POLITICS: FEDERAL DISTRICTS
4. FEDERAL DISTRICTS: THE SECURITY DIMENSION
SOURCE. Irina Isakova. Regionalization of Security in Russia. Whitehall Paper Series No. 53 (London: Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, 2001).
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AUTHOR. Dr. Isakova is a former associate of the Institute for the Study of the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences. She has served as an adviser to both the Russian and the British parliaments. She wrote this study of the system of federal districts (FDs) while an associate fellow of RUSI's European Program.
This is the most thorough and wide-ranging analysis that I have yet come across of the purposes, structure, and functioning of the administrative system inaugurated by Putin's federal reform decree of May 2000. It is not easy to summarize a paper with such a rich content -- readers are strongly recommended to read the whole paper -- and I shall restrict myself to a few crucial points pertaining to the security dimension of the FDs, though the author deals also with the economic dimension.
Moreover, unlike most commentators, she places current developments in a historical context, surveying the history of Russia's division into provinces and regions from the creation of the gubernii by Catherine the Great in the late 18th century through to recent constitutional debates and the formation in 1990-92 -- within the borders of the economic regions defined by Gosplan -- of the eight inter-regional economic associations. (1)
Isakova points out that the FDs were created with three distinct kinds of purpose in mind:
[1] general purposes: to re-order federal-regional relations and unify the system of state jurisdiction at different levels
[2] economic purposes: to prepare the regions for sustainable development on the basis of greater self-sufficiency and links to the global economy; and to devise and implement short, medium, and long-terms plans for regional economic development
[3] security purposes: to secure strict vertical subordination of all power structures to the president, neutralizing the possible influence of local elites on those structures; to prepare the regions to repel any security threats from within or without; and to promote military reform
These security purposes are met, inter alia, by:
* monitoring all power structures at the regional level, from the ministries of defense and interior and the security services to fire-fighters and the tax police, and also civil-military relations
* controlling financial flows to the power structures
* making recommendations to the president on personnel issues and assignments to important posts in the regional power structures. (For example, by July 2001 two-thirds of provincial procurators in the Volga FD had been replaced on the recommendation of the PR.)
There are reasons for thinking that the security functions of the FDs are in fact more important than their economic functions. Above all, five out of the seven PRs have military or security backgrounds, and there is a close though not exact correspondence between the borders of the FDs and those of the Military Districts (MDs). (2)
Dr. Isakova shows, however, that the few discrepancies between the two sets of borders are temporary: they will disappear when planned changes in the organization of MDs are put into effect. For instance, Kaliningrad Province, which has been made part of the Northwestern FD, is not currently part of any MD but it is to be incorporated into the Northwestern MD. Thus the FDs do correspond precisely to FUTURE MDs.
Bringing the two sets of borders into line with one another will make it possible to eliminate the duplication of services used by the armed forces and by other power structures under FD supervision. Infrastructure, logistics, reserves, information, and training are all to be unified over the next few years.
Besides achieving substantial economies, this rationalization of the system of power structures is intended to facilitate the adoption of a new military strategy geared to the challenges of the 21st century. This strategy is to rely upon Operational Task Forces capable of flexible response to local threats and conflicts involving irregular insurgent forces, separatist movements, criminal groups, bandits, and terrorists. (3)
NOTES
(1) It's a pity she doesn't pay some attention to Khrushchev's experiment in the regionalization of economic management through the sovnarkhozy (Councils of National Economy).
(2) Security Council officials have tried to downplay the correspondence by arguing that the military were the first to divide the country on a more rational basis and that they did not want to reinvent the wheel.
(3) I have not put any of these terms in quotation marks, but I invite the reader to insert them if he or she so desires.
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