Russia: Generals Battle for Real Power: Electricity

MOSCOW, Sep 27, 2000 -- (The Russia Journal) Russian generals havent had much good military fortune of late. The only victories theyve won have been against their creditors.

In Ivanovo Oblast, for example, energy suppliers cut off power to several military garrisons for not paying their bills.

In response, the strategic-missile forces first sent troops, and then paratroops, to seize electricity substations. Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov quickly reacted, saying that it was inadmissible to cut off the power supply to military sites, and the Finance Ministry hastened to allocate the military an extra RUR 1.3 billion.

This isnt the first time events like these have occurred in Russia. Similar incidents took place in 1995 and 1996, but back then the military was told the country had no money for its defense budget.

This year, the Finance Ministry has been transferring allocated money on time and in full.

So why the problem?

Chance had it that the conflict between the military and the energy suppliers flared up just before the State Duma lower house of parliament was due to put the budget through its first reading.

Debate currently centers on whether the defense budget will be increased by 40 percent, as the Finance Ministry proposes, or whether it will be doubled, as demanded by the Defense Ministry and the majority of Duma deputies.

The odd twist to this conflict is that it has both suppliers and consumers lined up on the same side of the barricades against a common enemy  the Finance Ministry.

Both the military and its suppliers desperately need to prove that the already massive defense spending increase proposed by the Finance Ministry is not enough.

Over recent years, the Defense Ministry has accumulated debts of RUR 60 billion.

These debts have their particularities.

Supply contracts would go, not to the company that made the cheapest offer, but to state firms that assured they would not require monetary reimbursement for debts  counting instead on the state forgiving their tax debts from time to time as payment.

But with a bigger budget pie these days, suppliers have decided to try to get their debts back in cash. In shutting down the electricity, the armed forces creditors are sending a clear signal of their intentions.

But anyone can see that if these years of debt are paid off all in one go, it will leave the defense budget just as lean as this year.

That is to say, there will be no spare money to finally get serious military reform under way.

Paradoxically, this is just what many Russian generals are dreaming of. Year after year, they have used empty state coffers as an excuse for their reluctance to cut back and modernize the armed forces.

Now that military reform is a separate item in the budget, the generals must make people believe that theres still not enough money.

It is also possible that the Defense Ministry is deliberately creating a situation of "organized chaos." Starting next year, the government plans to finance the armed forces through the federal treasury system. This would mean the generals no longer have control of budget flows.

The armed forces financial services have been busy over recent years trying to prove that, because of the specific nature of the military, the treasury wouldnt be able to make payments smoothly and on time.

But the Finance Ministry has insisted that the treasury scheme should be implemented. And the military, it now seems, is demonstrating the kind of disorder this could lead to.

These military-bureaucratic games over payments and financing could turn out to be dangerous.

But cutting power to a division armed with several dozen mobile-missile installations isnt where the risk lies.

After all, it wasnt the missile command points that blacked out, only the garrison town where the officers and their families live.

This isnt the stuff of disasters.

What is dangerous is that these situations are gradually teaching the army that an automatic rifle is a universal argument in any conflict  even legal and financial conflicts.

(C)2000 The Russia Journal

http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=203708§ion=default

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), September 27, 2000

Answers

The way Clinton has cut back on our defense budget, this sounds like something that could happen here.

-- JackW (jpayne@webtv.net), September 27, 2000.