This is the Russian Army, Mr. Dangerfield

» SEANM_5 - RUSSIAN COUP?

I think that you are fundamentally overestimating the competence and motivation of the Russian armed forces;the fabric of the Red army has been ravaged by years of neglect; tanks have no fuel, conscripts are starving, command and control systems are collapsing, and indiscipline is rife. Chechenya proved the utter inability of Russia to project military power, even on its own doorstep. Things have got worse since...the interior ministry has 200,000 better trained and equipped troops than the army, plus the border guards. Communist Soviet doctrine was to divide and conquer competing power centers, including the military. That legacy, and the miserable chaos of current life, make a Napoleonic revolt very unlikely, at least on a national scale.

-- posted by SEANM_5

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» Jeff_Deutsch - Re: RUSSIAN COUP?

First off, I'd like to thank you very much for your patience while I've tackled certain other issues in my life.

The conditions that you describe, at best, may influence the type of coup (or even simply political pressure) which ensues, and may even encourage it, not discourage it.

Whatever the deplorable state of the Russian Army's fighting capacity is, that would be much more relevant in a civil war than in a coup d'etat or other political maneuver. The point of a coup would be to overwhelm civilian targets; Russian government buildings, radio/TV stations, Boris Yeltsin's house, etc., won't have foreign armies guarding them (not that that's impossible; Lenin used some Estonian units for a time during his rule).

It may indeed be true that the border troops and Interior Ministry are better armed than the regular Army. For one thing, though, this is not necessarily relevant; a coup is an action by a few military units while the rest stand by: caught unawares, neutralized or having decided to remain neutral. And, the border troops and Interior Ministry, to whatever extent their own lot is better than the Army, may be saying "There but for the grace of a Kremlin purge go I". And of course, they may want to assist an intervention for what they would consider more public-spirited reasons. Last but not least, even if they could keep the regular Army at bay, who will keep them at bay?

To the extent that command and control has been ruined - and my information indicates that it is in a sad state indeed - this means that the soldiers' effective leaders are their colonels and lower-ranking generals, not the Kremlin. (The officers of the Kremlin guard would need only the loyalty of their own small units). This is the way coups very often proceed: some colonel or major general uses his unit - loyal strictly to him, not to the central government - to vault into power. This is enhanced, not weakened, by the fact that the conscripts often are starving: they count on their officers to get them through the army alive.

What I focus on is the human element. As I mentioned in response to someone else who had much the same question as you did, the material element tends to fall into line.

-- posted by Jeff_Deutsch

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