Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

naval bases. 27 Yet the defense sector refused to accept
this outcome as final.
Debates over defense spending clearly did not end
in 2008 or even when they were originally supposed
to end in 2009. Thus the Security Council was reportedly
supposed to accept the national security strategy
at its meeting on February 20, 2009. 28 But that meeting
did not occur until March 24, suggesting further objections.
Apparently one major reason for the postponement
of the appearance of the security strategy was the
continuing economic crisis. It clearly had worsened to
the point where the overall economy shrunk by 10.1
percent from January-June 2009 and 8.5 percent for
the year. 29 By all accounts, this forced the drafters and
the Security Council, not to mention those who would
have to approve the document, to assert the importance
of economic factors as a part of security. Thus in
his address to the Security Council on March 24, 2009,
Medvedev explicitly said that economic security was
a part of national security. 30
Consequently, a major struggle has broken out
within the defense and defense industrial sector over
access to resources, and it clearly involves the effort to
buy weapons abroad, which has touched off a major
debate within these two communities on the virtues
of being autarkic or of buying abroad. The two key
issues for now are the amount of money to be spent
on military modernization and whether or not to buy
foreign weapons systems. Frolov and his allies clearly
brought substantial pressure to bear upon the government,
but they were operating in a climate based on
the precedent of rising outlays for procurement. The
government is currently operating under the 2006-15
program. It was supposed to cost 5 trillion rubles or
$155 billion. The original program for 2011-20 that
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