“Since the ideas of universal and complete peace and disarmament are not going to materialize in any foreseeable future, Russia, no matter whether it likes it or not, should be ready to struggle over its status in the system of international relations and to protect its interests, in some cases relying on the military force. The export of arms plays an important role in addressing the above task” (page 4). This is the overarching argument throughout the book written by well-known Russian arms business experts A.K. Kislov and A.V. Frolov1 which determines the architecture of the treatise, its contents and arguments.
A.K. Kislov and A.V. Frolov navigate a largely unexplored terrain, generalizing massive quantities of factual data pertaining to several centuries of Russia's activity in the sphere of the international arms trade. They proceed from the assumption that no matter how distant an epoch of Russia's statehood is examined, conclusions relevant to the country's current interests in the arms trade can be drawn from its analysis. The authors outline the corresponding conclusions stemming from their study of the epochs of the Petrine military reforms, of the invention and production of the famous Russian cannons under the supervision of Marshal P.I. Shuvalov during the reign of Empress Elizabeth, and of World War I.
Almost half of the book is dedicated to the early and subsequent phases of the arms export activity of the Soviet Union. The close interest in the less distant Soviet epoch is explainable as it was the time when the ideological and organizational foundations of the country's approach to the production and export of arms were laid. In the 1960ies Russia emerged as a leading arms exporter, which was a major contribution to its superpower status. The Soviet-era experience deserves attention as Russia's current arms export policies are largely based on it. In fact, a great share of the arms Russia is presently exporting was created before the 1991 collapse of the USSR.
Reviewing the past the authors discuss not only the history of Russia's advent to the international arms market and the strengthening of the country's positions on it but also the ideology behind the process and the organizational approaches employed. The complexity of the theme is mirrored by the sophistication of Russia's institutional structure dealing with it.
A key problem faced by the USSR in the international arms trade was that in many cases its clients had no reserves of convertible currency. Even Iraq and Libya, the wealthiest buyers of the Soviet arms, paid in hard currency for at most 20% of the arms they imported from the USSR. As for most of the arms trade partners of the Soviet Union, settlements with them had to be realized in the form of barter, typically at the expense of the interests of the USSR. For example, Ethiopia paid for the weaponry it bought from Russia with coffee. Cuba paid with various commodities such as produce and sugar, and the arrangement undermined the positions of the Soviet food manufacturers. North Korea paid with gold and lead, Afghanistan – with raisins, etc. Over the years of its existence, the USSR supplied to various countries, parties, and liberation movements weapons worth billions of dollars. The authors admit that the total cannot be assessed accurately due to the lack of proper calculation schemes, the secrecy of the deals, and the lack of transparency in transactions.
Russia's military export used to be absolutely dominated by ideological considerations. The decisions on the amounts and types of weapons to be sold were made personally by the country's leaders – Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev, in most cases following summits with the arms trade partners. The financial aspects of the deals oftentimes played a secondary role as the Soviet leadership intended to support various allies or those who knew how to pretend being allies.
It is a general rule that ideology factors into the arms trade, but in the case of the USSR its influence over the arms business used to be clearly excessive. Worse than that, the Soviet leadership assessed inadequately the character of quite a few of the regimes to which it fed weapons, and quite often the perceived friends turned into foes. For example, China openly supported practically all the forces in the third world which were hostile to the USSR, including the Mujahiddeen in Afghanistan. S. Hussein whose army was supplied with weaponry by the Soviet Union unleashed a war against Iran and later against Kuwait without consulting the Soviet leadership. Egypt supported Chad against Libya which was a Soviet ally and supported the resistance in Afghanistan.
As for Afghanistan, it was the country where the Soviet army was hit using the weapons either supplied by the USSR to other countries or manufactured under licenses from the Soviet Union (mainly in China). The authors cite the CIA and Mi-6 operations aimed at buying Soviet-made arms across the world and passing them to the resistance forces in Afghanistan (p. 216-217).
The Russian officials responsible for the arms export should carefully learn such lessons from the past. The material presented in the second and third sections of the book would be helpful in this respect. In these sections, Kislov and Frolov analyze the effect of the transitions which were unfolding in the world in the late XX – early XXI centuries on the international arms trade, identify an array of factors influencing Russia's current policies in the sphere, and assess Russia's current positions and possible future on the international arms market. The authors must be credited with a broad expertise in what concerns the arms trade and the only potential suggestion might be that they adopt a more critical approach to the current situation in the Russian military-industrial complex and correspondingly in its arms export.
Serious damage to Russia's positions on the arms market is likely to be caused by a number of recent failures. India rejected the Il-38 maritime patrol and anti-submarine aircrafts modernized by Russia due to problems with the missile systems they are equipped with and is concerned over the perpetual delays in modernizing the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier sold to it by Russia. Algeria returned a shipment of MiG-29 fighters due to quality problems, etc. There are quite a few deplorable facts showing that Russia is about to lose its grip on the international arms market. The shrinking of the military-industrial complex and the ageing of its personnel, the brain drain, the degradation of the manufacturing capacities and workforce (the circumstances are in fact discussed by the authors) jeopardize even the currently existing contracts.
We should not be deceived by the growing volumes of Russia's arms export as the portfolio mostly comprises the types of weapons designed in the Soviet era. It is no secret that few arms systems have been developed in the post-Soviet Russia. Unless greater commissioning activity of Russia's army boosts the country's military-industrial complex and it undergoes a radical modernization and gets stable funding, purely organizational maneuvers will hardly help. The authors pinpoint the key issue correctly: “The outlook for Russia on the global arms market is going to be determined by how it overcomes the current systemic crisis” (p. 431).
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1 A.k. Kislov, A.V. Frolov. Russia and the International Arms Market. Ideology and Practice. Moscow, Alfa-Bravo, ltd. 2008
