What did Putin bring to the Russian army after eight years in power？
Russian President Vladimir Putin [profile picture]
Russian-Tu-160 strategic bomber [data picture]
At present, Russia is at an important historical juncture. Putin’s second term expires and the results of the new presidential election have been announced. On the occasion of the transition of the Russian president, the achievements made by Putin during his eight years in power and the future trend of Russia have become the focus of general concern.
The past eight years have been extraordinary for both the Russian state and the Russian army. In these eight years, great changes have taken place in Russia’s state and army. Under the leadership of Putin, Russia has re-embarked on the road of strengthening the country, strengthening the army and enriching the people from the crisis state of almost becoming a second-and third-rate country in the world.
Looking back at Russia when Putin just took over, its military strength fell to the lowest point in history. In order to reverse the situation and revitalize the Russian army, Putin took a series of effective measures in army building after taking office and made remarkable achievements. Counting this series of measures, we can clearly see the great changes in the Russian army since Putin came to power for eight years.
Establish a "strong military strategy" that is compatible with the "strong military strategy"
When Putin came to power in 2000, he clearly pointed out that "the only realistic choice for Russia is to choose to be a strong country." However, "without strong armed forces, there will be no strong Russia." In 2004, Putin reiterated: "An efficient and effective armed force is the most important factor to defend Russia from any form of military and political pressure or potential aggression and to consolidate Russia’s international status." Guided by this idea, the Russian Federal Security Council put forward the principles of "asymmetry" and "realistic containment" in Russian military construction on the basis of the National Macroeconomic Development Plan for 2015.
Since then, with the constant changes in the security threats faced by Russia (namely, NATO’s eastward expansion, the United States’ withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and its decision to deploy a missile defense system near the Russian border, etc.) and the continuous strengthening of the armed forces, the goal of Russian military construction has become higher and higher.
In his State of the Union address in 2007, President Putin proposed to build the Russian army into "an armed force that can deal with both global conflicts and regional conflicts, and can also deal with several local conflicts at the same time if necessary".
Realizing the Civilian of the Minister of National Defense and Changing the Management Mode of National Defense
In February 2007, Putin appointed serdyukov, the former director of State Taxation Administration of The People’s Republic of China, as the Minister of National Defense, which made the Minister of National Defense civilian for the first time in Russian history.
The purpose of this move is threefold: first, to establish a system of civilian running the army, and to completely put the generals under the leadership of civilian politicians. The second is to clearly distinguish between the administrative functions and operational command functions of the army, so that soldiers can get rid of all functions unrelated to combat readiness as far as possible, concentrate on training well, hand over some functions to the government or society, and change other positions that do not require professional military knowledge to civilian personnel. The third is to establish a national management system in the military field, so that the legislature can exercise civilian supervision over army building, thus completely solving the problem of rational allocation and use of military expenditure.