Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

Ahead of the 4 March Russian presidential election, which since the popular protests following the December legislative elections is no longer seen as a pure formality, Vladimir Putin has now published six manifesto articles in six different national newspapers on six successive Mondays.  Of these, we would judge the article on national defence and the armed forces published this Monday (20 February) in the government-owned Rossiyskaya Gazeta as the most important.  It is important in political terms – playing the patriotic/nationalist card – and it is important in what it says about where Putin sees Russia’s place in the world.

The six manifesto articles published by Putin are: an article outlining what he sees as the main challenges facing Russia, published in Izvestiya on 16 January; an article on ethnic relations in Nezavisimaya Gazeta on 23 January; an article on economic policy in Vedomosti on 30 January; an article on the development of democratic institutions in Kommersant on 6 February; an article on social and demographic policy in Komsomolskaya Pravda on 13 February; and now an article on the Russian armed forces in Rossiyskaya Gazeta on 20 February.  Sources in Moscow say that it is an important signal that the sixth article, on the armed forces and national security, appeared in a national-level newspaper run by the government.  It was intended, they say, as a signal that this is where Putin’s priority lies for his renewed presidency.

While it is necessary to be cautious about opinion polls showing Putin comfortably winning the presidential election in the first round, there are indications that the choice of national security as his primary focus is well-judged given that he clearly cannot win hearts and minds or votes on his record of democratic development.  For instance, an opinion poll conducted by the Levada Centre and published on 21 February shows the proportion of voters who consider Russia faces a real military threat increasing from 47% in 2010 to 55% in 2012.  According to this poll, the number of people seeing no threat has decreased from 42% two years ago to 36%.

Other indicators of increasing suspicion of the West, a key theme of Putin’s, is the drop in the number of Russians who hold a generally positive view of the United States from 60% to 44% since the beginning of 2011.  Those with a negative perception of the US has increased from 28% to 40%.  This would appear to vindicate Putin’s strong and ongoing criticism of Nato’s actions in Libya and its plans for missile defence in Europe.

Putin’s 21 February article on the armed forces started with a further appeal to Russian fear of the West.  In his very first paragraph, he wrote: “It is no coincidence that today we are already hearing voices saying that...national sovereignty should not extend to resources of global significance...”  He added: “There must not be even such hypothetical possibilities with respect to Russia.  This means we must not tempt anyone by being weak.”

Further tapping into Russian paranoia, which we have highlighted previously as a feature of the Putin/Medvedev regime, Putin warned about the danger of “artificially fuelled and managed chaos”, and he claimed to detect “deliberate attempts to provoke such conflicts in the immediate vicinity of the borders of Russia and our allies”.  He added, harking back once again to Nato’s actions in Libya: “We can see how basic principles of international law have been devalued and destroyed.” 

As interesting, perhaps, as this reconfirmation of Russian suspicion of the West is the fact that Putin clearly sees Russia’s armed forces and its defence industry as the key to Russia’s rejuvenation.  He starts by saying: “We have adopted and are implementing unprecedented programmes to develop the armed forces.”  He talks about “large-scale comprehensive reequipping of the army and navy” and he talks about strengthening the country’s “unified air and space defence system”.  This will include the delivery “in the coming decade” of more than 400 modern ground- and sea-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles, 8 strategic missile submarines, around 20 multi-role submarines, more than 50 surface warships, around 100 military satellites, more than 600 modern aircraft, including fifth-generation fighters, more than 1,000 helicopters, 28 S-400 surface-to-air missile systems, 38 Vityaz surface-to-air missile systems, 10 Iskander-M systems, more than 2,300 modern tanks, around 2,000 self-propelled artillery systems and cannon, and more than 17,000 military vehicles.  According to Putin, by 2020 more than 70% of the weapons in service will be new models.

Perhaps most interesting of all, however, is the fact that Putin devoted more than a third of the article to the upgrading of Russia’s defence industry – and the reason for this is clearly not just military but because he sees this as the best means for rejuvenating the entire Russian economy.  He describes the defence-industry complex as “our pride”, but he admits that in the past 30 years it has “missed several cycles of modernization”.

Stating his objectives as clearly as he possibly could, Putin says: “The enormous resources invested in updating the defence-industry complex and rearming the army should serve as the motor for the modernization of the entire economy.”

For Putin, the updating of the defence-industry complex will be the means by which a whole range of diverse sectors of the economy will be rejuvenated, including metallurgy, machine building, the chemical industry, electronics, IT and telecommunications.

One paragraph in particular will be noted by Western counter-intelligence agencies.  It is where Putin deals with the purchasing of military equipment from abroad.  He begins by saying there is a fundamental difference between buying abroad “in order to abandon your own” and buying abroad in order “to have your own”.  He adds: “I am convinced that no ‘pinpoint’ purchasing of military hardware and equipment can be a substitute for the production of our own types of armaments, it can only serve as the basis for obtaining technologies and knowledge [our emphasis added].”

At one point in his article, Putin declared:  “There cannot be ‘too much patriotism’...”  He meant it, and that will surely be the theme of his renewed presidency.