Sub-national Security in Russia

(case study)

Globalization questions the relevance of the old understanding of security as being related to purely military issues. Nowadays security is determined mostly by the scale of integration of the country into international institutions and processes, which is the challenge for Russian federal and regional elites.

In clear departure from state-centric and regime-centric versions of security, the concept of sub-national security has changed over time to include dimensions other than military strength and conflicts between states. Human collectives (social groups within nation states and cross-border communities) could also be security actors, to deal with religious, ethnic, environmental and other challenges. These communities are characterized by common security expectations and compatibility of norms and values regulating security behaviour.

Security in such huge and very much decentralized countries as Russia has to be debated among its sub-national actors. Security might be achieved on a regional (sub-national) level. In this sense security and regionality are pretty much compatible, and conceptually reinforce each other.

Regions’ contribution to the federal security

The regional authorities have their strong voice in tackling the problems of troops stationing, military exercises, logistics, food supply, border regime maintenance. Since the degree of regional leaders’ support has clear bearing on the state of the country’s defense capacity, they are consulted on a wide range of military issues.

Regions’ persistence in implementing their security agendas is explained by the fact that very often regional elites are forced to solve themselves - with no sufficient aid from Moscow - problems of illegal immigration, fortification of borders, soft security issues, customs regulations, anti-criminal measures.

An important set of regional problems related directly to the defence and security domain is the installation of the Russian troops evacuated from the "Near Abroad". As a rule, the newcomers in military uniform are an additional burden for regional authorities, which might create obstacles for carrying out Russian international obligations. The capabilities of regions to accommodate the troops pulled out from abroad were directly influencing the schedule of evacuation and, hence, the state of Russian relations with the countries under consideration.

The war in Chechnia brings another example. It is however quite symptomatic that some regional chief executives refused to send to battlefield soldiers recruited from their provinces or pledged to pick them out. Taking into account accelerating pressure of the Defence Ministry to increase the number of draftees, one can predict the resistance to these plans from the part of some regions.

In many respects regions and cities might perform important federal level security functions. Thus, according to the “Law on Bordering Territory in the Orenburg oblast” adopted by the regional legislature, the organs of local self-government (i.e., cities), along with enterprises, public organizations and institutions have their share of responsibility in guarding the border regime[1]. The mayor of Kaliningrad, Yurii Savenko, is one of most internationally oriented municipal leaders in Russia. He is a permanent participant of debates concerning relations between Russia and the EU, Russian security policy in the Baltic Sea, etc.

The governors complain that they have no sufficient influence upon the security actors operated in their territories. Alexander Rutskoi, former chief executive of Kursk oblast, has expressed his dissatisfaction with the fact that local FSB office is subordinated directly to Moscow. In his opinion, the governors have to be consulted at least in operational situations[2]. In practice, the governors and the federal security institutes have to deal with each other in solving a plethora of practical security issues.

The regions’ resources could be mustered for implementing Russian foreign policy and security objectives. First, regional administrations patronize security infrastructure located in their territories. In particular, they:

- Decide on transferring the property of former military installations that were either moved from the regions or transformed.

- Initiate upgrading the military institutions.

- Patronize military installations and bases.

- Grant tax privileges to military enterprises;

- Are in charge of providing due social and financial assistance to the families of the dead soldiers and officers, and commemorating their memories. This is the governors’ responsibility to take care of a plethora of social issues like medical treatment, housing, summer recreation, and others. These were regional and municipal administrations that took care of providing the families of crew members of the “Kursk” submarine that sank in August 2000 in the Barents Sea.

Second, certain regional leaders might be useful as mediators or negotiators (formal or informal) in those cases when the Russian government either lacks official instruments or wishes to stay behind the scene. It is very much telling that Vladimir Putin’s administration recognized that the leaders of certain subjects of the federation with the consent of the federal government kept up relations with the president of Chechnia, Alan Maskhadov[3]. Tatarstan was particularly active in internationally advertising its peace-keeping initiatives. Rafael Khakim, political advisor to the President of Tatarstan, propagated the idea that Tatarstan might represent the interests of the Russian Federation in international Islamic organizations[4] and thus foster security dialogue. The President of Tatarstan in 1995 (along with the Dutch Foreign Ministry, Harvard University, Carnegie Endowment, and IREX) initiated a series of round table discussions called “The Hague Initiative” aimed at finding non-violent political solutions to regional conflicts in Abkhazia, Trans-Dniestria, Crimea, and Chechnia[5]. In particular, the principle of “delayed decision” in Chechnia was proposed by the “Hague Initiative” and later implemented in the Khasaviurt Agreements signed by Alexander Lebed with the rebels in 1996. To maintain politically its presence in the turbulent North Caucasus area and act in parallel with foreign NGOs, the President of Tatarstan in February 1995 established the office of Tatarstan’s representative in Ingushetia on humanitarian issues

Third, region-based industrial projects might have an impact on the national security as a whole. For example, Kakha Bendukidze, an owner of “United Machine Building Plants” corporation, pledged to create technological complex of enterprises located in Nizhny Novgorod, St.Petersburg, Ekaterinburg and Astrakhan’ strategically aimed at providing infrastructure for exploiting and processing oil resources in the Caspian sea. In case of implementation this project might give important competitive advantages for Russian business and security interests in this area.

Fourth, border regions are of special importance for federal security. Lack of full-blooded borders converted many of these regions to paradise for illegal immigrants from the Southern republics. This was a matter of insistent concern from the part of Russian security services claiming that the lack of adequate law enforcement mechanisms entails all-Russian security problems (illegal border-crossing, smuggling, etc.).

In the “new frontier” regions it is the practice to contract local people for servicing the border-control units[6]. Similarly, according to the agreement signed between the Federal Border-control Service and the administration of the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district, local conscripts are to be recruited for military stations located in this area[7]. In its turn, the administration of the district provides financial support to the frontier-guards.

It was the Karelian government which introduced the regional program of modifying and developing customs units across the border with Finland to help the federal security agencies[8]. The administration of St. Petersburg signed agreements with two Russian military units located in Tajikistan pledging to provide them with food and medical supplies[9]. In the Kurgan oblast the “Corps of Frontier-guards” was created to help soldiers stationed in the region and retired officers[10]. The governors of the Volgograd and Briansk oblasts launched regional programs to financially assist military servicemen, who participated in anti-terrorist campaigns and military conflicts[11].

In the territories neighboring Chechnia (mainly in the Stavropol krai and Dagestan[12]) local authorities had to begin passport control in order to deal with migrant influx. Regional computer networks were established recently in order to monitor foreigners residing in specific areas and ban the entrance of religious extremists, criminals, etc. The governments of Karelia and Belgorod oblast created a commission to regulate the inflow of foreign workers to this republic[13].

Authorities in the border regions have to tackle, on a regular basis, the “dark side” of internationalization – crime, illegal fishing, hunting, border-crossing or smuggling (drugs, guns, undeclared cash, etc.). In the Far East, for example, numerous cases of murders among Chinese entrepreneurs – the bulk of them executed by Chinese gangs – are registered each year[14]. As a result, security services in border regions have to perform protective functions and shield off those threats stemming from their frontier location. In Sakhalin, for instance, a special military command unit was created in March 2000 to prevent illegal fishing. According to the regional customs office, more than 75% of all local seafood products are each year illegally transported to Japan[15].

Non-protected border is the cause of illegal migration and religious extremists. In the meanwhile, because of weak border protection Russia loses raw materials, food, stolen cars and other contraband items[16].

There is a number of most acute border security problems in Russia:

n Lack of federal resources for adequately protecting the border. In practice, these are regional administrations that provide frontier troops with housing, transportation, energy supply, and building or overhauling frontier posts.

n Substantial increase of the geographical areas to be covered by frontier guards.

n Weak coordination between customs service, border-guards and railway authorities in preventing smuggling and other illegal actions.

n Ethnic and religious extremism.

Defense industry as a part of regional security system

After the demise of the USSR the military industry went through a very uneasy and difficult period. Many experts believe that there are serious negative implications of Russian regionalization for existing export control arrangements, since leaders in Tatarstan and some other republics have achieved some powers over export and raised anxiety among Russian and foreign diplomats. "Much of Russia's military-industrial complex are located in republics and oblasts inclined towards a more independent status...If the republics and oblasts gain greater autonomy, one suspects that controlling exports would become increasingly difficult"[17]. Another report states that "regional R&D activities will grow increasingly independent of the centre. In this case, the regions might become autonomous arms exporters, with other countries as their central client rather than Moscow"[18]. However, it is dubious that independent-minded regions like Tatarstan might gain indeed the direct access to the international arms market. All major weapon-producing factories are still dependent on Moscow in terms of orders and money supply. The Centre, by the same token, is increasingly reluctant to place substantial orders to the enterprises located in potentially explosive regions if there is a plausible alternative.

Nevertheless, a number of regions with strong presence of local military-industrial complex are developing their own projects related to military and security domain. The much discussed problem of reconversion is the point. The Defence Ministry is forced to co-ordinate the plans and programs of military reconversion with the regional authorities, heeding their needs and possibilities. For highly militarised regions, such as Udmurtia, for example, where 80 percent of overall production used to come formerly from defence plants, the lock-out of the bulk of military enterprises might trigger mass-scale unemployment and entail undesirable social upheavals. Position taken by the arm-producing regions was one of the factors determining the standpoint of the Russian authorities in favour of increasing arms sales abroad. Simultaneously, faced with drastic cuts in military orders and the absence of a viable state conversion program, certain regions took some steps in developing their own initiatives, trying to rely on "self-financing of conversion", i.e. through the sale of oil and locally produced weaponry.

Many enterprises in 1990s were privatized, but it didn’t help much since the Soviet style managers have kept the plants and factories under their control. As soon as the state contracts drastically decreased, they became unable to introduce new marketing practices and make the enterprises work effectively. That is why the military enterprises meet such severe difficulties in restructuring and changing their priorities. Russian defense industry lacks high quality management and strategic planning, which strongly impedes its modernization and effective international cooperation[19].

The restructuring of numerous research institutions and military equipment producers in Russia’s regions is hindered by the lack of starting capital, “brain drain”, poor marketing services, ignorance of international technical standards and safety norms, insufficient awareness about consumer regulations and registration norms in the West. Direct commercial contacts between regional enterprises and their foreign partners are being developed mostly with non-Western countries (China, India, Middle East countries)[20]. Many defense enterprises have huge debts[21].

State funding for innovative scientific research is missing. By 2000 it became clear that in order to survive, the military industrial complex enterprises have to become better integrated.

The state policy is that the military contracts will be distributed among the most effective enterprises, regardless of who their owners are, the state itself or Russian private financial groups. There are strong evidences that President Putin adequately understands the need for partnership with those Financial and industrial groups (FIGs) that financially control defense enterprises. “Interros” and “Kaskol” corporations are good examples of state – business positive interaction in defense industry. Resources of FIGs might be instrumental in upgrading marketing and management of major defense enterprises.

Non-state actors of regional security

There are a number of non-state security actors operating in Russia’s regions. For example, these are Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers. They are helpful in providing legal assistance to the draftees[22], sponsoring mothers’ visits to Chechnia, organizing anti-war actions, and helping the families of those soldiers who were dead or incapacitated during their military service.

Cossacks are another type of important non-state security actors, especially in border regions. Before the 1917 Revolution Cossack units were quite instrumental in keeping order in the most dangerous and permeable zones of the state border. The current Russian government is not inimical to the revival of Cossack settlements, but they can hardly be considered as a substitute to the regular troops. The fears are that regional Cossack regiments could become out of control and side up with nationalist forces.

In some other border provinces, Cossack units are in charge of pre-service training exercises of young men, and providing them with material allowance[23]. In recent years Cossacks have started elaborating projects in education, environment, culture, trade and investments[24]. Cossacks of Stavropol krai had pledged to block proliferation of religious Islamic extremism among ethnic minorities in Northern Caucasus[25].

South-Eastern regional department of the Federal Border Service has conducted an experiment with changing regular border-guarding troops to non-military units, yet it failed to bring positive results[26]. Generally speaking, activities of Cossack units in border territories claiming to play more significant role in defending the border is a highly controversial issue. From one hand, the whole set of border-related matters can’t be solved without involving local population, including Cossacks as its most organized force. The Cossacks have their own - inherited from the past centuries - system of inspecting the borderland, which could compliment other security appliances (barbed wire, electronic alarm system, etc.). Yet on the other hand, by law Cossacks (as well as other self-ruled groups) are not supposed to participate in protecting the state border. Among factors that complicate interaction between the Cossack units and frontier-guards are widely spread among Cossacks nationalist and jingoist feelings, numerous complains from the local population accusing the Cossacks in extortion, and internal conflicts in the Cossack communities[27].

A good evidence of changes in Russia’s security policies is given by the Ministry of Atomic Energy (Minatom), formerly one of the closest and least transparent security institutions in Russia. Minatom is known for its intolerance to the public opinion and activities of NGOs[28]. Yet the perspectives of importing used nuclear fuel to Russia have forced Minatom, the key decision maker in this area, go public with its arguments. The debates on reprocessing nuclear fuel became a high-profile issue all across Russia, but specifically in those regions which were supposed to storage nuclear waste imported from abroad. Minatom had to take the lead in the coalition to lobby for importing used nuclear fuel, to include administrations of those plants which will be assigned to reprocess the irradiated waste.

The “pro-waste” coalition worked hard to convince the regional communities that the issue has to be tackled primarily by professionals. They blamed their opponents in spreading unsubstantiated nuclear alarmism and reportedly helping other countries – mainly France and Great Britain - to push Russia out of the world nuclear market.

For many enterprises the importation of nuclear waste is the sole sources of stable income. For Russia as a whole the net revenue for utilization of nuclear waste is assessed as much as USD 600 million per year[29]. Alexander Rumiantsev, the head of Minatom, has pledged to spend one fourth of the funds earned for improving environmental programs in those regions where the state of ecology is most deplorable (including the territories of Northern and Black Sea Fleets)[30]. Another 25 per cent will go to the administrations of those regions where the nuclear waste will be dealt with[31].

Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of Russian people (about 80 per cent, according to June 2001 polls) are strongly against having in country nuclear materials taken from other countries[32]. Reacting to high public sensitivity to this issue, the bulk of regional politicians has declared their disagreements with Minatom plans to host and deposit in Russia foreign nuclear waste. Nizhny Novgorod Regional Legislature, for example, in June 2001 has voted for banning the importation of nuclear waste to the region[33].

The whole story of used nuclear waste has explicitly demonstrated that security building in Russia is a very complex process which includes constant interaction and communication between state and non-state actors, parliamentary and legislative work, public relations and media campaigns[34]. For example, the governor of Krasnoyarsk krai Alexander Lebed’ has succeeded in convincing Minatom to conclude a number of legally binding documents with this region, including a declaration on intentions with clear indication of the benefits the regions is to get from its participation in nuclear waste reprocessing, the budget and the business plan. In Lebed’s words, only after considering Minatom papers the regional administration will take the final decision on its participation in the whole project[35].

Cheliabinsk oblast also gives a good illustration of changing nature of sub-national security building. In 2001 Cheliabinsk Regional Legislature has instituted an ad-hoc Commission to ponder the nuclear waste issue and weight all pros and cons[36]. Local environmental NGOs were instrumental in drawing public attention to the problem by arranging pickets and demonstrations in protest against Minatom policies[37]. Anti-nuclear activists argue that their region won’t get enough funds out of what Russia will get from nuclear waster exporters, referring to wide spread corruption in the government and lack of due financial control from the part of the state[38]. Environmentalists repeatedly remind that it was “Mayak” plant in Cheliabinsk oblast where the major nuclear accident has happened in 1957[39].

In Kurgan oblast similar public actions were organized by “Yabloko” party and the Union of Right-Wing Forces[40]. In Novorossiisk, the city which by decree of its legislature as early as in the beginning of 1990s was proclaimed nuclear free zone, a group of anti-nuclear activists in 2001 has started to collect signatures against Minatom projects[41]. In Nizhny Novgorod oblast environmentalists from “Dront” association have publicly complained that the authorities refused to release information concerning the perspectives of nuclear waster reprocessing in Sarov Federal Nuclear Center, and have promised to bring the issue to the courts in due time[42]. Raising public awareness of nuclear issues is a good sign of opening up the whole set of issues related to security imperatives.

International dimensions of regional security actorship

Many of security problems have clear international dimensions since they are closely related to the processes developed beyond Russia’s borders.

Foreign NGOs were important actors during the regional conflicts in Chechnia and Dagestan. “Non-violence International”, “Forum on Early Warning and Early Response”, “The Caucasus Forum”, “Search for Common Ground”, “Berghoff Center”, “International Alert”, and the NGO Working Group on Conflict Management and Prevention organized by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees were involved in monitoring human rights abuses and helping to deal with humanitarian issues in the whole area of Northern Caucasus[43].

Regions themselves might become important international security actors. They have their say in implementing international disarmament and security control programs. For example, one of military installations in charge of destroying SS-18 nuclear missiles is located in Surovatikha (Nizhny Novgorod oblast). Yet destroying missiles is not purely military affair. The military base is a home to about 5 thousand persons, including officers, soldiers, contract employees and dependents, which inevitably raises a number of social issues for regional authorities. Ecological concerns are also being heard from the part of the regional administration. Commercial issues are important as well, since the metal stuff released from the missiles has to be sold to commercial firms, and the revenues used for buying houses for the officers[44].

The international changes have touched the so called “closed cities”. US Department of Energy in 1998 launched a Nuclear Cities Initiative (NCI) with the goal of creating commercial job and economic diversification in the ten closed cities that form the core of Russia’s nuclear weapons complex to accommodate the loss of employment in this sector of military industry. These cities are critical to the design, construction, testing, and production of Russia’s nuclear weapons arsenal. Their basic problem is that their authorities are stuck in isolated communities and do not understand the basics of market economy. NCI is serving as a bridge between these cities and industry, and facilitating the creation of commercial enterprises by engaging private industry to help develop partnership[45].

Regional law-enforcement agencies are also going global. In a number of regions new security units were established to investigate and prevent high-tech crime, including the misuse of Internet logins and accounts[46].

Governors are more and more active in interfering into international security domains that were recently closed for them. It is interesting for example that Moscow municipality rendered a great deal of assistance to the Russian Black Sea headquarters located in Sebastopol. One of the most evident examples of regional interference into national security domain was the stand taken by the authorities of Primorsky kray with regard to China. Former kray's chief executive Evgeny Nazdratenko refused to recognise the agreement reached between Russia and China with regard to delineation of common border. The governor has repeatedly declared that territorial concessions to China will inevitably damage the Russian ports and dislodge Russia out of the Far East.