러시아 국방개혁의 구조적특성과 지속성에 대한 고찰: 푸틴 4기 재집권과 국가안보전략을 중심으로

Abstract

This article aims to intensively examine the driving force of military reform and the substantiality during the fourth presidential terms, which were the most important things in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s leadership and national security strategies since the early 2000s, and to investigate its implications. Putin actively pursued military reforms to solve the problems of the military structure resulting from the Russo-Georgian War that broke out in August 2008 and seek solutions. Russian military reform to be adapted to the changed battlefield environment in the 21st century led to remarkable achievements in the force cutback, the reform of military system into a brigade, the modernization of weapon system, and the improvement of operational and combat capabilities. As a result, Russia demonstrated a highly advanced ‘hybrid warfare’ strategy in the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in March 2014. Russia also exhibited the achievements of military reforms and strategic superiority through the military intervention called a ‘New Cold War’ in a series of foreign policies such as air strikes in Syria that was launched from the end of 2015. Major factors behind the successful military reform are the preservation of sovereignty and territory through the top military commanders’willpower to put the reform into action under Putin’s strong leadership, the transformation from large-scale defensive armed forces to integrated offensive maneuver troops to cope with military security threats to the homeland, and the steady promotion of weapon modernization through budgetary expansion for national defense. Even after the Putin’s fourth presidential term, Russia is expected to pursue the military modernization through defense reforms, devise offensive security strategy against ‘America First’ policy, expand Missile Defense(MD) system, develop high-tech precision weapons, strengthen the military force against the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO), and maintain military security strategies to cope with cyber/information warfare and international terrorism by the Islamic State(IS) terrorist group.