Medvedev Announces Plan to Rearm Russia
Published: Wednesday March 18, 2009
Source: Asbarez.com
MOSCOW (IHT)–Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said Tuesday that
Russia would begin a "large-scale rearming" in 2011 in response to
what he described as threats to the country’s security.
In a speech before generals in Moscow, Medvedev cited encroachment by
NATO as a primary reason for bolstering the military, including
nuclear forces.
The Russian President did not offer specifics on how much the budget
would grow for the military, whose capabilities deteriorated
significantly after the fall of Soviet Union.
Russia has increased military spending sharply in recent years, but
with the financial crisis and the drop in the price of oil, the
country’s finances are under pressure, suggesting that it would be
hard to lift these expenditures further.
Even so, Medvedev’s timing was notable. He is expected to hold his
first meeting with President Barack Obama in early April in London on
the sidelines of the summit meeting of the Group of 20 industrialized
and developing countries.
In recent weeks, he has said he is looking forward to the meeting, and
both he and Russia’s paramount leader, Prime Minister Vladimir
V. Putin, have been expressing some optimism about improving relations
with the United States under the new administration.
Medvedev’s comments Tuesday, though, indicated that Kremlin did not
want the United States and its NATO allies to presume that Russia was
coming to the table from a position of weakness.
"An analysis of the military-political situation in the world shows
that there are a range of regions where there remain serious potential
for conflicts," Medvedev said. "Threats remain that can bring about
local crises and international terrorism. NATO is not halting its
efforts to widen its military infrastructure near the borders of our
country. All of this demands a quality modernization of our armed
forces."
Medvedev emphasized that Russia would not be deterred in this plan by
the financial crisis.
His announcement comes as the Kremlin has already begun an effort to
overhaul the operations of the armed forces, which are still run
largely according to Soviet-style dictates.
While Russia’s far larger military easily triumphed over Georgia’s in
the conflict in August, the fighting exposed what many experts
described as flaws in training, weapons and equipment.