Russia poised to cut defense spending 30 percent

Though the Defense Intelligence Agency considers Russia's military to be "on the rise," a recent DIA report states Russia is slated to spend 30 percent less on defense in 2017 than it did the previous year.

Russia, which has a 2017 defense budget of $42 billion, is expected to essentially freeze defense spending through 2019, according to DIA's report on Russian military power released late last week. By contrast, the Trump administration has requested $603 billion in national defense spending for fiscal year 2018.

"Russian government revenues are highly dependent on oil prices, and Moscow's decision to base its budget for 2017-2019 on low projected oil prices in 2017-2019 is largely responsible for the glum outlook for government revenue and low projected [gross domestic product] growth rates," the report states.

But DIA still assesses Russia's military to be of grave concern, citing the country's occupation of Crimea and activities in Syria.

"The Russian military today is on the rise -- not as the same Soviet force that faced the West in the Cold War, dependent on large units with heavy equipment, but as a smaller, more mobile, balanced force rapidly becoming capable of conducting the full range of modern warfare," the report states. "It is a military that can intervene in countries along Russia's periphery or as far away as the Middle East. The new Russian military is a tool that can be used to underpin Moscow's stated ambitions of being a leading force in a multipolar world."

And Russia continues to modernize its extensive nuclear forces, while developing long-range precision-guided weapons.

Though the report makes no mention of U.S. intelligence agencies' assessment that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. election, a letter from Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart enclosed with the report states Russia "is manipulating the global information environment."

Russia is also "employing tools of indirect action against countries on its periphery and using its military for power projection and expeditionary force deployments far outside its borders. Its ultimate deterrent is a robust nuclear force capable of conducting a massed nuclear strike on targets in the United States within minutes," according to Stewart's assessment.

Meanwhile, President Trump met Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany. According to media reports, the two discussed election interference, agreed to a limited ceasefire in Syria and agreed to establish a joint working group on cybersecurity.

In the report, Stewart, who has been nominated to become the chief of U.S. Cyber Command, urges U.S. leaders and policy-makers to "have a complete understanding of Russia’s military capabilities."

"Within the next decade, an even more confident and capable Russia could emerge," he writes. "The United States needs to anticipate, rather than react, to Russian actions and pursue a greater awareness of Russian goals and capabilities to prevent potential conflicts. . . . The wrong decisions -- or the right ones made too late -- could have dire consequences."