Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

cratic politics that Kvashnin reveled in. It was his job
to advise Yeltsin, while attempting to keep the defense
establishment on an even keel. Not surprisingly, the
outcome was constant conflict between these two men
with Sergeyev constantly touting the value of nuclear
weapons, while Kvashnin argued in favor of expanding
conventional forces.
As with so many other areas, Yeltsin was a major
part of the problem. First, he changed the law to place
both the defense minister and the Chief of the General
Staff directly under him. As a result, the Chief of
the General Staff was no longer subordinate to the defense
minister. That meant that while the defense minister
could do his best to convince the Chief to carry
out a specific policy, he could not force him to do so.
Furthermore, since the General Staff was primarily in
charge of operational matters, the Chief could implement
his orders as he saw fit. From a military policy
standpoint, the result was bureaucratic chaos. No one
knew for certain what Yeltsin’s policy was, nor what
the Ministry of Defense (MoD) policy was on a variety
of issues.
In fact, Yeltsin’s only policy was to keep the military
off balance, to create a situation in which the military
would never threaten his position domestically.
After all, he was well aware that it was the military
that came to his aid in the 1993 coup attempt. Had the
generals decided to sit that conflict out, the outcome
might have been very different—with Yeltsin sitting
in a Russian jail. He was not about to take a chance
with these generals and admirals. If that meant a
weaker military, that was too bad, but it was not that
important during the 1990s.
One of the few positive things Yeltsin did vis-àvis
the military was to order the Security Council to
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