President Vladimir Putin has spoken repeatedly of the necessity of reforming the security services. In particular, he has called for reducing the number of "power ministries." This is warranted since there is, indeed, a multitude of security services: 11 "power ministries" are represented in the Security Council, but other structures, such as the railroad troops, exist as well. Scrutiny of the efforts to reform the security services can provide clues about interagency competition.

Putin has employed a very active "cadre policy," first of all among the "power ministries," but there are signs that the government also may be reorganized. One of the president's most significant appointments was placing Sergei Ivanov, a 15-year veteran of the KGB, in the position of Minister of Defense. Under Ivanov the political weight of the Ministry of Defense has grown substantially to the point where it has a leading voice in matters of foreign and security policy. At the same time, the Security Council lost these functions and has come to be limited more and more to problems related to Chechnya and organized crime. When Putin began to show some interest in questions pertaining to nuclear weapons and strategic security, he appointed Marshal Igor Sergeev, the former defense minister, as his assistant for these matters and replaced Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov, with Alexander Rumyantsev. These appointments enable Putin to bypass the Security Council for strategic security matters.

It is notable that Putin has named persons from outside the Ministry of the Interior (MVD) and the defense ministry to the top positions -- Sergei Ivanov to the defense ministry and Boris Gryzlov, the head of the pro-presidential Unity faction in the Duma, to the MVD. The rationale may have been that a person who did not rise within the ministry in question, and therefore was not bound by corporate loyalties, would prove to be a better reformer.