DATE=7/13/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=RUSSIA MILITARY (L-O)
NUMBER=2-264392
BYLINE=PETER HEINLEIN
DATELINE=MOSCOW
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: A bureaucratic battle has broken out within
Russia's military leadership over the future of the
country's nuclear-missile forces. Correspondent Peter
Heinlein in Moscow reports President Vladimir Putin
appears to have little choice but to fire one of his
top generals.
TEXT: Armed Force Chief of Staff General Anatoly
Kvashnin this week proposed a radical shakeup of
Russia's strategic nuclear rocket force.
At a meeting of senior generals, the chief of staff
unveiled a plan that would eliminate the rocket force
as an independent command and unilaterally cut
Russia's nuclear arsenal to fewer than 15-hundred
warheads.
The proposal has been forwarded to President Putin for
approval.
Military analysts say the Kvashnin plan constitutes a
direct challenge to Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev,
and illustrates an intense power struggle within
Russia's military hierarchy. Moscow's respected
Kommersant newspaper says the plan - can only be
described as an attempted coup within the military.
Defense Minister Sergeyev is a former head of the
rocket forces. He favors maintaining a strong nuclear
deterrent at a time when shrinking military budgets
have caused a sharp decline in conventional force
readiness.
General Kvashnin, by contrast, rose through the ranks
of the ground forces. He contends Russia is spending
too much of its limited military budget on nuclear
defense at a time when the army is embroiled in a
costly ground war in Chechnya.
The Kvashnin plan is said to be popular among rank-
and-file soldiers, the vast majority of whom serve in
conventional units. But Alexander Golts, defense
analyst for the weekly Itogi magazine, sees the
reorganization strategy as part of a power play aimed
at ousting the defense minister.
/// GOLTS ACT ONE ///
The problem is, this fight is not a fight about
strategy, or the concept of a rising Russian
army. The problem is that this fight,
unfortunately, is a pure bureaucratic fight for
new positions, for new careers of a few people.
/// END ACT ///
Mr. Golts says the bureaucratic infighting will force
President Putin to make an unpleasant choice between
his two most senior military officials.
/// GOLTS ACT TWO ///
I think Mr. Putin has to fire one of these two
men, Mr. Sergeyev or Mr. Kvashnin. It will be a
difficult choice.
// OPT // If to agree with Kvashnin, Russia
will lose its last feature of superpower
(status), its nuclear forces. So we lose in
this fact our biggest instrument in contact with
the west. On the other hand, the situation in
Chechnya is very bad. The Russian military has
no money and no new ideas how to conduct the
situation there. // END OPT //
/// END ACT ///
In an unprecedented move, the commanders of Russia's
rocket forces are reported to have sent General
Kvashnin a letter asking him to rethink his proposal.
President Putin has remained silent on the issue, but
is said to be meeting Friday with Defense Minister
Sergeyev, when both men attend a military show in the
Ural mountains. (SIGNED)
NEB/PFH/JWH/RAE
13-Jul-2000 11:40 AM EDT (13-Jul-2000 1540 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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