KOKOSHIN, ANDREI AFANASIEVICH

(b. 1946), member of the State Duma; deputy chairman of the Duma Committee on Industry, Construction, and High Technologies; chairman of Expert Councils for biotechnologies and information technologies; director of the Institute for International Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences; chairman of the Russian National Council for the Development of Education.

A graduate of Bauman Technical Institute, Kokoshin worked for two decades with the Institute of the United States and Canada of the Academy of Sciences (ISKAN), rising to the position of deputy director and establishing a reputation as one of the leading experts on U.S. defense and security policy. He received his doctorate in political science and is a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences.

In the late 1980s Kokoshin collaborated on a series of articles that promoted a radical change in Soviet defense policy, supporting international disengagement, domestic reform, and the technological-organizational requirements of the Revolution in Military Affairs. In 1991 he opposed the August Coup. With the creation of the Russian Ministry of Defense in May 1992, he was appointed first deputy minister of defense with responsibility for the defense industry and research and development. In May 1997 Russian President Boris Yeltsin named him head of the Defense Council and the State Military Inspectorate. In March 1998 Yeltsin appointed him head of the Security Council. In the aftermath of the fiscal crisis of August 1998, Yeltsin fired Kokoshin. In 1999 Kokoshin ran successfully for the State Duma.

Kokoshin has written extensively on U.S. national security policy and Soviet military doctrine. He championed the intellectual contributions of A. A. Svechin to modern strategy and military art. His Soviet Strategic Thought, 1917–1991, was published by MIT Press in 1998.

See also: svechin, alexander

bibliography

Kipp, Jacob W. (1999). "Forecasting Future War: Andrei Kokoshin and the Military-Political Debate in Contemporary Russia." Ft. Leavenworth: Foreign Military Studies Office.

Kokoshin, A. A., and Konovalov, A. A. eds. (1989). Voenno-tekhnicheskaia politika SShA v 80-e gody. Moscow: Nauka.

Larionov, Valentin, and Kokoshin, Andrei. (1991). Prevention of War: Doctrines, Concepts, Prospects. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

Jacob W. Kipp