Bertil Nygren

F.D., docent
Ph.D., Associate Professor

E-mail: bertil.nygren@statsvet.su.se

   Hemsidan

Russian Military Reform and Russia's New Security Environment.

(Together with Yuri Fedorov, eds.)

The most well-known Russian military reform was undertaken by Peter the Great three hundred years ago. Many attempts have been made since then. The last attempt to reform the Russian military forces is basically the result of the end of the Cold War and the demise of the USSR, and the reform has been on the agenda of the two Russian presidents since then. While President Yeltsin was not likely to succeed, President Putin might just be the type of President to do so. This anthology is about the military reform effort under Putin and the new security environment in which the reform is being staged. A modest beginning of the reform attempt was seen in 2002 and 2003, when an elite conscription paratrooper division was transformed into a voluntary and professional one. This transformation of one division, to be followed by more divisions in the second and third stages of the reform, will in the end (if it succeeds) turn the entire Russian armed forces into professionalized armed forces: much smaller but much better forces. The basic rationale for reforming the Russian military is the new type of threats that Russia is facing, and the new type of wars she will have to fight in the future. This anthology deals both with the rational for military reform and with the problems encountered in its initial phase.

Contents

Introduction
Bertil Nygren

Russian Military on the Eve of the Reform: Ten Images that Shaped the Myth
Jakub M. Godzimirski

Reforming the Russian Military: History and Trajectory
Pavel Baev

Organizational Evolution within the Russian Federation Armed Forces
Gustaf Brunius

The Military Reform as a Social Contract
Irina Kobrinskaya

The Military Reform in the Russian Federation. Problems, Decisions och Prospects
Victor Esin

Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces After the USSR: Reforming & Prospects
Vladimir Dvorkin

Military Aspects of Citizenship in Russia
Stephen Webber and Alina Zilberman

The Impact of `Small Wars' on the Trajectory of the Russian Military
Pavel Baev

Strategic Thinking in Putin's Russia
Yuri Fedorov

Russia's Immediate Security Environment under Putin, before and after September 11th
Bertil Nygren