Introduction
In democratic countries, civilian control over military organizations and military policy
is based on three foundations. Firstly, the legislative controls over executive authority,
including its ‘power ministries’, as well as the participation of lawmakers in military
policy. Secondly, instituting a civilian, rather than military, Defence Minister provides a
basis for civilian control. And thirdly, the open access of research centres, the press, and
other social organizations to information on the vital activity of the armed forces (AF)
and other force structures, allows the additional input of civil society into the decision
making of the legislative and executive authorities. All three constituents are closely
related. We shall analyse the former and generalise on Russia’s recent experience in
setting up such controls.
The parliament is an integral element of civilian control. By having the power to
approve military appropriations of specific items and to control expenditures, the
parliament becomes a forum at which the representatives of the Ministry of Defence
must provide strong evidence for their procurement choices. Since the funds available
are usually insufficient, the less well-grounded choices are often cut off. Thus, this
limits the practice of closed inter-departmental compromises, which often lead to the
dissipation of resources due to the tradition of ‘voluntary’ decisions being made on the
basis of the personal ties between high-ranking governmental officials and generals,
designers, and executives of enterprises in the military-industrial complex (MIC).
No less importantly, through the budget the prioritisation of national defence is
established relative to other activities: law-enforcement, education, public health, social
welfare, science, culture, ecology, industrial and agricultural investments, and
assistance to regions.
Management of the budget process is crucial for parliamentary control over Russia’s
military policy. Firstly, the 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation severely
restricts the powers of the State Duma in comparison to those of the executive and
(especially) the presidency. The parliament has only legislative and representative
functions but no control function. As the supreme commander in chief, the president has
an almost absolute power over a military organization, military policy and construction.
Under the Constitution, the President can also determine the organization of executive
authorities. Since Boris Yeltsin’s administration the so-called ‘force structures’ (or
‘power ministries’) have been placed (by presidential decree) under the President rather
than the Chairman of the Government, although they are formally represented in the
Cabinet of Ministers. This was one of the reasons why the power ministries often
clashed with Government and the Ministry of Finance over the volume of defence and
law-enforcement appropriations during the 1990s. Thus, the budget is a major if not the
only way of pronouncing on such important issues as the formation and implementation
of military policy and the state’s military construction.
Of course, the Duma elaborates a number of laws concerning the organization of
defence structures in the governmental system, such as the law ‘On Defence’. The
relations of the army and society are also controlled by the laws ‘On the Status of
Alexei Arbatov, ‘Introduction’, Arbatov/Fluri/Cole (eds.), Russian Federation Legal Acts on Civil-Military Relations,
Moscow/Geneva: DCAF/Foundation for Political Centrism 2003)
Military Personnel’, ‘On Military Liability and Military Service’ and ‘On Alternative
Civil Service’ that regulate the matters of AF recruitment, specifically conscription. But
this part of the State Duma’s activities does not directly cover military policy or military
construction. The above laws are essentially administrative, and only determine the
general frameworks of military policy and military construction, although they
frequently become the subject of the sharpest political struggles (such as occurred, for
example, over the law ‘On Alternative Civilian Service’, and amendments to the
procedure of conviction and deferment in the law ‘On Military Liability and Military
Service’).
Current military policy is another matter. There is no doubt that the parliament may
pronounce in this context – primarily through the budget. However, there are substantial
difficulties in managing the military budget. First and foremost, difficulties are created
by the authoritarian and militaristic traditions which adversely affect not only the
activities of the parliament in this field, but also hamper the formation of the two
aforementioned constituents of civilian control.
Moreover, in both Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union, the military constituents of
economy, security, and foreign policy was always hypertrophied. This is partially
explained by Russian history during which people often suffered from foreign
aggression and asserted their right to existence through force of arms. This situation
partially followed from the nature of the authoritarian empire that frequently expanded
its living space by force and kept people in submission by simultaneously fighting with
other powers for territories and spheres of influence.
The army and fleet, the officers, and generals always took privileged positions, enjoyed
special political rights and were highly influential. The military command almost
always had a monopoly in policy-making in the sphere of defence. The elaboration of
policy was always surrounded by a dense veil of secrecy and consequently a sense of
mystery. All this was in direct opposition to the European democratic tradition.
In the Soviet Union, the question of civilian control over military policy, the military
command, as well as parliamentary control over the executive authorities did not
naturally arise. The leadership was unified, consisting of military and civilian leaders
and, not without coincidence, the term ‘military-political leadership’ was used. By
definition, this concept is absent in democratic countries. In accordance with the main
principles of the organization of a democratic state, the leadership is always political
and its most important function is, among other things, the political or, to put it another
way, the civilian control over the military command.
In the 1990s when Russia tried to construct another model of a state system and applied
the developed western principles to some extent, the problem of civilian control was
faced in all its magnitude. But national, socio-psychological, and political traditions in
this field proved to be almost insuperable. Even the democratically elected parliament
with its majority could not and still cannot realize or adopt the relevant principles that
civilian specialists can only learn professionally, such as the particulars of a military
doctrine and strategy, military needs, financing, planning of levels, dislocation,
structure, and programmes for equipping the current army with arms.
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Moscow/Geneva: DCAF/Foundation for Political Centrism 2003)
So, in the State Duma and Federation Council there are no deputies (with some
exceptions) who have professionally mastered the problems of defence at the presentday level. The majority of the parliamentarians who deal with these problems are
former military men merely introduce their service knowledge and skills in relevant
parliamentary practice and actually act as lobbyists of the Ministry of Defence and the
armed forces.
In addition to this most serious obstacle, there are some further difficulties in the
development of parliamentary control. The first, simplest and, in essence, procedural
obstacle is the time limit for discussing and passing the budget at the State Duma. In
contrast, the United States’ Congress spends about a year on the thorough consideration
and subsequent approval of the federal budget, including military expenditures. The
process is three times shorter in Russia. The Government introduces a regular budget
into the Duma between late August and early September. Less than three months are
available for the whole budgetary process: the budget has to be considered by
committees, major political factions, and deputy’s groups; it has to be submitted for
discussion at the first reading; it then has to be amended and adopted at the second and
eventually third and fourth readings, before being passed by the Upper Chamber of the
Parliament and signed by the President.
Even if the whole intricate process ran smoothly and no contradictions emerged, three
months would still be insufficient. As a result, there is always a serious shortage of in
the Duma. This is no longer a matter of organization, but a political problem. By early
December, the State Duma comes under great pressure from executive authorities, the
President, the departments concerned, the public, and the press. By then, the Duma has
to adopt a budget as it is: otherwise the state would not have any funds available for use
at the start of the new year. At the same time, the departments that complain about
insufficient financing and which protest against a governmental budget begin pressing
deputes on the basis that any lessening of their budgets would make their performance
worse.
The second difficulty is the method of presenting to the Duma information about the
military which is still extremely secret. Originally, between 1994 and 1997, the national
defence budget was approved by the Duma as a part of a federal budget, with seven
major sub-sections for which funds were allocated from the Ministry of Defence both to
pay military pensions and to implement a military programme of the Ministry of Atomic
Power Engineering (the section ‘National Defence’ had a total of fifteen items between
1994 and 1996 and eighteen in 1997). However, draft governmental budgets between
1998 and 2002 contained a total of three items: ‘AF maintenance’, ‘mobilization
preparation’ and ‘the programme of the Ministry of Atomic Power Engineering’. Such
information was so aggregated that the actual role of the Duma’s Defence Committee
became to lobby the interests of the departments concerned to increase the general
budget rather than to thoroughly consider how these large funds (according to the
standards of the Russian Federal budget) should be spent. It should be noted that these
appropriations amount to fifteen to twenty per cent of the budget expenditures and that
they were equal to the size of the budget deficit during 1995-2000.
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Moscow/Geneva: DCAF/Foundation for Political Centrism 2003)
While approving the budgets between 1998 and 2000, the Duma insisted on increasing
the number of items on this section to twenty-six and by twenty-one between 2001 and
2002. But by showing the expenses on AF maintenance in more details, however, a
more detailed presentation of this information could not be achieved.
In accordance with the 1997 law ‘On Budgetary Classification’ and its subsequent
amendments, the military budget should be considered in terms of thirty to thirty-five
open items, but this is still far from sufficient. Contrary to the pressure of the concerned
departments of the executive authorities, in 1998 the State Duma adopted the Yabloko
faction’s proposed amendments to this law which allowed the consideration of the
section ‘National Defence’ in a more extended form of one hundred and thirty items.
Nevertheless, the military budgets presented by the Government between 1998 and
2000 were in violation of the law by dividing the budget into a total of only three items.
The closed items were divided into more detail. The reasons are clear: since the whole
budget is passed as a law, the approval of all three items permits the government to
manipulate funds within these items during a year at will and thereby hand over power
over military policy to the executive departments (primarily the Ministry of Finance and
the Ministry of Defence) rather than to the Parliament.
However, the problem is more intricate. Even if the military budget is approved as a law
containing ten items concerning functional issues such as ‘AF maintenance’ (and even
if sub-divided into categories such as ‘money allowances’, ‘fuel supply’, ‘payments for
public utilities’, and ‘transportation’ for example), there is little information for either
deputies at the Parliament or interested citizens who want to participate in making
military policy and military construction on a well-grounded basis. Even the vast
majority of the State Duma’s deputies most engaged in these matters cannot understand
from the items what defence priorities will be forefronted, what wars Russia will
prepare for, what types of armaments and military equipment will be purchased, how
these choices will impact on Russia’s role and place in global and regional strategic
balances, or how the choices will affect its participation in arms limitation and reduction
treaties.
A third point is that by passing the budget, the State Duma is itself unable to control the
budget’s execution since, as mentioned above, the Duma only has legislative and
representative functions under the Constitution rather than managerial ones rather. The
Parliament only indirectly controls budget implementation through the ‘Clearing
House’ whose conclusions to deputies’ inquiries are generally delayed and often state
post factum that the budget law has been violated by the executive authorities: which, in
any case, entails no consequences for the latter. Therefore, such problems as the longterm delays in payment of money allowances during the 1990s, the annual food crises in
the army, and the shutdown of many defence industry sectors (to the severe detriment of
military sciences).
The present state of this area of military affairs and their evolution during the 1990s
cannot be unambiguously assessed. On the one hand, the practice of parliamentary and
the open discussion of the most important problems, including defence and military
reform, have gradually been adopted by society. The most important and positive
factors have undoubtedly been both the wide discussion of military problems in the
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Moscow/Geneva: DCAF/Foundation for Political Centrism 2003)
press and the formation of a Russian ‘strategic community’ from civilian and retired
military specialists. This community have joined together in different research centres
and frequently challenged official military policy and military construction, and the
strategy and tactics of disarmament negotiations. All these matters are more frequently
raised at the Parliament in different for a including hearings, the meetings of Duma
committees and through Duma commissions.
Another development was the appointment in March 2001 of a civilian Minister of
Defence who was charged to depend less on the General Staff, the armed forces’ and to
interact more effectively with the legislative authorities. However, this theoretical
advantage of ‘civilianisation’ still awaits meaningful confirmation in the current
conditions.
Similarly, wider discussion of military affairs has had no significant impact on the role
of the Parliament and has also failed to increase its role in asserting civilian control over
the military sphere. In the 1990s, the military sphere remained highly monopolized by
presidential power. The presidency constantly acted as an arbitrator between the
Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Defence, a process that determined the nature
of many decisions and entailed both unprecedented degradation of the armed forces,
military industry and the failure of military reforms.
Worse still, the invocation by the government of secrecy laws when decisions are made,
and the level of secretiveness itself, has drastically increased. This has already caused
grave errors, for example, in the revision of the Programme for the Development of
Strategic Forces in 2000-2001 which made it easier for the United States administration
to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in December 2001. Due to the
absolute application of the reactionary law ‘On State Secrecy’ (adopted in 1997), not
only was parliament’s and the public’s access to military information made much more
limited, but criminal prosecutions of some of the researchers and military men occurred
and are now currently underway.
Furthermore, the consolidation of political parties and groups around the President has
resulted in a much more limited independent role for legislators as a counterbalance to
the executive authorities. The State Duma has been transformed into nothing more than
a voting machine, including on problematic national defence issues.
How can the situation be remedied? Primarily, this is not a problem of parliamentary
control, but a much wider problem of the development of Russian democracy, political
pluralism, freedom of speech, the separation of powers and expansion of the access of
the public to information, including that on military subjects. The ‘creeping’ curtailment
of democratic standards of life at the same time as the preservation of an external
democratic form cannot be compatible with the expansion of parliamentary control in
all fields. The same is true for the Russian traditions of militarism, which can only be
overcome by introducing civilianized laws and practical proof of their advantages.
Under the established conditions, the state of affairs in this sphere depends on the policy
of the present President of Russia.
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Alexei Arbatov, ‘Introduction’, Arbatov/Fluri/Cole (eds.), Russian Federation Legal Acts on Civil-Military Relations,
Moscow/Geneva: DCAF/Foundation for Political Centrism 2003)
In this connection one must say that foreign policy affects a democratic process within
the country. The closer the interaction of Russia with the West is the more the USA and
their allies will take into consideration the national interests of the Russian Federation,
patiently seek agreement on the most important international matters, and the create
conditions more favourable for the development of Russian democracy and vice versa.
In this area we are dealing with issues such as anti-terrorist strategy, the ABM treaty,
offensive strategic arms, NATO expansion, Russia’s foreign debt of the Russian
Federation and its entry into the WTO.
As for just parliamentary control, it primarily requires alterations of the law ‘On State
Secrecy’ and the revelation of a much greater volume of information on defence issues,
which has been so far provided to the Parliament in a closed fashion.
Furthermore, to ensure that the Duma and any concerned person can make an
assessment of military policy based on the allocation of funds, the national defence
budget should presented in at least three main sections. Firstly, as now, by functional
items, such as ‘purchase of arms and military equipment’, ‘military construction’, and
‘maintenance’. Secondly, the data of a federal budget should clearly show the intended
distribution of the military budget among armed forces, major troop formations and
organizations in the system of the Ministry of Defence. And third, the budget should be
assigned not only by the kinds of the armed forces, but also by the main strategic tasks,
for example, rapid reaction forces, strategic deterrent forces, ground and sea forces, and
control and information support. Data on the major constituent elements of armament
programmes should be also published. If this policy were followed in a military budget
wherein the required funds are separately presented but finally converge to show the
total amount, then, the deputies will be able to compare all three main sections, make
their conclusions and then contribute to the elaboration of military policy.
Wide discussion on these subjects in the strategic community will also assist the
Parliament in gaining a better insight into the most complicated matters of defence. The
maximum openness of military information, the attraction of independent experts and
alternative opinions from both academic circles and public organizations are all
required to rule out secretiveness within the Parliament itself and to ensure legislators’
improved preparedness of legislators when taking decisions. There are no reasonable
reasons for the deputies’ awareness of and activity in military policy being less than
their knowledge and participation in economic and social issues.
Moreover, the whole process should be altered in the context of its procedure. As a
preliminary measure, a budget should be introduced into the State Duma in at least May
and subsequently perhaps even at the beginning of a calendar year so that the
Parliament could have time enough to thoroughly consider it, without being under the
purely political and frequently demagogic pressure that has forced budgets to be
adopted in the proposed form with a minimum of amendments.
Finally, last but not the least, amendments to the Constitution are required in this field,
for example: to invest the Parliament with powers to control the budget’s management
and to create mechanisms that would allow the direct control of the allocation of funds
to the addressee; to give Parliament the right to obligatorily summon officials to provide
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Alexei Arbatov, ‘Introduction’, Arbatov/Fluri/Cole (eds.), Russian Federation Legal Acts on Civil-Military Relations,
Moscow/Geneva: DCAF/Foundation for Political Centrism 2003)
necessary information on relevant issues and, at the same time, the power to punish
officials for withholding or distorting the information submitted.
Civilian control has assumed a particular importance in the present Russian situation at
a time when both the country and the army experience a difficult transitional period
with, so far, unknown outcomes. Rapid changes in a country, let alone a great nuclear
power like Russia, that are accompanied by an aggravation of political struggles and the
excessive involvement of the army in domestic and foreign policies, entail very
dangerous consequences for both the country and the world. The only guarantee against
these dangerous consequences is strict civilian control, formalized and legally
authorized at the relevant institutions’ level, but not expressed in informal ties between
political groups or factions with military leaders or appointees in the Ministry of
Defence.
At present, the Defence Committee of the Russian Federation’s State Duma is drafting a
law on civilian control over force structures. It should be emphasized that while
elaborating laws, the interests of the persons themselves in military dress should be kept
in mind, the principle of ‘doing no harm’ becoming the key for legislators.
In addition, ‘global’ experiences accumulated during joint international meetings,
conferences, and seminars which discuss problems associated with the establishment of
an effective system of laws in military and civilian relations and with the organization
of democratic control over the armed forces should be also applied.
In November 2002, there was a Moscow International Conference at which Russian and
foreign parliamentarians, experts, other military and civilian specialists will discuss a
range of intricate problems in civilian control over the forced structures in details.
I should like to note with satisfaction the fruitfulness of our collaboration with the
Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (Geneva, Switzerland) that has
accumulated much experience and the best examples of legislative acts of different
countries of the world on this problem.
On the initiative of the Defence Committee, the State Duma of the Russian Federation,
and the Geneva Centre, the most important laws and bills have been selected, compiled
and translated as the unified collection you are holding in your hands.
A.G. Arbatov
Deputy Chairman,
Defence Committee of the State Duma and Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation
Moscow November 2002
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