A large-scale program of rearmament of the army and navy has been announced in Russia. The list of purchases to be made over the next 10 years is impressive. It is planned to purchase more than 100 warships, more than 600 aircraft, 1000 helicopters, as well as purchase many other weapons systems. The cost of the public procurement program is estimated at $ 650 billion (approximately 10% of this amount will go to R&D), and this is not taking into account another $ 100 billion, which will go to support other law enforcement agencies of the country. In accordance with the adopted program, the share of modern weapons in the troops should be 30% by 2015 and reach 70-80% by 2020.
Some of the samples of equipment purchased under this program can seriously enhance the country's defense potential. These purchases include the Mistral helicopter carriers purchased in France, as well as more than a dozen multipurpose submarines of the Ash and Lada projects, the strategic missile forces will continue to receive new ones instead of the decommissioned SS-18 Satan and SS-19 Stiletto monoblock missiles Topol-M and ballistic missile RS-24 "Yars", carrying 3 warheads. And by 2013, it is planned to complete the development of a new heavy ballistic missile that will be able to overcome any anti-missile defense and will carry 10 nuclear warheads with homing systems, it is this missile that in the future should fully replace heavy ICBMs from Soviet times.
Provides a program of state purchases and the acquisition of 26 new carrier-based fighters MiG-29KUB for the needs of the fleet. Frontline aviation should receive dozens of new Su-34 fighter-bombers, which will replace the Su-24, as well as Su-35BM fighters belonging to the 4 ++ generation and designed to gain air superiority, and the latest 5th generation heavy fighters T-50 to counter aircraft like the F-22 Raptor. Transport aviation will receive new Il-476 aircraft.
The ground forces will not be left out either, which will receive Iskander-M operational-tactical complexes, which should eventually replace Tochka-U, as well as new MLRS systems, self-propelled artillery mounts, BTR-82A armored personnel carriers and new anti-tank complexes. The air defense forces will also seriously strengthen, which, in addition to the latest S-400 systems, will be replenished with modernized S-300V4 systems, as well as medium-range Buk-M2 air defense systems and Pantsir-S1 short-range anti-aircraft missile and cannon systems. Provides a public procurement program and the deployment of the S-500 air defense systems still in development, which, among other things, can be integrated into the anti-missile defense system. Army aviation will be replenished with hundreds of Mi-26 heavy transport helicopters, Mi-28 Night Hunter and Ka-52 Alligator attack helicopters, which can be successfully used in operations in Chechnya and to counter militants and terrorists.
Ka-52 "Alligator"
However, so far all these are just words that have little support, behind all these figures it is not clear that most of the ships purchased for the fleet are ships of the near sea zone - corvettes, patrol ships, auxiliary ships. At the same time, many analysts doubt that in the next ten years the Russian Air Force will be able to receive more than a dozen combat-ready 5th generation aircraft. So far, the T-50 do not have suitable engines, the available ones are a further development of the engines installed on the Su-35 fighters, and this is only a temporary solution that does not meet the stealth characteristics of the 5th generation engines. At the same time, this is not even half-fortunate for the domestic defense industry. It is much more dangerous not to fulfill the programs for the procurement of existing equipment.
And there are quite definite prerequisites for this. Some observers believe corruption is eating up nearly half of defense spending. Considering its scope in all other spheres of Russian life, one can agree with this. With procurement for the Ministry of Defense, it is even easier to implement “gray” schemes, because often transactions are made under a veil of secrecy, which serves as an additional opportunity for various thefts and abuse. Perhaps the appointment of the first civilian defense minister, Anatoly Serdyukov, in 2007 was made with the hope that he would tackle the problems of corruption and inefficiency in the defense industry with great zeal. However, it seems that the problem cannot be solved, and the failure to fulfill the program of state purchases of weapons in 2009 and 2010 can serve as evidence of this. It may take decades to rectify the situation, and then one can simply forget about the implementation of the announced ambitious program.
And this is not the only problem that can interfere with the implementation of the plan. For the first time in several decades, the program for state purchases of weapons envisages an increase in defense spending on a permanent basis to a level of 3% of the country's GDP. However, some of these funds will compensate for the large inflationary burden that continues to plague the entire domestic industry. In addition, the military will have to attract additional funds to purchase housing for dismissed officers.
The chaos in North Africa and the Middle East plays into the hands of Russia and leads to increased revenues from energy exports, but it also spurs an increase in social spending. This tendency is especially intensifying before the upcoming elections - parliamentary and presidential. The risk of growing dissatisfaction in society with the deterioration of socio-economic conditions before the upcoming elections of power is useless, therefore, there will be an increase in social programs. If Russian leaders, alarmed about the votes of the electorate, are asked to choose between arms purchases and social spending, they are likely to choose oil over guns. At the same time, the dependence of the country's budget on oil and gas exports puts the budget itself, and, consequently, military spending, in a rather vulnerable position from surges in energy prices.
BTR-82 and BTR-82A
The Russian defense industry also has problems. Yes, it still has capable personnel who are able to develop any military equipment, but nevertheless, the military-industrial complex has not been able to fully recover from the painful collapse of the USSR and cannot produce modern weapons on a massive scale. This is partly why Russia took an unprecedented step - the purchase of a number of weapons abroad.
In addition, the Ministry of Defense began to compete with foreign buyers of our military equipment, India and China, especially in the struggle for the acquisition of combat aircraft, tanks and a number of other weapons that are well exported. In particular, the Russian Air Force became interested in the MiG-35 fighter, which was originally developed for export and is participating in an Indian tender. Any cut in foreign orders could harm the Russian defense industry, depriving it of the funds it needs to modernize. How it will cope with the fulfillment of both export and domestic orders is still an open question.
It is also important that, no matter how good military equipment is, it is not equipment that is fighting, people are fighting. Therefore, the country needs a new reformed officer corps and military specialists who would be able to take full advantage of this technology. In this sense, Serdyukov's military reform, which is aimed at transforming all the armed forces, which were originally created to wage a large-scale war against a system of mass mobilization of the population, raises serious doubts. After the reform, an updated compact army should be born, capable of winning confident victories in local conflicts and carrying out counter-guerrilla actions. So far, these reforms have resulted in the destruction of an old structure that resembled a scaled-down model of the Soviet army. 200 thousand officers fell under the reduction, and 9 out of 10 army military units were disbanded. However, it is still not completely clear whether it was possible to create a more perfect system in place of the dismantled old system. In any case, it is quite difficult to believe that all the remaining brigades of the ground forces suddenly became high-readiness brigades, ready to turn around and engage in battle at any moment, in fact, they, as before, are equipped with the same conscripts, only the number of parts. Based on all this, there are fears that in 10 years the newspaper articles reporting on the army rearmament program will be much less jubilant than they are now.
