Russia’s Military Modernization: The Geostrategic And Geopolitical Implications

Russia’s political resurgence was an established fact by the middle of the last decade and arose from a determined overdrive by then President Putin to restore Russia to the status of being a strategic co-equal of the United States, a status lost with the disintegration of the Former Soviet Union. With President Putin’s ascendancy to power in 2000 this was a burning ambition of the new President.

Russia may have been down and out politically and economically post-1991 but it is often forgotten that strategically Russia was not down and out. Russia’s strategic arsenal in terms of quantitative holdings was a match for the United States strategic weapons arsenal. Admittedly, the massive conventional military might of Russia became jaded due to lack of cash flows and slide back of modernization plans of the Russian Armed Forces.

President Putin seemed to adopt a two-pronged strategy to achieve Russia’s ambition to regain its lost status of being a strategic co-equal of the United States. The first step was for a resurgence of Russia’s political influence and bring about a global consciousness that Russia had arrived on the global political scene.

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