Book Review: Democratic Breakdown...

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Democratic Breakdown and the Decline of the Russian Military. By Zoltan Barany. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007. 247 pages. $22.95. Reviewed by Dr. Stephen J. Blank, Professor of National Security Studies, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College.

This book comes with extravagant praise on the back. But its thesis, for those interested parties who have been paying attention to the Russian military, is quite simple, even unremarkable. Despite its decline since Soviet times, the Russian Army plays a disproportionate role in politics because Mikhail Gorbachev invited it to do so, then became too powerless to stop it. After that, Boris Yeltsin eagerly accepted this politicization and Vladimir Putin did too, although he significantly altered its dimensions. Thus the Russian government has never been interested in democratizing civil-military relations but rather in politicizing the armed forces for its own purposes. When this fact is coupled with the unbending opposition of the military leadership to genuine defense reform, it becomes apparent why the military's role has grown even while it is continuing to undergo what Barany aptly calls institutional decay.

The astonishment of the reviewers cited on the dust jacket clearly owes much to the fact that many of them who have written extensively about democratization seem to have ignored or overlooked the entire issue of civil-military relations. Sixteen years after the end of Communist control in Russia this omission remains incomprehensible. As Barany forcefully and correctly argues, the challenges involved in effectuating democratic civilian control over the armed forces (and the same holds true for the police, a subject nobody seems to have considered) go to the core of the issues involved in democratization. Furthermore, Barany notes, they also go far in explaining the recent developments in Russian foreign and defense policy which are ever more overtly antiwestern. Antiliberalism and antiwesternism are not accidentally conjoined. Rather, as the author rightfully concludes, they go hand-in-hand and are traceable to the unwillingness to carry out the needed reforms.

Among the many merits of this book is its clear, transparent, and economical style. Barany accomplishes what few in the profession have done. Namely, he is able to use sophisticated theoretical concepts from political science in ways that not only illuminate actual politics but which are readable and enhance the reader's understanding of the issues at stake. While his thesis should not come as a surprise to the handful of specialists who have labored to understand Russian defense policies since the end of the Soviet Union, it will probably be something of a revelation to the vast majority of political scientists who have neglected this dimension of Russia's transformation. Perhaps the gap between scholars looking at democratization and those studying foreign and defense policy may be narrowed as a result of this excellent book. That gap may be the cause of some of the evident failure among many experts to comprehend just how antiwestern Russian foreign and defense policy has become.

This disconnect among experts in the Russian field may exist elsewhere and also clouds our attention of the fact that the organization of the armed forces and the police agency in any state are among the core issues of that state's constitution. That term is used not just to refer to a document but rather to the reality of how the powers that make up the state are constituted and organized. Close examination of these issues in any political system should lead analysts to realize that these processes exercise a decisive influence on the state's defense and foreign policies. Russia's evolution under Yeltsin and Putin since 1993, especially the decisive moment in post-Soviet transition when democracy died after Yeltsin used force to ensure that he would be an unaccountable and unlimited president with a full panoply of power, should not surprise the West. If this well-written and cogently argued book helps readers to overcome that surprise, then it will have been amply worth the time devoted to reading it.

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