Military Economy and the Military Reform in Russia in 2009

Abstract

This paper deals with a wide choice of issues related to Russia's military-industrial complex, defence policy and military procurements in 2009. The year of 2009 saw an unprecedented acceleration of the genuine military reform. This can be ascribed first to the fact that in the wake of the war with Georgia in August 2008 the tandem of the Russian leaders (the RF President, who also is the Commander-in-Chief, and the Prime- Minister) has de facto granted Mr. Anatoly Serdyukov, the RF Defense Minister, carte blanche not only on continuation, but acceleration of the modernization of the Defense Ministry and the Armed Forces; second, this can be explained by the Minister’s personal qualities and his commitment to pursue a real reform of the Armed Forces. But the time for the reform implementation has been missed.

Keywords: Russian military-industrial complex, Russian defence policy, defence procurements

JEL Classification: D74, F52, F53, H56