After years of false starts and many proposals, the order was issued to cut the armed forces by 600,000 troops and institute many radical (for Russia, anyway) reforms. Most of Russia's seven billion dollar a year defense budget goes to paying and maintaining some three million soldiers and civilian defense workers. There is little money left for equipment or training. Reforms have been debated since the disastrous 1994 operations in Chechnya revealed how much the armed forces had declined.