Russia in the 21st Century: The Prodigal Superpower
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Book Review Russia in the 21st Century: The Prodigal Superpower Steven Rosefielde Cambridge University Press: Cambridge 2005, pp. 244. Comparative Economic Studies (2005) 47, 707–709. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ces.8100122
In his new book, Steven Rosefielde argues that Russia may be rebuilding superpower-class military at the expense of its people’s living standards. Western experts who believe free markets and democratic politics are universally attractive have ignored this militarisation drive, just as they failed to recognise the immense militarisation of the Soviet Union. Russia’s acceptance of ‘the idea of the West’ is far from guaranteed. Rosefielde starts by criticising Western estimates of Soviet GNP, consumption, and military expenditures and then presents a sketch of the Soviet economic mechanism, Gorbachev’s reforms, and early post-Soviet policies, outlining policies that should have been adopted instead. He also describes the devastation of the military industry in the wake of the Soviet collapse. These first chapters, however, treat their subjects too cursorily to stand as independent contributions. Rosefielde seems to believe that one can infer the magnitude of rates of growth of the Soviet economy and its main sectors from the fact of its eventual collapse, as well as propositions of Paretian economics, but he does not explain how (p. 29). Rosefielde has long been a critic of the CIA’s estimates of Soviet military expenditures, and his response to Firth and Noren’s (1998) history1 of that effort would have been valuable if it contained more detail and did not resort to ad hominem attacks. The author asserts that Gorbachev’s reforms were motivated, at least in part, by his desire to enrich himself and his inner circle (pp. 19, 61) without citing any sources, even though there is considerable evidence to the contrary. In the second half of the book, the author points to the current defense industry reform programme as a sign of ‘militaristic reversion’ (p. 84), which has as its objective the creation of ‘full spectrum, fifth generation armed forces at Soviet procurement levels’ (p. 86). He cites wish lists of Russian generals who would like to have more hardware than the United States military currently possess. Luckily for Russia and the world, actual developments Rosefielde describes suggest that fantasies of the top brass are not likely to be acted upon. The programme for reform of the defense 1 Firth, Noel, and James H Noren, Soviet Defense Spending. A History of CIA Estimates, 1950–1990. Texas A&M University Press: College Station, TX 1998.
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industry, cited as the evidence of new militarism, turns out to be motivated by the sector’s poor financial situation and its ageing capital. Consolidating and downsizing an industry that was built for much larger volumes of military orders appears sensible and long overdue. In any case, Rosefielde himself doubts the feasibility of the program (p. 94). The discussion of the hurdles on the road to regaining Soviet-size
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