Russia, politics and power: internal & external(new title)

[SWJED]

26 July AP via NY Times - Russia to Increase Military Might and Spy Efforts.

President Vladimir V. Putin said Wednesday that he intended to strengthen Russia’s military capacity and to step up spying abroad in response to plans by the United States to build missile defense sites and deploy troops in Central Europe.

“The situation in the world and internal political interests require the Foreign Intelligence Service to permanently increase its capabilities, primarily in the field of information and analytical support for the country’s leadership,” Mr. Putin said at a meeting with senior military and security officers in remarks that were posted on the Kremlin’s Web site...

[Dominique R. Poirier]

[kaur]

The main designer of the Bulava, Yuri Solomonov, has in the past attributed the multiple mishaps of test-launches to the progressive degradation of the Russian defense industry, the inferior quality of Russian-made components and materials, and the “loss” of key military technology (VPK, April 4). This apparently unstoppable degradation means that in the coming years Russia will be unable to arm its forces with modern weapons. Russian arms exports are also affected. Alexander Brindikov, deputy chief of the Russian arms trade monopoly Rosoboronexport, explains: “We are encountering colossal problems fulfilling existing export contracts and are withholding from signing some new ones, because we cannot figure how they may be fulfilled” because of the degradation of the Russian defense industry (VPK, March 21).

In the future Russia maybe forced to begin procuring Western (i.e., U.S.) arms and defense know how, or its forces will have no new weapons -- and perhaps none at all. Why would Putin pick fights with the West on any possible issue when it is becoming obvious that Russia is becoming dependent on Western aid and good will? Perhaps Putin’s actions are not foolish, but the product of deliberate misinformation about the true state of the Russian military and defense industry.

http://www.jamestown.org/edm/article...cle_id=2372316

[Tom Odom]

Where are his horns, Dominique?

Mama Bouchet (mother of my role model native Cajun, Bobby Bochet) would say, "Putin is de debble!"

Tom

[Dominique R. Poirier]

Tom,
don't worry about it. One of his good old loyal servitors is going to give him a pair of good ones which still have got a few years' use left in it...

[Jedburgh]

The Economist, 23 Aug 07: Russia Under Putin: The Making of a Neo-KGB State

....Just before he became president, Mr Putin told his ex-colleagues at the Federal Security Service (FSB), the KGB's successor, “A group of FSB operatives, dispatched under cover to work in the government of the Russian federation, is successfully fulfilling its task.” He was only half joking.

Over the two terms of Mr Putin's presidency, that “group of FSB operatives” has consolidated its political power and built a new sort of corporate state in the process. Men from the FSB and its sister organisations control the Kremlin, the government, the media and large parts of the economy—as well as the military and security forces. According to research by Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a sociologist at the Russian Academy of Sciences, a quarter of the country's senior bureaucrats are siloviki—a Russian word meaning, roughly, “power guys”, which includes members of the armed forces and other security services, not just the FSB. The proportion rises to three-quarters if people simply affiliated to the security services are included. These people represent a psychologically homogeneous group, loyal to roots that go back to the Bolsheviks' first political police, the Cheka. As Mr Putin says repeatedly, “There is no such thing as a former Chekist.”

By many indicators, today's security bosses enjoy a combination of power and money without precedent in Russia's history.....

[kaur]

I'd like to add 1 reading material to Jedburgh's post. It contains also Kryshtanovskaya's tables.

This issue of the Russian Analytical Digest discusses the role of "Siloviki", appointed politicians and high-ranking officials with a force-structure background, in Russian politics and within the Putin administration. The issue further also looks at developments in Russian military reforms.

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/rad/deta...ng=en&id=29428

[Stan]

Spies in the Russian Embassy you say ?

Russia's Daily On-Line Kommersant reports "Putin Sets Up Police Attaché Positions in Russian Embassies".

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decree establishes positions for police officers in Russia’s diplomatic missions abroad, said RIA Novosti news agency with reference to the president’s press service.

The total number of Interior Ministry officials and their deputies is restricted to 41 people. The decree states the police officers in the embassies abroad will cooperate with their foreign colleagues in the struggle against transnational crimes.