The military-industrial complex rules in Russia

Jonathan Power
The Statesman, 26 October

In his autobiography, Georgi Arbatov, the eminence grise of the Soviet foreign policy establishment, asked this question, referring to the Soviet intervention in Angola and Afghanistan: “Why did we in the eyes of the world become an aggressive expansionist power in the second half of the 1970s?” But he didn’t really answer it.

So given the opportunity to talk to him for a good three hours I had the time to push him for an answer, an answer that presidents Carter and Reagan wished they knew when they had to deal with the Soviet Union. Both overreacted, the former by arming the Mujahideen that later transfused into Al-Qaida and the latter by licensing the South Africans to fight an Angolan liberation army (the MPLA, now the government) which then turned to Cuba to help them defeat South Africa and make a negotiated peace possible. Of course, it is true if they known the answer their policies might not have changed one wit.

“My guess”, replied Arbatov, “is that our military-industrial complex had grown to such proportions that it escaped political control. The leaders depended on the military-industrial complex to stay in power. So they didn’t want to estrange relations with it. Not everything was controlled by one man. The whole system was infiltrated by the military industrial complex.”

I then asked Arbatov if the military-industrial complex was today under control. “The economic difficulties of post Soviet Russia”, he replied, “make military expenditures much more modest than they were, but we have a new thing, our new leader, Putin. He is in the hands of this military-industrial complex, and a lot of his appointments go to these people. I don’t know how much control he has over them. In general they have to worry about their survival in the military-industrial complex, not about enhancing peace… Maybe Putin is afraid of being blamed for neglecting the needs of the military. The communists would blame him, Zhironovsky would blame him. You have a lot of adventurers now.”

Clearly, this pressure on Putin would have led to a degree of hardening of Russian foreign policy even without the provocation of the expansion of Nato, the growing influence of the US in the soft underbelly of Russia, the former Asian republics, and the decision to build on Polish and Czech soil an anti-missile system. But for those with a bent towards traditional Russian paranoia, an urge to recapture a past imperial status, this is all the evidence they need to justify an attempt to rebuild the Soviet military machine.

“But the main thing is that real negotiations have stopped”, adds Arbatov in an important caveat. “Both sides are at fault. We need to start with two or three summits to discuss the new international situation, possible lines on the behaviour and responsibilities of big countries… You need to meet your adversary regularly and you get to know him and then it is easier to negotiate. This meeting in Kennebunkport. This wasn’t a negotiation. I know how the old summit meetings were.

All organisations, including mine, were busy up to the ears - the whole political and military establishment. We had to work, work, work. Now they have lost interest. Now it is theatre, just to show. I have no idea where they get their information from. Putin’s is the least transparent governmental system in my memory. Even in Stalin’s time we knew Malenkov meant this and this, and after it became much more visible.”

Once launched on a critique of Putin, Arbatov does not spare the knife. “ Putin has done a lot of good work- he has re-established the governmental system. But at the same time he gives not a single speech that gives the prospect. What are we striving for? What do we want to have in internal policy, in foreign policy?”

In Arbatov’s view it is time overdue that the two countries cut back their nuclear armaments. “Both sides have lost their enemy. They see no imminent danger from the other side. Neither seems to understand that it can quickly reappear. Just the existence of so many weapons makes deteriorating relations more likely and stability less dependable… Being honest, we in Russia are not right in our approach. We have so many weapons we could decrease the numbers unilaterally and show an example.”

Arbatov’s final point: “If you have so many nuclear weapons you have to say there is a plan to get rid of them even if you can’t give an exact date. Otherwise other countries say, if you have them why can’t we?”

Later that evening I walked by the Kremlin. Who is listening? Neither the military-industrial complex in Russia nor, come to that, its almost equally powerful counterpart in the US.