State Defense Industry Committee:
A New Tractor For National Economy?
Is it a bluff or something that can really work? Is it a lifeline to save the drowning economy or a step to spur it up? These are some of the questions that one may ask after learning that Belarus' president decided to set up a State Military-Industrial Committee, or in fact, defense industry ministry.
If we add this presidential decision to other recent measures and documents designed to enhance the country's defense, it would seem that Belarus is actively preparing for a war. And it is true, in a way, but one should not understand it too literally. It is not a war with bloody battles, refugees and humanitarian crisis but rather a war in a figurative sense.
In that sense, Belarus has been at war for a decade already, combating to rescue the national economy. The country's government has tried different ways to achieve economic success, ranging from housing construction to political games with Russia.
Their today's choice is defense industry. Having regained strength after the unsuccessful changeover to civilian production in the end of the 1980s and early 1990s, it becomes a new way out of the economic crisis for the Belarusian government.
Let us try to assess the potential of this new tractor of the Belarusian economy and see whether the government is right in putting it ahead as a driving force. But first, here is a short background:
The defense industry of Soviet Belarus started up in the end of the 1940s. More than 50 enterprises, research institutes and design bureaus had best specialists, used state-of-the-art equipment and dealt with assignments of critical importance for the Soviet Union. In addition, since a large number of military units were located in Belarus, the USSR built a lot of plants for repairing military equipment and vehicles in its western republic. Being a part of the Soviet system of labor division, Belarusian defense research and production enterprises operated in the following fields:
- Automatic systems to control troops, reconnaissance, armaments, electronic warfare equipment and communication devices;
- Special microelectronic devices and radio equipment for space programs;
- Cross-country trucks, wheeled and tracked chassises used for transporting large-size space rockets and special armament systems;
- Electronic optical devices made with the use of laser technologies for space and aviation materiel, as well as armaments for Land Forces;
- Special-purpose computers.
That is just a short list of what Belarus' defense industry was up to.
Then a period of de-militarization came in the end of the 1980s, and following orders from the Communist Party, defense enterprises started to cut down military production and promising R&D work to change over to making civilian things. Some time later Alyaksandr Lukashenka ironically called that time a "period of pots and pans."
The crisis of the 1990s, which brought about liberalization of prices, impoverishment of people and opening of markets for better-quality imported products, delivered a severe blow to the non-competitive production of civilian things by defense companies. The breakup of the Soviet Union and following severance of economic links within the former superpower also made an adverse impact on the financial position of military-industry enterprises.
The pacifist illusions came off the minds of many politicians already in the mid-1990s. The new military-political situation in the world, with its conflicts for new territories and sales markets, prompted the Belarusian leadership to switch the country?sdefense enterprises to what they were originally intended for : military production and its range of products started to grow. In fact, that was a new lease of life for the defense sector in Belarus.
Describing what Belarus can do in the field of defense-oriented production and which products are most popular in different regions of the world would take a lot of time and paper space. To make a long story short, it would be fitting to quote what the country's defense minister Leanid Maltsaw said at the IDEX arms show in Abu Dhabi last March. He said that 40 percent of the vehicles displayed at IDEX were either built in Belarus, such as the 2T Stalker of Minotor Service or a towing vehicle of the Minsk Wheeled Tractor Plant; or made with the use of Belarusian-made systems, such as Russian tanks equipped with a fire control system of Peleng; or based on Belarusian designs, such as some Arab towing vehicles.
A catalog of defense products, which has been published by Beltekhexport, the main arms exporter authorized by the government, can also show wide possibilities of the country's defense industry. Printed in Italy on high-quality paper, this folio advertises products and services offered by the Belarusian defense sector. It contains a huge amount of related information, ranging from automatic control system for aviation to pharmaceuticals for prevention and treatment of radiation injuries.
A great deal of interest displayed by foreign experts in biennial arms show in Minsk proves that Belarus-made defense products are really competitive. In addition, Belarusian producers also have successful demonstrations in international military exhibitions. Taking part in such events is a matter of prestige but also a rather expensive one. If they did not have preliminary agreements and chances for selling their things, they would not take them to Abu Dhabi and other remote places.
At the same time, it is difficult to estimate financial successes of Belarusian companies on the world market of arms, military equipment and dual-use products. There are no official statistics. Some experts believe that their annual turnover amounts to $1-2 billion. But such estimations are based only on the scale of return that can be generated by selling out old Soviet materiel, which can be thoroughly modernized in some cases. Such products fall under the category of conventional weapons, and respective contracts are registered.
But Belarus' defense sector is not only the 140th Tank Repair Plant in Barysau, which does pre-sale maintenance and modernization of armored vehicles. It is rather a number of high-tech enterprises making automatic control systems, avionics, reconnaissance devices, electronic warfare and communication equipment, components for "intelligent" machines, space devices, sights, laser technologies, etc. The financial potential of such products and technologies is much higher than that of tanks and other armored vehicles. Just one contract for the delivery of Belarusian sights to Sweden in 1997 equaled $3 million. Setting up a production of optical electronic systems in China in 2002 gave Belarus $500,000. Those were earning of just one company, LEMT, which is a branch of the optical group BelOMO. How much the whole group earns and what are proceeds of other defense giants, such as Agat, Peleng and Kamerton, is a secret of the government.
Belarus' defense industry is probably best known for its automatic systems to control troops, reconnaissance, aviation, air defense systems, electronic warfare equipment and data transmission systems. They enable to integrate individual armament items, including heterogeneous ones, into a powerful system with unique combat capabilities. Such integrated system can be 20 to 60 percent more efficient than simply using all the components together.
Thus, it is quite logical why the president chose Mikalay Azamatau to be in charge of the State Military-Industrial Committee. Prior to the appointment, he served as chief designer for automated control systems and information technologies with the Ministry of Industry and director general of NPO Agat, a state research and production group dealing with automatic control systems.
The chief of the defense industry committee will have to coordinate the activities of other national government agencies in the areas within the committee's terms of reference and control the organizations and enterprises of the Belarusian defense industry.
In addition, the committee will devise and carry out measures to preserve and develop the country's defense-oriented economic potential and adapt it to the conditions of a market economy. It will perform certain functions in the export control system, which was recently the job of the foreign ministry, minister of defense, customs authorities and some other agencies.
The government also expects that the new committee will be able to help optimize the system of government control in the system of ensuring national defense, increase the efficiency of the government's military-technical policy and develop military-technical cooperation.
Still, it is not quite clear how the committee is going to manage the defense sector. Speaking at a government meeting in December, Alyaksandr Lukashenka said that military-related enterprises would be taken out of the economy into a separate domain.
However, none of such enterprises can be qualified as a purely defense company. Even the tank repair plant in Barysau produces baths for civilian purposes. Therefore, there is a danger that companies that make at least a few defense-related products can fall into the trap of double subordination, which can adversely affect their operation.
Anyway, one thing is clear: Belarus' defense sector is capable of keeping competitiveness, at least in some areas, and prestige of the country?s economy, and can even raise its performance indicators. It has to be stressed in this respect that it is extremely important that the country has managed to preserve the intellectual potential of its defense sector and keep conditions for making respective products and using dual-use technologies. That is what the government hopes for when it tries to make defense enterprises the pivot of the national economy and a springboard for its development.
Source: BelaPAN, Belorusskiye Novosti, January 15, 2004
This article appeared in
Belarusian Review, Vol. 16, No 1
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Vyachaslau Budkevich
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