Russia, Syria, and Arms - Oh My!

The following excerpts from this Russian news article highlight the strange "dependence" of Russia on arms sales.  Russia seems intent on proving that it is a "Great Power" through demonstrations of how it can defy the rest of the world community.  This continued "opposition" strategy does not imply that Russia is strong enough to do what it wants.  It really seems to show that Russia is not confident enough in its own position to take a non-realist, non-material stance on issues.  Thoughts?

Russia to honor Syria arms contracts | World | RIA Novosti: "Libya.

Russia will honor all arms contacts with Syria despite continuing violence against anti-government protesters in the country, a senior military official said on Sunday. 

“Since there are no restrictions on the supply of arms to Syria, Russia will fulfill its obligations under the contracts signed with this country,” Vyacheslav Dzirkaln, deputy head of Russia’s Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation, told reporters in Dubai. 

“Russia is interested in continuing mutually beneficial cooperation with the new Libyan government, both on the already-signed contracts and prospective deals,” he said.
In September, Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) chair Mustafa Abdul Jalil said his country would not buy Russian arms. Observers said the decision came as little surprise because of Moscow’s links with the late Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime and its slowness to recognize the rebel leadership as the legitimate government. 

Dzirkaln also said Russia hoped to continue arms sales to Yemen when violence there ended."

Does it matter how the violence ends?  If Russia continues to support the Assad regime does it do so because it is afraid that a different regime will not look to Russia for arms?  How do these arms contracts that Russia seems so keen to uphold further Russian interests in the long-term?

Venezuela, Bonds, and Russian Arms

Venezuela bond deals point to arms buying: Caracas, Venezuela (UPI) Nov 8, 2011



Bond deals by Venezuela point to defense purchases made in Moscow to circumvent a U.S. arms embargo and other difficulties faced by Caracas in its quest for military suppliers for its armed forces.
The bond deals worth $3.6 billion come at a time of growing political uncertainty in Venezuela over the health of President Hugo Chavez, who is receiving treatment for cancer in Cuba.


As a reference for the news article above is a graph I pulled together from data from SIPRI (www.sipri.org) on Russian arms exports to Venezuela.  The data are for the years 1992-2010.  As I have noted in posts on Syria, Russia appears to play by different rules with foreign policy when arms deals are available.

Russian Service Members Pay Increase - Troubling Trend?

Russian service members to earn almost as much as NATO counterparts: President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a law raising the salaries of Russian service personnel starting January 1, 2012.

Will the raises in salary come with an expected rise in professionalism?  Much of the Russian military structure and activity has always seemed to be based on cheap/unskilled labor of conscripts and a core of officers that are proficient.  It seems that the rank structure would have to change in order for the pay changes to seem feasible and responsible.  

This, coupled with Putin's recent remarks about the foreign policy of the United States, may be cause for a little concern.  Is Russia becoming a military state?

Russia’s military spending will begin increasing rapidly in 2012, from 13.9% of budget expenses in 2011 to 14.6% in 2012, 17% in 2013 and 18.8% in 2014. 

“Military spending will grow 1.5%-2% nearly every year, which is a considerable increase,” said Igor Nikolayev, chief strategist at FBK, a private audit firm. “Together with spending on security and law enforcement, this is more than one-third of all budget expenditures.” 

Increased military spending was one of the reasons behind the resignation of Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, who urged a reconsideration of the military spending program. 

While military spending will grow, allocations for education and healthcare will be reduced. In particular, spending on education will fall from 5.1% this year to 4.7% in 2012, 4% in 2013 and 3.4% in 2014. Healthcare expenses will be even smaller: 4.6% in 2011, 4.4% in 2012, 3.7% in 2013 and 3.2% in 2014.

Stalingrad Footage

This is an interesting video of footage from Stalingrad.  I thought it would be appropriate near Veterans' Day.
See the whole series on Stalingrad at: http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20111108/168520301.html

Russia and Syria: Arms and Alliances

The story referenced below gives a good overview of the relationship between Russia and Syria.  It is especially interesting that the ties that have made Russia and Syria "allies" are commercial and center on arms.  Russia, by supporting Syria with weapons, is able to maintain influence in the region.  This is an interesting contrast to the deteriorating arms relationship with Iran.

As international pressure on President Bashar al-Assad of Syria grows, Russia has maintained a perplexing timidity towards developments. Moscow has steadfastly refused to stake out an unambiguous position on events in Syria, a diplomatic paralysis that may end up proving more costly to Moscow in the long run. 

Some analysts say the Kremlin's careful stance is a result of its unwillingness to lose its only real Middle Eastern ally and a desire to avoid a confrontation with the West. 

"Syria remains Russia's only ally in the Middle East," Vladimir Karyakin from the state Institute for Strategic Research said. "We abandoned the rest either during perestroika or during the recent Arab revolutions. We even betrayed some - like Libya or Egypt, for example."
Russia has been a major arms supplier to Syria since the Soviet era and political cooperation with Damascus has often been far more valuable to Moscow than money. In 2005, Russia wrote off more than 70 percent of Syria's $13-billion debt, much of which was the result of Soviet-era arms deliveries. 

Although financial interests now play a more important role in defining Moscow's approach to Syria than during the Cold War, political concerns still remain the cornerstone, analysts say. Since the early 1970s, the country has hosted Russia's only naval supply and maintenance base outside the former Soviet Union in its Mediterranean port of Tartus.
"If we lose such an ally, we will lose our foothold in the Middle East," Karyakin warned.

Conflicting interests paralyze Russian diplomacy on Syria: analysts | Features & Opinion | RIA Novosti:

The following graphs show the growing importance of Russian arms imports to Syria.  I put together the graphs using data from SIPRI.

Russian and US Arms Exports - A Very general Overview

This particular post is just a bit of motivation for me.  I am doing a little exploratory work for my dissertation, but I am also working on learning how to use R for statistical analysis/graphing.  This is the result of my afternoon and evening.  The data come from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

These graphs show the total arms exports from both the US and Russia (USSR before 1991).  There are two things that stand out from this simple visualization: 1) arms transfers are a cyclical process at the macro level, and 2) Russian arms exports dropped off much more quickly than the U.S., but are now rebounding along with the U.S.

The Russian military’s manpower problem « Russian Military Reform

The Russian military’s manpower problem « Russian Military Reform

This article does a good job of pointing out the fact that the training and culture of the military has a lot to do with the weapons that it can deploy. This is a key to understanding arms transfers and sales throughout the world. A military cannot simply buy the best equipment it can afford financially - it has to buy the equipment that its forces are capable of wielding.

In the longer term, Arbatov and Dvorkin make a convincing case for the value of a transition to a fully professional military. The expectation that the future Russian military will be equipped with more technologically advanced weapons means that there will not be enough time to train conscripts serving for one year to use this technology. Furthermore, hazing (dedovshchina) will continue to be a problem as long as young men continue to be inducted into the military against their will. Professionalization is the best way to solve this problem. Finally, professionalization will eliminate the corruption associated with the conscription system, including both systemic bribery used in avoiding the draft and the use of “free” conscript labor for private ends by senior officers. One article in NVO calculated the total value of bribes received during the annual call-up at 138 billion rubles. Arbatov and Dvorkin point out that the only fully professional unit in the Russian military — the 201st motorized rifle division based in Tajikistan — has long shown itself to have a high level of readiness and no hazing and can serve as a model for every unit in the ground forces.

AFP: Medvedev scraps Ukraine visit after gas merger fails

AFP: Medvedev scraps Ukraine visit after gas merger fails

This particular piece of news contains some interesting tidbits:

A Russian defense ministry source told AFP on Friday that Medvedev had cancelled plans to go to Sevastopol to preside over a Navy Day parade amid an unexpected surge in tensions, saying the status of the parade was unexpectedly downgraded.

I am not sure how a head of state can preside over a military parade in a sovereign neighbor's territory.

It is also interesting how high a level the talks are between Gazprom and Naftogaz since Medvedev was the president of Gazprom before he was Prime Minister.

Ukraine has also repeatedly insisted that any joint business with Gazprom should be implemented on equal terms and ruled out an outright merger.

It seems as if Ukraine - even under a relatively pro-Russian president has problems being strong-armed. It will be interesting to keep an eye on the region.

Russian generals are driving armament makers out of the country - RusBizNews.com

This is an interesting turn of events for my research into arms networks.

Russian generals are driving armament makers out of the country - RusBizNews.com

Bureaucracy in Academia Mirrors Federal Model

News: 'The Fall of the Faculty' - Inside Higher Ed

I found the most interesting part of this interview the fact that the shift in academia mirrors the bureaucratic shift in Washington.

As a political scientist I was very sensitive to issues of politics and struggle. And I’ve increasingly seen the same tactics at work in universities that we see here in Washington.

This is a similar problem that I encountered in the military, where those that were hired to "administer programs" were more interested in funding, metrics, buzzwords, and advancing their own careers than in understanding and doing the work that needed to be done. This may mirror the larger trend in business which is written about in a new book about how the rise in MBAs has led to the decline of American business. There is a lot to say about having the "engineers" or in this case the academics in charge. Rather than worrying about the sale of the educational "product" the focus should be on providing the best, most rigorous, and most useful education.