According to a Feb. 25 article in the Telegraph, the Russian government has announced plans for a huge and expensive overhaul of it's aging military. The Kremlin plans to spend around $600 billion on a new fleet of ships, up to 600 new aircraft and 1000 helicopters in the biggest rearmament drive since the fall of the Soviet Union.
What are the main reasons behind Moscow's rearmament programme?
Great Power Politics
Ever since the fall of the Soviet Empire in the early 1990s, Russia has struggled to come to terms with the loss of its superpower status and the respect that went along with it.
Former Russian President and now Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has made no secret of his desire to see Russia once again at the forefront of world affairs. The 58-year-old former KGB agent once praised Soviet dictator and mass murderer Joseph Stalin for making the Soviet Union a superpower at the end of the Second World War.
According to the BBC he also believes that the demise of the USSR was "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century."
Most Russians would like to see the Motherland regain the prestige and influence it once possessed, and also see Russia acting as a counterweight to what many see as American interference in the Caucasus and those parts of Central Asia that had traditionally been under Soviet hegemony.
The Rise Of China
Relations with Russia's giant neighbour to the east are also cause for concern among political and military circles. The Kremlin is well aware of China's extraordinary economic rise, and despite cultivating friendly ties in recent years -- Russia is the main supplier of China's military and energy needs -- suspicion abounds as to China's intentions in Central Asia.
Russia and China share a 4,200 km border that has seen many armed conflicts break out between the two. According to a May 13, 2010 article in the Telegraph Russia once even planned a nuclear strike on China over border issues. Potential flashpoints remain.
Many ordinary Russians fear that ony day China may try to take mineral-rich areas of sparsely populated Siberia and incorporate it into a greater China.
Many Chinese workers already call Siberia home. Street signs in the Chinese language of Mandarin are now a common sight, and in some areas the Chinese now outnumber Russians.
Islamic Extremism In the North Caucasus
Russia's other chief concern is the rise of Islamic extremism in the largely Muslim North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation. The Republics of Chechnya and Dagestan have long been a hive of Islamic fanaticism.
In 1998 four employees of a British telecommunications company working in Chechnya were beheaded by such fanatics, and there have been numerous cases of captured Russian soldiers suffering the same fate during the Chechen war of the 1990s.
Russians fear the large Muslim birthrate and low ethnic Russian birthrate will eventually lead to a demographic disaster. And unlike Muslims living in western European nations, who are of an immigrant background, the Muslims of the Russian Federation are native to their respective republics.
Moscow has made it clear that it intends to wipe out the extremist element within its borders, no matter the price. Russia showed the world in 2008 with the war against the nation of Georgia that it was not prepared to simply sit on the sideline while its perceived interests were threatened.
With rearmament a reality, how will Europe, and in particular Germany react? Will Russia be accepted as part of some greater western alliance, or will the Neo-Cons of the United States continue to demonise the Russian bear as a threat to the West?
Sources
- Telegraph.co.uk: "Russia rearmament: Russia's fear of China and radical Islamist insurgents" (accessed 25 Feb. 2011).
- Realclearworld.com: "Fear of China drives Russian policy" (accessed 23 Feb. 2011).
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