Outspoken nationalist ex-NATO envoy Rogozin criticized the Soviet Union’s security strategy, saying the U.S.S.R. misinterpreted security threats, and added that the Soviet Army and Navy were out of line with modern requirements, had low mobility and were a burden for the budget.

“In the conventional and nuclear arms race with the United States and NATO, the Soviet Union’s leadership ultimately assessed the nature of the external and internal threats to the national security incorrectly,” the deputy premier told scientists at the Siberian department of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Rogozin, 48, who was appointed a deputy premier in charge of the country’s defense industry in December 2011, said the state did not pay enough attention to non-military defense, including diplomatic, information and psychological methods.

“As a result, an Army and Navy were established whose organization and strength did not completely match the modern requirements of inter-branch cooperation and armed forces mobility in general,” Rogozin said.

In conditions of antagonism with the West, he said, the Soviet Union formed an autonomous technological base, but as soon as the Iron Curtain fell, it turned out that the country was lagging behind its western rivals in a number of areas.

Rogozin said that was why Prime Minister Vladimir Putin chose aircraft construction, composite materials, telecommunication technology and pharmaceuticals as priorities for economic development.

Without urgent measures, the deputy premier said, Russia would lag behind its rivals in the manufacturing of electronic components, precision weapon aiming devices, laser systems, hypersonic technology and other hi-tech spheres.

Independent Leadership

Rogozin told students of Novosibirsk State University that Russia is Europe’s only country with an independent leadership.

“I know that Russia is the only country in Europe that has a leadership not controlled by the Americans,” he said.

Preparing for Possible Threats

Rogozin also told students that Russia should more than triple its population to 500 million people and four geopolitical centers, and that people should be equally settled across the country.

“One hundred and forty million is few. The way out is… to give birth to children. Without children, we will not have the 500-million population that we urgently need,” he said.

He said young people should be attracted to work in Russia’s defense industry by higher wages and beneficial mortgage lending schemes.

“Wages should be 20 percent higher [in the defense industry] than in civil mechanical engineering,” he said.

Rogozin said high wages for defense sector workers and servicemen were necessary so that Russia could have at its disposal perfectly trained professional armed forces.

“We need to be constantly preparing for a third world war in order to avoid it,” he said. “If we wipe snot from under our nose and portray ourselves as pacifists, we will be trampled and thrown away to the dump.”

Innovation Fund for Defense Industry

The Russian government will decide in a week’s time on the establishment of an innovation development fund for the defense industry, Rogozin said.

“I hope this is a matter of a week,” he told journalists, adding that the fund’s structure and name are being discussed.

Rogozin said the initiative to set up the fund was forwarded by President Dmitry Medvedev. “It’s a purely presidential project,” he said.

On Monday, the deputy premier said the Russian government’s military-industrial commission will soon consider documents to establish the fund, expected to become a Russian analogue of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Nuclear Sub Fire Investigation

Russia’s Investigative Committee will complete its probe into the reason for the fire on the Yekaterinburg nuclear submarine by the end of February, Rogozin told journalists.

On December 29, the outer hull of the Yekaterinburg, a Delta-class nuclear submarine, caught fire during repairs at a shipyard in northwest Russia's Murmansk Region. Seven crewmembers and two responders were injured as they battled the fire, which was put out the following day. There was no radiation leak.

He pledged to punish those guilty. “We have not forgotten anything,” Rogozin said.