MOSCOW. (Nikita Petrov, for RIA Novosti) - Several days have passed since the extended meeting of the Defense Ministry's Board, and the Russian and foreign media still continue to comment on the reports that were made there.
Some journalists and military analysts have interpreted these reports as they saw fit rather than objectively.
The Times, a British daily newspaper, described Dmitry Medvedev's speech as hawkish. The respectable Wall Street Journal proved to be quite a surprise as well. In its article about this meeting, "Kremlin Signals a Harder Line on Relations with the U.S.," the paper wrote that "Russian President Dmitry Medvedev struck a Cold War tone on Tuesday, pledging to press ahead with an ambitious rearmament program in response to what he described as NATO's military expansion close to Russia's borders."
The president spoke about the re-equipment of the Russian army, to be carried out on a large scale after 2011. He said, in part: "There is always the risk of local crises and international terrorism. Attempts to expand the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on the borders of our country continue. All this requires a qualitative modernization of our Armed Forces to give them a new, forward-looking perspective."
Those who wish to do so may check this on the Kremlin's website (http://www.kremlin.ru) or the Defense Ministry's website (http://mil.ru) where Medvedev's speech is published in full.
What does this have to do with hawkish policy? The Pentagon's budget for this year is about $600 billion as compared with Russia's defense budget of about $40 billion. I give approximate figures because exchange rates are volatile. Reproaching Russian leaders for taking care about the combat ability of their army with such a gap in military budgets is inappropriate, to put it mildly.
Last August's five-day conflict in the Caucasus showed that the Russian army's re-equipment is an urgent task. The 58th Army sustained heavy losses for its lack of modern means of reconnaissance, communication, targeting, navigation, radio-electronic warfare, and night vision. In his speech on March 17, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov quoted a striking figure: "Only 10% of domestic arms and military equipment meet modern requirements." This is why the Russian army needs re-equipment, even in the conditions of the financial crisis.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
