Nuclear versus Conventional Forces: Implications for Russia's Future Military Reform

Over the decade since their formation, the Russian armed forces have experienced a continual financial crisis and a steep decline-as Russia's defeat in Chechnya in 1996 and the renewed and ongoing war there since 1999 have brutally revealed. The sinking of the submarine Kursk in the Barents Sea in August 2001, and the navy's clumsy and futile rescue effort as well as its Soviet-style disinformation of its own public illustrated for many Russians and outside observers the crisis in Russia's armed forces.