Putin Pledges to Reform Russia’s Military Forces

President Vladimir V. Putin attacked one of Russia’s most intractable problems Friday with a pledge to carry out a reform of the military that may decide the future shape of the country’s nuclear weapons.

The painful issue of restructuring the military sparked a bitter public row among Russia’s top brass last month. But Putin told the powerful Security Council in a four-hour meeting Friday that it was time to end the argument.

Despite repeated promises after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Putin’s predecessor, Boris N. Yeltsin, was unable to carry out military reforms. Putin’s move in his first year in office illustrates his willingness to struggle with some of the toughest structural problems facing Russia. It follows his action to curb the powers of regional governors and to introduce a 13% flat tax designed to end endemic tax evasion.

Critics say Russia’s nuclear forces are too costly and an inappropriate response to the new challenges on the country’s southern flank. Proponents led by Defense Minister Igor D. Sergeyev cite the need to maintain a nuclear deterrent. While both sides expressed satisfaction after Friday’s meeting, there were hints that Putin was leaning toward the critics.

He warned against the “unrestrained accumulation of piles of weapons,” saying that was one reason the Soviet Union collapsed.

Putin, who built his popularity on a close identification with the military, usually showers lavish praise on the armed services, but his words Friday were not so kind.

“The current structure of the armed forces is hardly optimal. How can it be considered optimal if training is not conducted in many units, pilots almost never fly and sailors almost never put to sea?” he said at the meeting, which he had called to work out an approach to military restructuring.

Putin’s tough approach to the war in the separatist republic of Chechnya became his political trademark, but the costly campaign has dragged on, exposing the weaknesses of Russia’s conventional forces and exacerbating the government’s difficulties financing the military.

The war vacuumed up 85% of the army’s supply stockpiles, with no funds left to replenish them, Sergeyev said recently.

Putin slammed years of irresponsible military spending, which he blamed for the failure of military reform in the past decade.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has faced a dilemma on military spending: Its nuclear missiles give the nation substantial international clout and enable it to keep alive the idea that Russia is still a superpower. But the cost of maintaining and upgrading its nuclear deterrent is increasingly unaffordable. The Defense Ministry budget for this year is less than $5 billion.

Sergeyev, who was appointed in 1997, has spent heavily on new Topol-M intercontinental missiles. Meanwhile in Chechnya, Russia’s forces are poorly equipped, plagued by equipment breakdowns and often lacking proper training. Facing several thousand Chechen rebels, the military repeatedly has failed to deliver on promises that the war was nearly over.

In addition, military pay and living conditions are dismal.

“The military structure must correspond to the threats that face Russia now and in the future. All our actions must be absolutely balanced, calculated and economically justified,” Putin said.

Dmitry V. Trenin, military analyst for the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank, said Putin appeared prepared to make tough decisions on economic change and military reform.

He said the main threats to Russia emanated from Chechnya and Central Asia, not the United States or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, so Russia had to create a smaller, highly mobile army that could defend its southern flank.

In the past decade, there have been many attempts to restructure the military. In 1996, Yeltsin promised to phase out conscription by 2000, introducing a lean, well-trained army. The plan got nowhere.

Plans for a broad reform of the military include the possibility of trimming the 1.2-million-member armed forces to about 900,000.

The issue of reform caused a fierce public squabble last month between Sergeyev, former commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces, and the chief of the Russian general staff, Col. Gen. Anatoly V. Kvashnin.

Kvashnin called for the nuclear missile forces to be slashed and merged into the air force, with the savings directed to the conventional forces and weapons research. Sergeyev publicly slammed the plan as “criminally insane,” arguing that it would undermine Russia’s nuclear deterrent.

Russian media reports quoted Sergeyev as saying after Friday’s meeting that no missile silo would be retired ahead of schedule.

Military analysts have suggested that Sergeyev appeared to be on his way out, possibly facing dismissal later this year, with Putin likely to adopt at least part of Kvashnin’s plan. There is speculation that Putin might appoint a civilian defense minister.

“We have enough nuclear weapons. The key thing for Russia now is the fight against terrorism in the Caucasus and Central Asia,” said Ivan Safranchuk, military analyst at the Center for Policy Studies, a Moscow think tank.

“The military has been expecting extra money from Putin. But it has become obvious to them that there will be no extra money. That’s why we see conflicts now, because everyone is trying to grab something from everyone else.”