initiative and the executive is

supposedly accountable for its actions to Parliament as

stipulated by the 1993 Constitution. Allegedly as well,

parliamentary bodies control defense funding and the introduction

of states of emergency, alert, and foreign interventions.25

Therefore, putting such language into the law is another way of

legally depriving Parliament of the initiatives it supposedly had

in 1993 since this law and the law on peacemaking deprive it of

just those powers.

Although the claim is made that, because of these supposed

factors of civilian control, such control exists, students of the

Russian system well know that this principle is observed more in

the breach than in the observance. As Igor Tishin writes,

However, one needs to keep in mind that in contemporary

Russia effective implementation of these principles in

the actual practice of civilian-military relations

depends greatly on the level of political culture of

civilian and military establishment as well as on the

internal economic and political situation.26

There are still further important implications of the reform

plan that are foreshadowed in the Draft Law on Defense. According

to the reform plan, the Chief of Staff is the operational

commander of the armed forces in any contingency, yet that is

exactly what was not done in Chechnya where, apparently, Pavel

Grachev acted as the operational commander from Moscow. The

troops' and high command's poor performance in Chechnya seemed to

have settled matters against Grachev and the MOD as far as this

draft was concerned. Today MG Anatoly Kulikov, the CINC of the

Internal Forces, is the operational commander in Chechnya,

another sign of the breach of the intended reform plan. Evidently


expediency, and not legalism, will continue to govern such

decisions.

Apparently as a result of the poor performance in Chechnya,

the new reform plan builds on language implicit in the Law on

Defense (see below) and will remove the MOD from the operational

chain of command, confining it to the raising of troops, their

training, provisioning, procurement, and logistic support. This

is intended to preclude the possibility of Grachev or any

subsequent minister building up a position among the armed forces

that could challenge Yeltsin. Yet Grachev again is clearly

fighting this. He told the press on April 19, 1995 that Russia

would not have a civilian MOD or a separate General Staff

subordinate to the President because "so much is subordinate to

the President already."27 Thus it is clear that the military will

now engage in a bruising battle over its reorganization at a 

time when it is politicized, fragmented, demoralized, and under

severe attack, not to mention drastic fiscal constraints.

If the reform plan and the apparent intention of the law on

Defense do prevail, Yeltsin, as the Chief of Staff's direct

superior, will thereby further remove the armed forces from

legislative accountability and scrutiny, a process that is

consonant with the general strengthening of presidential

authority beyond any accountability. That would also put the army

directly under Yeltsin's command and authority, confirming the

notion that by civilian control, Yeltsin means his personal

control over the armed forces. Under this structure it is highly

likely that the Chief of Staff's position will also become

politicized just as Yeltsin has deliberately politicized the

Minister of Defense's role. If the Chief of Staff becomes a

politicized figure, that would have the same unfortunate

consequences as Grachev's tenure as Minister of Defense has had.

Finally, in order to counter the possibility of the military's

opposition to him, Yeltsin advocates a further increase in the

Ministry of Interior forces–the MVD. This even as the army is cut

from 1.5 million to 1.2 million, two military districts are

dropped, and the Baltic and Black Sea Fleets are eliminated.28

Given Kulikov's observations about the Internal or MVD Forces

duplicating the army's functions, this appears to confirm that

Yeltsin is playing a sophisticated military version of divide and

rule among his various armed establishments.29 Like the Tsars and

Stalin, he has grasped that the secret of his power is to weaken


and divide all possible governing institutions and while placing

them in a constant posture of mutual confrontation.

Yeltsin's consistent upgrading of the MVD and other internal

forces for protection of the President and the government at the

expense of the armed forces also appears in this intended reform.

This particular reform further extends the trend to augment

internal security forces and place them on a footing at least

equal with, if not above, the military. Furthermore, the reform

reflects the fear of internal threats to Russian security rather

than external threats. Finally, it indicates that there are not

enough resources available to support a large military. Inasmuch

as both the armed forces and Ministry of Interior forces (and

other internal security forces) are now to be under Yeltsin's

direct control, they will all be removed from effective

parliamentary scrutiny to become Yeltsin's rather than Russia's

forces. Indeed, the new setup resembles nothing so much as the

old Tsarist formula by which the Tsar exercised, or sought to

exercise, personal authority and control over military policy. As

Nicholas II said, "doctrine is whatever I decide it is." For this

reason many of these plans' implications, however implicit and

unfinished, carry disturbing echoes of autocratic rule.

Perhaps it is because official thinking was already moving

in the direction outlined above that this law has a much broader

and more sophisticated conception of what military issues

entail. This notion of a broader military agenda may well reflect

efforts to stem and reverse the critical manpower shortages

afflicting the armed forces and to reestablish their prestige.

Thus the parliamentary vote in April 1995 to lengthen the basic

service period to 2 years and to delay movement toward an allvolunteer army may be part of that mood.30 This paragraph also

shows more concern for framing issues of civilian control in

precise language, probably to codify Yeltsin's personal control

of those forces for reasons given above.

This concern for more precise formulation of issues of

presidential control appears in Article III. It adds that

legislation on military affairs is based on the new constitution

to include federal constitutional and federal laws. Article III

has a much broader sweep than before, codifying Yeltsin's

virtually unlimited control as established in the constitution.

Moreover, Soviet laws not contradicted or superseded by new laws


remain in force. While this may simply be an administrative

continuance, it surely shows a failure to devise a new Russian

military code.

More broadly, this paragraph reflects the government's

continuing incoherence regarding the nature of law and the idea

of rule by law. Federal laws are bills brought to the Duma. If

they have fiscal implications for the state budget, they have to

be accompanied by a "conclusion" from the government. They are

accepted by a simple Duma majority and go to the Federation

Council within five days. They subsequently undergo a legislative

process of scrutiny in the Council, or may not be examined at

all, which leads to their being considered as laws. Federal

constitutional laws are bills that Yeltsin apparently cannot

veto. But the constitution, not surprisingly, fails to

distinguish between presidential decree and orders, merely saying

that they may not conflict with the constitution or federal laws.

Thus the notion of federal constitutional laws not only includes

laws based on parliamentary and presidential understanding of the

language of the constitution's provisions, it also comprises

presidential decrees.31 Since officials, in any case, do not

believe themselves bound by laws, this language remains unclear

and nonbinding unless a dramatic change occurs. In effect, law

still remains, to a great degree, the will of the chief

executive.

Article IV further codifies Yeltsin's position in precise

formulations by enumerating the President's very broad powers as

CINC and as ratifier of doctrine, but obliges him to report

annually to the Federation Council. It should be noted that the

law does not hold him accountable to the Council. It merely

requires him to present the Council with an annual report. The

law expressly specifies his control over nuclear weapons

production, negotiations, deployment, and use; and over the

appointment of personnel. This statute aims not only to broaden

and list expressly presidential powers, but to confirm them and

make him, in some cases, above accountability. At the same time

it also formalizes a nuclear chain of command.

But this article's most worrisome aspect is the power it

gives Yeltsin to declare a state of war, general or partial

mobilization, and martial law in Russia or in separate

localities. All he has to do is to communicate his intention to


the Federation Council. In Chechnya he did not even do that. This

clause provides much latitude for abuse of power. It further

ratifies Yeltsin's extra-legal powers by saying he can introduce

normative acts in wartime or curtail their operation and lead the

government in conjunction with the federal constitutional law or

by martial law. This means he can suspend the constitution and

govern the country under martial law without answering to anyone,

as did Tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II from 1881-1905.

Similarly, he can direct the use of nuclear force in cases

of the "appearance of an immediate threat" to the Federation's

existence. This ratifies the first strike doctrine promulgated in

November 1993 in the new Russian military doctrine. It also

strongly hints at a launch on warning, or even preemptive strike

posture against conventional attack. Nor must Yeltsin go to

Parliament to get approval for the use of forces in that, or

presumably any other, contingency. Moreover, the laws make no

provision for control over strategic systems or the entire

military system if Yeltsin cannot perform his duties. What

happens then is a mystery.

The effort to enhance presidential power also appears in

Article V. In its new form it eliminates the legislature's power

to define military doctrine and gives it solely to the executive.

Now Parliament can only legislate on the basis of the doctrine

and Yeltsin's annual message. This provision accords with

Grachev's frequent assertion that the doctrine should have force

of law. Of course, if the doctrine is legally binding, it becomes

the basis for military legislation and provides a constraint on

anything Parliament might do. The notion that doctrine equates to

law is a former Soviet formulation and a most mischievous

proposal. Under that formulation the military would elude day-today legislative supervision and parliamentary control of the MOD

to make sure it is following a sound policy.32

While Parliament is supposed to immediately consider and

enact resolutions on a declaration of war and the introduction of

martial law, it is clear that presidential power overrides their

decision or can preempt it. The Federation Council also has no

direct control anymore, as it did before, over the composition

and structure of the armed forces. The former powers of the

Supreme Soviet are broken up among the two houses of the new

Parliament or the President. Thus neither house, as enumerated in


Article V, can declare partial or full mobilization, martial law,

or a state of war, but must wait upon presidential initiative in

the latter two cases. Neither do they have power over

mobilization, or the use of forces abroad. Nor does the

legislature any longer determine presidential powers over 

nuclear issues. And the attempt to invest doctrine with force of

law would also legalize the doctrine's rather traditional, almost

Soviet, formulation of assessments of threat to Russia.33

A further example of this stress upon increased executive

powers is the statement in Article VI that the government, i.e.,

not the legislature, has direct responsibility for the condition

of the Russian Federation's defense. Another interesting new

enumeration of executive power gives the government

responsibility not only for negotiating with other states to

lower the military and nuclear danger, but also to do so for the

creation of collective security, and to subscribe to

corresponding intergovernmental agreements. This last formulation

is nowhere mentioned as being subject to parliamentary

investigation or approval and opens a loophole for secret

agreements. It also provides a mechanism for extending the

Tashkent Collective Security Treaty of 1992 into a restored

military-political union without parliamentary participation.

Article VIII reinforces and extends the emphasis on the

defense mobilization system. According to its terms, industrial

and manufacturing enterprises fulfill measures listed in

mobilization plans and agreements. This refers to the old

mobilization system and is a means of codifying its remnants into

law. This could have disastrous economic-political implications

for the country, at least in part because it preserves a key

sector of the Soviet economy and also because it vests too much

power in the Military Industrial Complex.34 The new law also

charges enterprises to plan to accumulate and preserve

mobilization and state resources on a contract basis if not

otherwise established by law. Since the first part of the text

and earlier language can be construed as establishing the

mobilization system by law, this appears to confirm a military

industrial sector permanently dependent upon contracted state

orders and tied to perpetual readiness.

Article IX expressly retains conscription as a civilian

obligation. That will have a negative implication for military


reform by perpetuating the brutal practices to institutionalize

subordination that were commonplace in the Soviet army. But since

the MOD has made clear that a fully professional army is some

years away, this appears to be the only way to compel

conscription. Even so, everyone knows conscription will not work

or satisfy manpower requirements unless it is imposed by

coercion.35 The recent legislation extending the basic term for

draftees to 2 years is an example of that trend.36 Could this law

then become the legal justification for further such coercion?

Article X reflects the desire to maximize control in

Yeltsin's hands and to obstruct paramilitary operations. But it

also provides language allowing the use of the army for domestic

political purposes. It states that summoning units, subunits, and

other formations of the armed forces to fulfill tasks not

connected with their original intention of repelling aggression

is only tolerable on the basis of the President's decree– Ukaz–in

agreement with the Federation Council and published in the mass

media. This replaces the original language, which specified that

this could only be done through a resolution of the Supreme

Soviet or passage of a law. The obvious implications are

alarming. We need only recall that Yeltsin did not even inform

the Federation Council before taking action in Chechnya.

Furthermore, this is perfectly legal. Amazingly Russia's

government and (if this law is passed as is) public law now state

that a presidential decree alone suffices for making military

intervention at home legal.

The nature and composition of the actual armed forces in

Article XI is also much more specific and inclusive than before.

It vests control over that structure in the executive branch–

President and Government–and control regarding the composition of

forces in the General Staff and presidency. This seems to be a

way to limit the MOD's operational control over forces, a trend

that emerges more explicitly below and is most significant. As

noted above this language clearly foreshadows the new military

reform plan. This plan decreases the role of the MOD while

enhancing that of the General Staff, which becomes operational

commander of the armed forces under the President. It is also

significant because there are widespread reports that the debacle

in Chechnya led Yeltsin to consider taking direct operational

control of the General Staff, removing it from the MOD's

control.37 The planned reform calls for this. That move would


further personalize military administration while also

substantially curtailing the MOD's power and authority over the

armed forces and enhancing that of the General Staff.

Indicating the General Staff's enhanced powers, Article XII

expressly notes the use of conscription and of volunteers for

staffing the armed forces, and states that the peacetime number

of military and civilian personnel is determined by the General

Staff and ratified into law annually with the Federal Budget.

This also means that the annual levy is not subject to

authorization on its own merits but is part of the broader budget

package. Since Yeltsin can mobilize troops and pay them without

legislative authorization based on the peacemaking law and

earlier clauses, he can easily get around this language to

mobilize the troops.

Article XIV takes general leadership of the armed forces

from the Supreme Soviet and gives it to the President as CINC.

New language makes it much clearer that while general direct

leadership is exercised by the MOD, it is the organ of

administrative regulation and the General Staff possesses

operational leadership. The reform plan spells this out more

explicitly and reflects, as well, a return to General Vladimir N.

Lobov's 1991 plan for military reform. In so doing, the draft law

and the new reform plan weaken Marshal Evgeny I. Shaposhnikov's

1991 idea of centralizing control of the staff in the MOD.38 These

decisions, and the legal language employed, clearly represent a

defeat for Grachev and the MOD and signal the elevation of the

General Staff. Thus the statute also gives the operational

authorities more flexibility in devising command structures on a

basis other than functional or territorial command as specified

in the earlier law.

 The tendency to downgrade the MOD again appears in Article

XV where its functions are now restricted to realizing Government

policy, not its own policy (the adjective Government is new), and

is restricted to participating in the development of presidential

proposals on questions of military policy and the charter of the

Federation's military doctrine. That is, it does not draw up the

doctrine itself but comments on its charter, the public

unclassified part of the doctrine that was published in November

1993. It can also only develop proposals for a draft budget for

defense spending, not, as in the earlier case, develop drafts for


a defense budget, and present it to the government. It now also

must fulfill tasks outlined in both the statute on the MOD and

that of the General Staff.

But, as stated in Article XVI, the General Staff develops

proposals on the composition of the armed forces and their

organizational staff structure. It drafts the proposals on the

doctrine and tasks, deployment, and supply of force groupings,

and provision of weapons and technology. It organizes military

intelligence for security and for the deployment of the armed

forces as well as for operational and other military

mobilization. Thus, its operational control of the armed forces

is spelled out in law for the first time in years.

The only new aspect of Articles XXI-XXIII is that they state

that martial law, mobilization, and civil defense are to be

determined by federal constitutional or federal law. These

provisos continue the trend toward asserting the primacy of the

new constitutional regime in Russia over the order that died in

October 1993. But, as we have seen, that federal law amounts to

nothing more than Yeltsin's decree. So again we have a law but no

means of enforcing it. As in so many instances, the law is a

facade behind which the real forces govern on their own.

Article XXIV, in referring to diversionary or terrorist

actions, adds the word group to underscore the danger, or the

threat of such actions being carried out in conditions of ethnic

conflict in Russia. It displays the heightened danger of those

threats, but also implicitly legalizes deploying troops against

whole peoples or republics allegedly on ethnic grounds. This

implicit pretext for ethnic conflict forebodes a troubled future.

Article XXVI, quoted below, reflects the new importance

given to claims that Russia acts within international guidelines

for peacekeeping operations. This has already been referred to in

the law on peacemaking and is no more accurate for being placed

here. But the text, cited below, represents an effort to present

the image of a legal or rule of law state approach that would

justify such actions.

The Russian Federation participates in peacemaking

operations to support international peace and security

in conformity with its obligations under the UN Charter


and other international treaties and agreements. The

Russian Federation independently, in each individual

case, determines the advisability of its participation

in that operation. The order of the assignment of

peacemaking forces and the fulfillment of militarytechnical assistance is defined by federal laws.

What is noteworthy here, as in the Law on Peacemaking, is the

effort to safeguard Russia's freedom or authority to intervene in

the CIS while answering to nobody at home or abroad, yet appear

not to be conducting objectionable operations.

Article XXVIII is entirely new and re-lists all the powers

given to the President, thus reconfirming and spelling them out,

and confirming the law's basic trends. There do not appear to be

any new powers here. But by doing so, the law not only reiterates

Yeltsin's powers, presumably it explicitly broadens those powers

that are implicit in preceding paragraphs or other laws, thereby

actually extending presidential power.

Summation.

In general these laws do not resolve issues of civilian

control. Instead, they represent an effort to concentrate power

in the President rather than the legislature. Both draft laws

also try to confirm the existence of a new federal constitutional

order and make that the basis for law by referring virtually

everything to the federal constitution or federal law.

The Draft Law on Defense also reflects a trend towards more

enumeration of specific powers and responsibilities for the

executive branch and a corresponding diminution of legislative

prerogative. It reflects old thinking in its insistence on

conscription, implicit threat assessment, nuclear provisions, and

economic and industrial mobilization; and it does not resolve

nuclear command and control issues, especially if Yeltsin is

incapacitated.

Lastly, this particular law reflects, even before the

Chechen invasion, an attempt to weaken the MOD and Grachev while

imparting a much higher profile to the General Staff. Thus, this

law invokes the discredited 1991 Lobov plan as well as earlier

Tsarist precepts of military organization. This draft law also


reflects and anticipates the forthcoming reform plan's intention

to give more operational authority to the General Staff and less

to the MOD and the Minister of Defense. For instance, Marshal

Grachev does not appoint the Chief of Staff.

However, there are serious deficiencies in the law or

problem areas concerning operations:

• Yeltsin's right to mobilize troops or to declare martial

law is not contingent upon legislative approval or the actuality

of a threat. The threat need only appear as such (presumably in

Yeltsin's mind) to be so defined.

• Yeltsin can declare martial law or war without legislative

accountability. He can also commit the country to secret

international accords or peacemaking operations, or even reunion

of the CIS without first going to the legislature. We have seen

the latter precedent in Abkhazia and now in Chechnya.

• The doctrine expressly indicates a nuclear posture that

justifies preemptive nuclear strikes, even against purely

conventional weapons attack, or a launch on warning posture,

should a threat to the Federation's existence appear.

• The law makes no sign of inclining to get rid of

conscription. Indeed, it still provides for the draft as an

explicit part of the defense program. Furthermore, the Parliament

just voted to extend the service length by 6 months to a full 2

years. That decision goes against the intention expressed in

earlier documents for the army to become an all-volunteer force.

This legislation, therefore, is widely regarded as both a

surrender to old-fashioned military notions of compulsory service

and to the argument that debacles like Chechnya would not occur

if the troops were better trained.39 Though conscription could

become necessary, it should not be there in advance of, or

separate from, a declaration of war.

• This law in no way subjects the President, the military

establishment, beginning with the MOD, or intelligence agencies

to any form of parliamentary scrutiny or control. In effect, none

of them are truly accountable or bound by law. Thus, in November

1994, the FSK (Federal Counterintelligence Service) was able to

recruit men from the Army's elite, Fourth Kantermir Tank Division


for attempted coups in Chechnya without knowledge of the division

commander.40 This indicates an intelligence and military system

that is out of control, which could have disastrous consequences,

of which Chechnya may be only the first. For example, the Russian

government has been accused of instigating repeated coup attempts

in Baku in 1993-95 and Chechnya prior to the invasion in 1994,

yet nobody has been held accountable.41

Another example of the disasters that either the current

policy process or an out of control military and intelligence

service could lead to is the announcements in April 1995 by

Ground Forces CINC General Vladimir M. Semenov and by Marshal

Grachev that they were stationing forces in the Caucasus in

defiance of the CFE troops because Russia's security interests

overrode the treaty's language.42 Such unilateral and rash

declarations could bring about the greatest disaster for Russia,

namely the hardening of an anti-Russian European bloc. This

would be a calamity infinitely greater than anything that might

happen in the Caucasus.

The absence of effective, civilian, democratic control also

manifests itself in another way. it is very clear that all the

instruments of military power, the regular forces, Border Troops,

and the MVD, are being politicized and are under pressure to be

under Yeltsin's personal and unaccountable control. Yet at the

same time, these draft laws, the intended military reform plan

and public disaffection with the MOD, Grachev, and Yeltsin have

led to a situation where an intense bureaucratic struggle is

already underway that will further fragment and politicize these

forces. This battle, whatever its outcome, will probably weaken

further any efforts to install meaningful institutional control

over the military and diminish the likelihood of a democratic

outcome in the foreseeable future.

• The law often refers to the mobilization system. This

suggests Russia will keep or only superficially revise that

system which is a fundamental brake on reform and a basis for the

military-industrial complex's excessive power. That seriously

damages the cause of military, economic, and political reform.

Recent Trends.

The most recent events, laws, and revelations in tandem with


the Chechnya war confirm this trend towards centralization of

authority in the presidency, executive branch, and extra-legal

procedures. These events and trends include the laws discussed

here, the laws concentrating more powers in the President and

police, and the military reform plan. For instance, recently the

Parliament accepted Yeltsin's law putting modern forms of

telecommunications under state control and making the Ministry of

Foreign Affairs directly responsible to him alone.43 The new law

on the Intelligence Service also calls for unifying foreign and

domestic intelligence and counter-intelligence after the KGB

model and permits the use of informers in government agencies,

again with insufficient parliamentary accountability.44 Although

there is some sentiment in the Duma for revising the constitution

to make the use of military forces inside Russia contingent upon

the Federation Council's approval, it is not at all clear that

such a law or revision of the constitution could pass and whether

it would be enforced.45

Nor do either of the laws analyzed here mention the Security

Council, the real nerve center of current defense policymaking

since 1992. The laws governing its functioning are so nebulous as

to be meaningless, and the Council has consistently been able to

elude parliamentary scrutiny. Although Yeltsin recently coopted

Duma speaker, Ivan Rybkin, and Federation Council leader,

Vladimir Shumeiko, to its membership, there is no risk that the

Council can check Yeltsin's prerogatives or override them since,

by statute, it is merely an advisory body.46

Yet this status does not conform to reality since the 

Council authorized the decisions that led to intervention in

Chechnya. In effect it imposed, without any statutory process, a

state of siege in Chechnya. At the same time it has become a

forum for policymaking that eclipses the regular government

ministries.47 While this may superficially resemble the U.S.

National Security Council, the absence of any legal provisions in

the draft laws regarding the Russian Security Council's

activities is alarming. Moreover, the structure that results from

its composition, procedures, and purely consultative relationship

to the President, taken in the context of the current scene,

resembles the Tsarist autocratic process whereby Yeltsin alone

has power to decide and can override his own "kitchen cabinets,"

the regular government, and Parliament. In effect the President

is emancipated from the constraints of the separation of powers


and is himself able to rule by decree.

This trend to concentrate power in the President and in

unresponsive executive branch institutions is confirmed by the

recent discussion concerning reforming the Ministry of Defense

and subordinating the Chief of Staff (and implicitly all combat

operations of the forces) directly to the President. This issue

has been discussed inconclusively since 1992, and it surfaced

again after the military debacle in Chechnya. The reform plan,

announced in April 1995 and analyzed here is the direct result of

these discussions, which now appear to have predated Chechnya,

though that debacle may have proven to be a decisive point in its

adoption by the government. Apparently there is some concern that

the "power organs" are not sufficiently coordinated in their

actions, so some kind of super-coordinating agency is now being

proposed which would be directly under the President.48

Inasmuch as most telecommunications and high-tech

communications, as well as all forms of state spending, foreign

affairs, and defense policy are directly responsible to and

controlled by Yeltsin (and his mushrooming office), the need for

a new super-coordinating organ (perhaps the Security Council)

becomes self-evident. But unfortunately the absence of any such

organ, and the proliferation of non-intersecting vertical chains

of command to the President, perpetuates some of the worst

drawbacks of the Russian political tradition. But again none of

this analysis or an awareness of its liabilities is explicitly

described in these draft laws, although the Draft Law on Defense

broadly hints at giving the Chief of Staff the authority to

coordinate policy.

Yet, as we have see, the counteroffensive by Grachev against

this plan and the implications of the Draft Law on Defense has

begun. Though the final outcome is in doubt since no Russian law

or planned law is viable simply because it is issued, this

struggle can only further politicize and weaken the various armed

forces as professional upholders of the democratic state.

An equally depressing trend for democracy is that the Duma 

unobtrusively passed the new law, mentioned above, to expand the

powers of the FSK. This law is the most sinister of those

recently passed and/or discussed. The FSK can now run its own

jails, deploy its agents under cover of other government


agencies, and with court permission, read people's mail and tap

their telephones. The FSK may recruit, protect, and pay–without

prosecutorial and judicial oversight–informants in "contracts of

confidential cooperation." Finally the bill would allow the

agency to expand its foreign intelligence-gathering capabilities.

This is a giant step towards reconstituting the extraordinary

powers of the KGB as a domestic and foreign intelligence,

counter-intelligence, political police, and quasi-military

organization. It also establishes control over internal state

communications.49

When this bill is taken into a context where 14,000 people

of the MOD and Ministry of Interior (MVD), not counting the FSK

or the current Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), are working in

various posts and civilian structures the implications become

obvious and frightening. This network of assigned military, MVD,

and intelligence personnel extends nationwide and a senior

officer is attached to every administrative head of every subject

of the Federation (i.e., provincial and republican governments),

naturally, by decree (number 1390 on September 18, 1993–just as

Yeltsin was preparing his coup).50 The ability of this network of

officials to screen out unwelcome news and to guide policy is no

less obvious. When added to the new bill on the intelligence

agencies, it becomes clear that the government itself is not

immunized against the ravages of autocracy. Whatever Yeltsin's

personal proclivities are or may be, these laws will clearly make

excellent foundations for any future would-be autocrat.

The same trends now are taking place in the realm of

government finance. Although the decrees announced on March 1,

1995 reflect Russia's need to placate the International Monetary

Fund and get its loans for Russia, they also give Yeltsin

unprecedented personal control over government spending and tax

exemptions. Notably this control is not vested in any legal

agency, but rather in the President.51 Yeltsin and a credit

commission chaired by Vice-Premier Anatoly Chubais will have

total control over government agencies' spending decisions that

are not mandated by Parliament. That includes the Security

Council's spending which often came as an unpleasant surprise to

the Finance Ministry (and confirms the unchecked power of the

Council).52

This new law ostensibly reflects a commitment to continued


economic reform and anti-inflationary policies. But here again we

must pay attention to the institutional dimension. This law

confirms that, in the past, government agencies like the Security

Council could act autocratically regarding the financing of their

operations and that regular agencies could not stop them. Thus,

security policy could be carried out beyond the law and outside

regular governmental oversight (like the Iran-Contra affair).

Nor did the legislature have any way to find out what went on or

any power to oversee it. This new law effectively confirms that

Yeltsin–and not the legislature–will have discretion over a very

substantial amount of government spending that is beyond

oversight or control.

With the creation of the new Credit Commission and the new

law, the enhanced activity of the President is legally sanctioned

along with the concept of rule by decree, a renunciation of

separation of powers, exemption from parliamentary control, and

power over the purse. By setting up two rival super-agencies–the

Credit Commission and the Security Council–and arrogating to

himself the last word, Yeltsin has not only placed himself and

those agencies beyond the law, he has once again duplicated the

Tsarist (and in some cases Soviet) structure of policy and

decisionmaking. Yeltsin's newly announced desire to oversee army

reform personally means that he will control everything.53

Additionally, the Minister of Defense and high officials of the

armed forces will be directly accountable only to the President

and they can be selected on the basis of personal loyalty.

Personalism, not civilian or legal control, will be the order of

the day. Furthermore, this personalism will take place in a

legislative and institutional context which bears too many

resemblances to the Tsarist and Soviet periods (the reunified

KGB, for example). Therefore, on the basis of this evidence we

cannot be too sanguine about the current direction of Russian

defense or state policy.

Conclusion.

On the basis of these laws it cannot be said that Russia is

moving forward. Indeed, Russia is regressing in civil-military

affairs and democracy. The failure to establish reliable civilian

and institutional legal controls over the armed forces is obvious

from the laws considered here. What emerges clearly is a version

of civilian control over the military that closely follows Samuel


Huntington's concept or model of subjective control over the

military.54 That concept denotes a system of personalized control

resting in one man or group of men with weak structures of

accountability. Such control mechanisms are very troubling for

the future of a democratic and stable Russia.55

The military is already politicized and deliberately invited

to extend its political authority into policymaking areas beyond

its "constitutional" mandate. These draft laws only ratify and

extend those tendencies that can erode both military

professionalism and competence on the one hand, and democratic

governance on the other. And the Minister of Defense's chief

criterion of appointment is loyalty to the President. The

military and the executive are, to an alarming degree, not

accountable to legislative institutions but to the President,

whoever he is. Furthermore, rival organizations to the military

are being strengthened, notably the MVD forces, the elite guard

forces around Moscow, and the FSK, and all four of these

institutions are being readied for possible military intervention

at home. In addition, though the new reform plan supposedly calls

for reduction of the armed forces and their professionalization,

the extension of conscripts' term of service suggests an

inability to make the transition to professional, all-volunteer,

and depoliticized armed forces. All these attributes fit very

well with Huntington's model of subjective control over the

military. Moreover, all these attributes are conducive to and

reflect the breakdown of systematic control or direction of

defense policy and the breakdown of truly effective control as

both Grachev and Yeltsin are increasingly compromised by

corruption, Chechnya, and massive military dissension. In fact

current efforts to institutionalize "subjective control a la

Russe" where the government and the MOD cannot make these

policies stick invites other contenders to step in and use these

laws to achieve a true concentration of undemocratic power at the

top. As Lepingwell argues, any progress made in 1992-93 towards

effective, democratic, civilian control has eroded due to the

vagaries of defense policy since then.56 If current trends

continue, the outlook will not be a happy one.

Another dilemma is the insistence on doctrine as law and the

need for super-centralizing agencies. These two demands, taken

together, represent above all an attempt to introduce an element

of impersonal control into the subjective system and to


simultaneously reinforce it by an omnicompetent organization. The

call for binding doctrine appeals to military men who are irked

by civilian control and find solace in the confines of a

supposedly "professional" doctrine. But a stress on doctrine and

on its custodians in the super-agency fosters a bureaucratization

and sterility of military thinking that can only weaken

effective, civilian, democratic control of the military.57

A further challenge is the absence of clearly demarcated

political parameters for military action. Absent such

restrictions on partisan political activity by the armed forces,

the way becomes open for the military to attempt to enter

politics, e.g., by having officers as Duma members, or even

usurping foreign policymaking as is the case today in Russia.

Foreign Minister Kozyrev has consistently claimed he is in a

battle with the MOD and intelligence agencies over control of

policy and decrees from above are not going to stop that

struggle, since it is inevitable given the absence of

institutional and legal restraints.58 In no democracy would a

Defense Minister get away with the following quote by Grachev

regarding relations with South Korea.

I am willing to exchange opinion and cooperate with all

Asian countries and their military leaders on all

issues falling under the jurisdiction of our business .

. . . even in those instances in which politicians and

diplomats were at a loss to solve problems between two

countries, soldiers were capable of finding common

ground within the framework of military cooperation 

between the two.59

It is dismaying, to say the least, that these trends in

civilian-military relations mirror broader trends in the body

politic. Let us remember that in his annual written report to the

Duma in February 1995, Yeltsin stated that state institutions

lack sufficient authority to ensure that Moscow does not have to

use force to preserve that authority.60 He further contended that

the main obstacle to the military reforms needed to overcome the

failures revealed in Chechnya is "the lack of an integral

mechanism for making decisions in the sphere of ensuring military

security."61 Furthermore, Chechnya reflects the stagnant and

obsolete system for planning both the political and military

dimensions of large-scale operations and policy coordination.62


All these defects are supposed to be cured, at least in part

by passage of these laws. However, as we have seen, they do

nothing to overcome the crisis of Russian statehood; rather they

both reflect and further intensify that crisis. It is too late to

restore the purpose of Lobov's 1991 reform plan because that plan

intended to preserve an effective, democratic, and nonpartisan

military force for a potential union arising out of the Soviet

Union and a force that also met the needs of the emerging

independent states arising from the USSR's ashes. Today only part

of that design might be realizable. But subordinating the General

Staff directly to an authoritarian President and dividing its

functions with the MOD, as Lobov intended in 1991, mocks the

larger strategic implications of his reform and stands that plan

on its head. Essentially, presidential authority, unaccountable

to institutions and ruling like the late Tsars did, is the

objective enshrined here. And it is far indeed from what General

Lobov and other military reformers meant in 1991 when they talked

of restoring civilian control and legitimate command authority to

the erstwhile Soviet armed forces.

Equally dismaying is that these laws show either a sweeping

ignorance of–or disregard for–the principles of the separation of

powers and of legislative control and accountability. If these

principles are trampled with blithe disregard, as appears to be

the case, then democracy has no future in Russia. Rather than

celebrate the politicization of the Soviet and now Russian armed

forces, we need to understand that the threat to democracy may

not be from a would-be Bonaparte in the provinces but from the

leader in the center who may use those politicized forces, or

attempt to use them to cement his position and to quell

opposition. Given the uncertainties that now plague Russian

politics, even the smallest possibility of such an event alarms

us for we cannot begin to predict how such an episode will

ultimately turn out.

The tendency to revert to antidemocratic forms of rule must

alarm anyone who has to deal with Russia. It is a recipe for

protracted instability and destructive adventurism at home and

abroad, and Chechnya is only the first, but probably not the

last, of the fruits of such adventurism. In Chechnya, as in

Moscow in 1993 and in previous Russian revolutions, we see

violence gradually consuming more victims of another failed


revolution. If the current revolution's architects do not recover

their sense of purpose and balance, they may well be included

among those victims. Failure to institutionalize democratic

control of the military is not only an incentive for

antidemocratic politics, it is an incentive for war. And Eurasia

cannot stand much more violence.

ENDNOTES

1. For some examples of this literature, Stephen M. Meyer,

"How the Threat (and the Coup) Collapsed: The Politicization of

the Soviet Military," International Security, Vol. 16, Winter,

1991-1992, pp. 5-38; Brian D. Taylor, "Russian Civil-Military

Relations After the October Uprising," Survival, Vol. 36, No. 1,

Spring, 1994, pp. 3-29; Eugene B. Rumer, The Ideological Crisis

in the Russian Military, Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, CA,

1994; Michael C. Desch, "Why the Soviet Military Supported

Gorbachev But Why the Russian Military Might Only Support Yeltsin

for a Price," Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. XVI, No. 4,

December 1993, pp. 455-489; Thomas M. Nichols, "An Electoral

Mutiny?" Zhirinovsky and the Russian Armed Forces," Armed Forces

and Society, Vol. XXI, No. 2, Spring, 1995, pp. 327-347; Brian A.

Davenport," "Civil-Military Relations in the Post-Soviet State:

"Loose Coupling" Uncoupled?," Armed Forces and Society, Vol. XXI,

No. 1, Winter, 1995, pp. 175-194; Robert V. Barylski, "The

Russian Military and the Political Coups of August 1991 and

September-October 1993," Paper Presented to the Annual Convention

of the American Political Science Association, New York, NY,

August 31-September 4, 1994; Tanya Charlick, "Post-Imperial

Stories of Soviet and Russian Military Officers," Paper Presented

to the Annual Convention of the International Studies

Association, Chicago, Il, February 22-25, 1995; and for virtually

the only look at governmental policy see the two essays by John

W.R. Lepingwell, "New States and Old Soldiers: Civil-Military

Relations in the Former Soviet Union," and "The Loyalty of the

Russian Military," in John W. Blaney, ed., The Successor States

to the USSR, Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, Inc., 1995,

pp. 57-76, and 77-93 respectively. It should also be noted that

Yeltsin evidently has little faith in military loyalty since they

let him down in October 1993 and were very reluctant to defend

him and the state against a violent uprising on October 3, 1993.

See Boris Yeltsin, The Struggle for Russia, Catherine A.

Fitzparick, trans., New York, NY: Times Books, Random House,


1994, pp. 11-14, 258-277.

2. Meyer, pp. 5-38; Taylor, pp. 3-29.

3. Steven Erlanger, "Russian Units Fail In Two Attempts to

Take Hospital," New York Times, June 18, 1995, pp. 1, 10.

4. Sophie Shihab, "Who's Calling the Shots in Russia?,"

Manchester Guardian Weekly, December 25, 1994, p. 11, from Le

Monde, December 16, 1994.

5. Moscow, Rossiyskie Vesti in Russian, December 28, 1994

Foreign Broadcast Information Service Central Eurasia (Henceforth

FBIS-SOV), 94-250, December 29, 1994, pp. 19-20; Moscow,

Segodnya, in Russian, November 29, 1994, FBIS-SOV, 94-229,

November 30, 1994, pp. 41-42; Moscow, Komsomolskaya Pravda,

December 20, 1994, in Russian, FBIS-SOV, 94-245, December 21,

1994, p. 11, Kronid Lyubarsky, "The Lost War," New Times,

December 1994, p. 14, Nicolai N. Petro, "Can Decentralization

Solve Russia's Ethnic Problems?," Ian M. Cuthbertson and Jane

Leibowitz, eds., Minorities: The New Europe's Old Issues, New

York: Institute for East-West Studies, 1993, p. 189.

6. Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Central Eurasia,

FBIS Report, (Henceforth FBIS-USR), 94-018-L, November 8, 1994,

p. 3. This is a special issue devoted to Duma amendments that

have been offered to the Law on Defense.

7. Pavel Felgengauer, "The Theory and Practice of Reaching a

‘Consensus' in Moscow," Paper Presented to the II Annual

Conference on Russian Defense Decision-Making, Monterrey, CA,

November 15-16, 1994.

8. Ibid.

9. Anatoly S. Kulikov, "Russian Internal Troops and Security

Challenges in the 1990s," Low Intensity Conflict and Law

Enforcement, Vol. III, No. 2, Autumn, 1994, p. 213.

10. Moscow, Segodnya, in Russian, March 24, 1995, FBIS-SOV,

95-058, March 27, 1995, pp. 14-15; Moscow, Nezavisimaya Gazeta,

in Russian, March 17, 1995, FBIS-SOV, 95-053, March 20, 1995, pp.

9-10.


11. Margaret Shapiro, "Yeltsin Faces New Political Risks,"

Washington Post, June 16, 1995, p. 34.

12. Moscow, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, December 15, 1994, in

Russian, Joint Publications Research Service, Military Affairs,

(Henceforth JPRS-UMA), 95-001, January 11, 1995, pp. 26-29, Radio

Free Europe/ Radio Liberty, Daily Report, December 5, 1994 which

mentions both FSK and the GUO (Main Administration for the

Protection of the Russian Federation which is directly

subordinate to Yeltsin, not any ministry or other state

organization).

13. Open Market Research Institute (Henceforth OMRI), Daily

Digest, June 22, 1995.

14. Kulikov, p. 203.

15. OMRI, Daily Digest, June 9, 1995.

16. Ibid.

17. Richard Boudreaux, "Russian Premier Takes Bold Step in

Tackling Crisis," Los Angeles Times, Washington Edition, June 20,

1995, p. 1.

18. James Sherr, "Russia: Geopolitics and Crime," The World

Today, February 1995, p. 34, notes that since the elections of

December 1993 the Yeltsin government has taken measures to

strengthen the security and intelligence apparatus to insulate

the regime against an army whose loyalty to the regime, as

expressed in its support for right-wing nationalist, Vladimir

Zhirinovsky, is suspect.

19. The Russian military doctrine of November 1993

explicitly stated that the army could be used to put down

domestic unrest, suggesting a willingness to brandish this threat

to others beside the Chechens. "Osnovnye Polozheniia Voennoi

Doktriny Rossii," Rossiiskie Vesti, November 19, 1993, pp. 3-8.

More recently, Yeltsin in his annual report to the Parliament

(not his annual speech), stated that there was good reason to

expect more crises similar to Chechnya; OMRI, Daily Digest,

February 16, 1995, and FBIS-SOV, 95-034-S, February 21, 1995, pp.


7-10. This is the actual text of the report to the Federation

Council and the source of the quotation.

20. This was stated by Grachev in his June 1994 address to

the Conference of NATO Defense Ministers at NATO Headquarters,

"Guidelines of Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation,"

Asian Defence Journal, January 1995, pp. 20-21 and in the Press,

Moscow, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, in Russian, June 9, 1994, FBIS-SOV,

94-112, June 10, 1994, pp. 20-21. There now appears to be a

systematic campaign to make this claim stick. Thus, in a

statement defending the legality of the Chechen war, the new

Minister of Justice Valentin Kovalev (put there to approve of the

invasion after his predecessor resigned over it) claimed that

there "are no legally based doubts as to the use of the Armed

Forces to resolve the Chechen conundrum and there can be no such

doubts." (Emphasis is by author.) Kovalev justified the invasion

because the Basic Law (Constitution) states the president is the

guarantor of Russia's unity, territorial integrity, and

stability. Second, the current Law on Security obligates the

president to coordinate the activity of the law-enforcement

organs and Armed Forces to ensure security. "Finally, the

military doctrine, which envisages the participation of the Armed

Forces in the elimination of internal sources of military

threats, was ratified by a decree of the President dated 2

November 1993." Moscow, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, in Russian, January

25, 1995, FBIS-SOV, 95-017, January 26, 1995, pp. 43-44.

Therefore the doctrine has force of law regardless of Parliament

and, as Commander and Chief, Yeltsin can essentially present the

country with any number of faits accomplis.

21. OMRI, Daily Digest, April 12, 1995, Moscow,

Komsomolsakya Pravda, in Russian, April 11, 1995, FBIS-SOV, 95-

069, April 11, 1995, pp. 27-28, Moscow, Rossiyskaya Gazeta in

Russian, March 22, 1995, Joint Publications Research Service

Military Affairs (Henceforth JPRS-UMA), 95-016, April 11, 1995,

p. 5.

22. FBIS-SOV, 95-069, April 11, 1995, pp. 27-28.

23. OMRI, Daily Digest, June 22, 1995.

24. The Monitor, July 6, 1995.


 25. Igor Tishin, "National Interests and Geopolitics: A

Primer on ‘The Basic Provisions of the Military Doctrine of the

Russian Federation'," European Security, Vol. IV, No. 1, Spring,

1995, p. 114.

26. Ibid.

27. "Questioning Russia's Military Role in Tajikistan,"

Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press, (Henceforth CDPP), Vol.

XLVII, No. 16, May 17, 1995, p. 12.

28. FBIS-SOV, 95-069, April 11, 1995, pp. 27-28.

29. Ibid.

30. Kulikov, p. 203.

31. Fred Hiatt, "Russian House Votes Longer Draft Term,"

Washington Post, April 8, 1995, p. A21.

32. John Loewenhardt, "Institutional Dilemmas in the

Transition to Democracy: Russia Between Parliamentarism and

Presidentialism," Slavic Eurasia in Transition: Multiple

Analyses, Hokkaido: Slavic Research Center of the University of

Hokkaido, 1994, p. 19.

33. FBIS-SOV, 95-017, January 26, 1995, pp. 43-44,

"Guidelines of Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation," pp.

20-21, FBIS-SOV, 94-112, June 10, 1994, pp. 20-21.

34. Ibidem., "Osnovnye Polozheniia," pp. 3-8, which implies

a very strong carryover of the traditional threat assessment.

35. Stephen Blank, "Crisis in the Russian Economy," Jane's

Intelligence Review: The World in Conflict 1994/95, January 1995,

pp. 36-39.

36. Charles Dick, "The Russian Army–Present Plight and

Future Prospects," Ibid., pp. 40-45 gives a good overview of

these problems.

37. Hiatt, p. A21.


38. See the following articles by Inga Saffron, "Russia

Throws Fresh Assault Against Sagging Chechen Rebels,"

Philadelphia Inquirer, January 13, 1995, pp. A1, 14; Inga

Saffron, "Yeltsin Takes Direct Control of Army Staff,"

Philadelphia Inquirer, January 14, 1995, pp. A1, 6. Actually,

Yeltsin reportedly was considering doing this, but no formal

announcement has been released as of the time of this writing.

39. For an English language statement of Lobov's and

Shaposhnikov's views which were outlined in several press

articles in 1991, see the two papers by Major Ronald M.

Bonesteel, US Army, "The Dismissal of Lobov" and "The CIS

Security System: Stagnating, In Transition, Or On the Way Out?,"

Foreign Military Studies Office, Ft. Leavenworth, KS, January and

August 1992, respectively.

40. Hiatt, p. A21.

41. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Daily Report, December

5, 1994. There are reasons to believe this was not the only

instance of such troop transfers.

42. James Sherr, "The Conflict in Checheniia," Jane's

Intelligence Review, December 1994, pp. 557-558; Amur

Mursaliyev, "Drugs Fuel Azeri Coups," Moscow News, No. 49,

December 9-15, 1994, p. 6; Thomas Goltz, "The Hidden Russian

Hand," Foreign Policy, No. 92, Fall, 1993, pp. 92-116.

43. Moscow, Interfax, in English, April 16, 1995, FBIS-SOV,

95-073, April 17, 1995, p. 29.

44. Hiatt, p. 21.

45. Ibid.; Lee Hockstader, "Bill Seeks to Extend Former

KGB's Powers," Washington Post, March 1, 1995, p. A14.

46. Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press, Vol. XLVII, No.

3, February 15, 1995, p. 23.

47. "Just How Powerful Is Russia's Security Council,"

Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press, Vol. XLVII, No. 3,

February 15, 1995, pp. 19-20.


48. Ibid.

49. Moscow, Kommersant-Daily, in Russian, January 13,1995,

Foreign Broadcast Information Service Central Eurasia-Supplement,

95-020-S, January 31, 1995, pp. 27-28, FBIS-SOV, 95-034-S, pp.

11-13.

50. Hockstader, p. A14.

51. Moscow, Novaya Yezhenedevnaya Gazeta, in Russian,

January 18, 1995, FBIS-SOV, 95-020-S, January 31, 1995, pp. 28-

30.

52. Steven Erlanger, "Bowing to I.M.F., Yeltsin Takes New

Steps to Fight Spending and Corruption," New York Times, March 2,

1995, p. A10.

53. Ibid.; OMRI, Daily Digest, February 24, 1995, FBIS-SOV,

95-034-S, pp. 11-13.

54. Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The

Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations, Cambridge, MA:

Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1957, pp. 80-97.

55. Ibid.

56. Lepingwell, "Loyalty of the Russian Military," pp. 89-

91.

57. Eliot Cohen, "Making Do With Less: Or Coping With

Upton's Ghost," Paper Presented to the U.S. Army War College

Annual Strategy Conference: "Strategy During the Lean Years:

Learning From the Past and Present," April 27-28, 1995, pp. 10-

13.

58. Michael Dobbs, "Kozyrev Portrays Stance As Benign To

Ensure U.S. Support," Washington Post, April 30, 1995, p. A28.

59. Suzanne Crow, The Making of Foreign Policy in Russia

Under Yeltsin, Munich and Washington, D.C.: Radio Free

Europe/Radio Liberty Inc., 1993, pp. 49-50.

60. FBIS-SOV, 95-034-S, pp. 10-13.


61. Ibid.

62. Ibid.
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General Richard A. Chilcoat

Commandant

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STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

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Colonel Richard H. Witherspoon

Director of Research

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Author

Dr. Stephen J. Blank

Editor

Mrs. Marianne P. Cowling

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Mr. James E. Kistler