Russia's Project 2008: Reforming the Military and Preparing a Coup

Abstract

war that, since 2004, has spread into the North Caucasus. The extension of this war places the entire region of the North Caucasus at risk for an unending, long-term terrorist insurgency. This threat can no longer be ignored; indeed, it places the integrity and stability of the Russian Federa tion at risk. Therefore, the conflict now receives overwhelming governmental, media, and mili tary attention, right up to President Vladimir Putin, who traveled to Dagestan and the Caspi an coast in mid-2005. Indeed, close examination of developments in reforming the force structure of Russia's multiple armed forces since 2002-2003-when practical application of such reforms began, along with a change in threat assessment that led to a new emphasis on terror ism and insurgency-indicates Chechnya's impact on those changes in force structure.1 The second, perhaps even more portentous threat, is the succession to Putin. The Russian constitution prohibits Putin from succeeding himself after his term ends in This con stitutional obstacle presents Russia's elite with a very difficult problem. The various means by which they hope to overcome this obstacle have been called Project 2008. Succession, that is, the transfer of power and especially the transfer of power by wholly legitimate democratic means, is a primary weakness of Russia's polit ical system.2 Every succession since 1991 has been the result of violence or electoral fraud, if not both.3 The recurrence of these phenomena is one of the most important indicators that Russia's elite refuses to be bound by any sys tem of laws or of legal-political institutions. Consequently, democratic institutions that can ensure the legitimacy of a succession-or even of a government in power-have atrophied, and Russia's political history is characterized by one-man rule and constant struggles among the elite over his support.4 Western diplomats, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have publicly expressed a preference that Putin observe the terms of the constitution and not succeed himself in 2008.5 Obviously, if he were to attempt such a coup or stage one similar to the coup that led to his ele vation, he would set off a constitutional crisis, and a phony election could trigger both an exter nal and internal campaign to unseat him. Clear ly, the prospect of another color revolution similar to those in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyr gyzstan terrifies the Kremlin's current masters. They have good reason for fearing such a denouement. Putin's underlings actually cele brate that they have smashed all institutions and bureaucratic veto groups as well as any hope of autonomous political action from the Duma. Igor Bunin, director general of the Cen ter for Political Technologies, stated that Putin's reforms have aimed to convert the entire state system into a monocentric adminis tration in which he and his entourage have all the power. In such a system, conflicts within the bureaucracy are supposedly absent because it is vertically integrated. Hence, the govern ment becomes a technical instrument rather than a policy initiator, a position reserved for Putin and his entourage in the presidential chancellery.6 Putin, his chancellery, and their media spokesmen evidently believe they have achieved a result that has eluded Russian rulers since Nicholas I, namely officialdom's recurrent dream of a perfectly integrated vertical hierar chy that functions strictly as a machine. Because this machine supposedly incarnated the tsar's position as superseding all factional, partial, and sectoral interests, it was wholly depoliticized. Stephen Blank is a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Army War College. His research focuses on contempo rary strategy and defense and foreign policy in the Common wealth of Independent States. Copyright @ 2006 American Peace Society