Military

Although the threat of global conflict seemed to dissipate with the end of the Cold War, the restoration of Russia’s military might have been on Vladimir Putin’s agenda from the very beginning. He came to power in 2000, when the armed forces relied on the remnants of Soviet arsenals due to the sharp decrease in military expenditures in the 1990s.

But Russia faced regional threats to its national interests in the post-Soviet era as well as challenges from insurgents on the North Caucasus. The successful second Chechen War in the early 2000s lent vast public support for Putin’s rule.

At the same time, it showed that the country’s armed forces—a Cold War-era mobilization giant—could not respond quickly to local threats. The initial plan called for two different forces—troops constantly at the ready along with traditional mobilization units. But in 2008, the mixed results of the five-day war with Georgia over the breakaway republics Abkhazia and South Ossetia triggered the more radical transformation of the Russian military into a smaller, but more effective force.

Russia’s Military Modernization Under President Putin