Big rise in Russian military spending raises fears of new challenge to west
Pastor Dale Morgan
Big rise in Russian military spending raises fears of new challenge to west*
· Moscow anxious over US missile defence plans
· Hawkish minister outlines $189bn hardware revamp
Luke Harding in Moscow and Ian Traynor in Brussels
Friday February 9, 2007
The Guardian
Concerns were growing yesterday over a new bout of east-west
confrontation, after Russia unveiled a big increase in military spending
in the wake of the American decision to site parts of its controversial
missile defence system in eastern Europe.
Russia's hawkish defence minister, Sergei Ivanov, revealed an ambitious
plan for a new generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles,
nuclear submarines and possibly a fleet of aircraft carriers. Moscow
also intended to revamp its early warning radar system. This major
overhaul of Russia's military infrastructure would cost $189bn (£97bn)
over eight years, he said, adding that he wanted to exceed the Soviet
army in "combat readiness".
The sharp rise in expenditure comes at a time of growing coolness in
US-Russian relations. Vladimir Putin has been incensed by the Bush
administration's intention to site missile defence systems in Poland and
the Czech Republic.
The US says the installations are being built to shoot down possible
long-range missiles fired by Iran or North Korea. But Mr Putin has
dismissed this claim as ludicrous, and has said the real target of the
missile shield is clearly Russia and its vast nuclear arsenal. In a
speech tomorrow in Munich, the president is expected to deliver Russia's
scathing response.
Defence and security leaders are to meet in the German city over the
weekend to wrestle with issues such as Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iran.
President Putin and Mr Ivanov will deliver speeches, as will the new
Pentagon chief, Robert Gates, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and
Ali Larijani, the key Iranian official for Tehran's suspect nuclear
programme.
Yesterday analysts said Moscow was worried the defence shield in eastern
Europe could turn into a Trojan horse.
"This is irritating for Russia," said Yevgeny Miasnikov, a senior
research scientist at Moscow's Centre for Arms Control. "When the Soviet
Union collapsed a vacuum was created in the countries of the former
Warsaw bloc. The US has tentatively moved into the vacuum and is
creating infrastructure that might threaten Russia. The Bush
administration's system is not justified. Iran doesn't have a missile
capability yet to hit the US. The logical place to put a defence system
would be in Turkey, or in Russia itself."
In his speech to Russia's parliament, Mr Ivanov announced that the
military would get 17 ballistic missiles this year, compared with an
average of four in recent years. The plan envisages the deployment of 34
new silo-based Topol-M missiles and control units, as well as another 50
such missiles mounted on mobile launchers by 2015, he said. Russia has
already deployed more than 40 silo-based Topol-Ms.
Writing in a Munich newspaper yesterday, Mr Ivanov said: "The deployment
of American missile defence in Europe has not only a military but also a
symbolic significance. Fifteen years after the end of the cold war a
situation is obviously being created in which the continent again can
only manage with American protection and with reinforced American
military presence."
In 2002, Mr Putin and George Bush signed a treaty obliging both sides to
cut strategic nuclear weapons by about two-thirds by 2012. But
Russian-US ties have since worsened steadily over disagreements on Iraq
and other global crises, and US concerns about an authoritarian streak
in Russia's domestic policy.
The modernisation of the armed forces has been made possible by Russia's
spectacular economic resurgence based on oil and gas revenues. After the
Soviet Union's demise, Russia's vast military economy collapsed. The
squeeze continued in the 1990s, but since 2000 spending has gone up,
with this year's budget of $31bn almost four times the amount spent in 2001.
Russian defence analysts point out, however, that defence spending is
still well below that of the mid-1980s Soviet Union, and only a 20th of
the US's current military budget.