Defence Ministry of the Russian Federation
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The Defense Ministry of the Russian Federation exercises operational leadership of the armed forces of Russia.
The Russian minister of defense is the nominal commander of all the armed forces, serving under the president of the Russian Federation, in whom executive authority over the military is vested. In this capacity, the minister exercises day-to-day operational authority over the armed forces. The General Staff, the executive body of the Ministry of Defense, implements instructions and orders of the defense minister.
The armed forces chain of command prescribed in Russian military doctrine clearly establishes central government control of the military. The Russian president is the commander in chief. The State Duma exercises legislative authority over the Ministry of Defense through the Government of the Russian Federation (called a council of ministers or cabinet in other countries), which is nominally responsible for maintaining the armed forces at the appropriate level of readiness.
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[edit] Structure
The Ministry of Defense is managed by a collegium of three first deputy ministers, six deputy ministers, and a chief military inspector, who together form the principal staff and advisory board of the minister of defense. The executive body of the Ministry of Defense is the General Staff. It is commanded by the chief of the General Staff. In keeping with the Soviet practice of permitting senior officers to hold civilian positions, in 1996 the chief of staff also was a first deputy minister of defense.
Contrary to the United States tradition of military authority derived strictly from the civilian sector, Russian General Staff officers exercise command authority in their own right. In 1996 the General Staff included fifteen main directorates and an undetermined number of operating agencies. The staff is organized by functions, with each directorate and operating agency overseeing a functional area, generally indicated by the organization's title.
[edit] Historical context
Thie structure of the Russian defense ministry, which has a superficial similarity to the division of power in the United States military establishment, does not imply military subordination to civilian authority in the Western sense, however. The historical tradition of military command is considerably different in Russia. The tsars were educated as officers, and they regularly wore military uniforms and carried military rank. Joseph Stalin always wore a military uniform, and he assumed the title generalissimo. Even General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev was named a general of the army.
By tradition dating back to the tsars, the minister of defense normally is a uniformed officer. The State Duma also seats a large number of deputies who are active-duty military officers—another tradition that began in the Russian imperial era. These combinations of military and civilian authority ensure that military concerns are considered at the highest levels of the Russian government. They also demonstrate that strict subordination of the military to civilian authority in the Western sense is neither a tradition nor a concern in Russia.
In May 1992, President Boris Yeltsin appointed General of the Army Pavel Grachev to the post of defense minister. Grachev's decision to side with Yeltsin in the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993, when the president called up tanks to shell the Russian White House to blast his opponents out of parliament, effectively deprived the State Duma of its nominal an opportunity to overturn the president's authority. At least partly for that reason, Yeltsin retained his defense minister despite intense criticism of Grachev's management of the Chechnya campaign and the Russian military establishment in general. Finally, Yeltsin's victory in the first round of the 1996 Russian presidential election spurred Yeltsin to dismiss Grachev.
In March 2001, Sergei Ivanov, previously secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation was appointed defense minister by President Vladimir Putin, becoming Russia's first civilian defense minister. Putin called the personnel changes in Russia's security structures coinciding with Ivanov's appointment as defense minister "a step toward demilitarizing public life." Putin also stressed Ivanov's responsibility for overseeing military reform as defense minister. [1]
[edit] List of Ministers of Defence
| Name | Term of Office | Life years | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Start | End | ||
| Boris Yeltsin (acting) | March 16, 1992 | May 18, 1992 | 1931- |
| Pavel Grachev | May 18, 1992 | June 18, 1996 | 1948- |
| Mikhail Kolesnikov (acting) | June 18, 1996 | July 17, 1996 | 1939- |
| Igor Radionov | July 17, 1996 | May 23, 1997 | 1936- |
| Igor Sergeyev | May 23, 1997 | March 28, 2001 | 1938-2006 |
| Sergey Ivanov | March 28, 2001 | February 15, 2007 | 1953- |
| Anatoliy Serdyukov | February 15, 2007 | 1962- | |
[edit] References
- This article contains material from the Library of Congress Country Studies, which are United States government publications in the public domain. - Russia
