DOWNSIZING, RETOOLING….

Smaller and more modern are watchwords also for the military-industrial complex, which now comprises some 1,700 enterprises dispersed around the country. The latest reform plan would close about 500 of these companies and reorganize the rest into thirty-five to forty “scientific production complexes” subordinate to five federal agencies. Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov presented this plan to skeptical regional leaders last week. The firms involved may be overstaffed and financially terminal, but for local politicians these plants are jobs, jobs, jobs. Klebanov will not have much money for investment or for job training or relief. When his powers of persuasion run out, he’ll need Kremlin muscle to make headway.