ABSTRACT

When Yeltsin took over Gorbachev’s office in the Kremlin, he also took over the habit of Soviet leaders of having the rush-hour traffic along his route to work blocked off every morning. Just before entering the Kremlin through the Borovitskii tower, Yeltsin usually travelled along Znamenka Street with the Ministry of Defence on one side of the street and the General Staff on the other. In other words, there was every opportunity to be reminded of the urgency of military reform each morning.1 In spite of this, he displayed only a faint interest in building a military organization that could answer to Russia’s national security needs. His initial main concern in this area seems to have been to retain the loyalty of the Armed Forces and other power ministries, while the military security of Russia remained a low priority. In December 1993 Yeltsin, as president of the Russian Federation and the

supreme commander of its Armed Forces, gathered all the formal decisionmaking power on defence affairs into his own hands only to quickly turn his attention away from the problem of military reform. He failed to put mechanisms in place for achieving a rational defence decision-making process and instead used the system to cement his own position of power. The situation was further exarcerbated by Yeltsin’s failing health and preoccupation with political intrigues. He proceeded to create a plethora of parallel and rival institutions and offices. Whatever groundwork and plans had been made for military reform during the Gorbachev era and whatever political capital Yeltsin initially had in order to force through reforms were rapidly and thoroughly squandered.