A Dangerous Relic

Three years ago, when I was in the Dniester region, I found myself in an army stockpile warehouse that even the building’s safety officer was afraid to enter. The warehouse contained mines and shells produced in the third decade of the last century. These should have been destroyed long ago, but no one had gotten around to it. As a result, there were stacks of wooden boxes, full of rusty ammunition that could explode at any moment.

The Russian military machine is a bit like this huge warehouse, its contents threatening not Russia’s enemies, but its own citizens.

The Russian economy does not exactly evoke wonderment and delight. Yet it does have one indisputable advantage – it is not at all reminiscent of the USSR economy. And the Russian political system, as imperfect as it is – only declaring, but never delivering on basic rights and freedoms – is completely unlike the totalitarian Soviet state.

Yet two vestiges of the Soviet system – the Russian armed forces and the mausoleum warehousing Lenin’s mummy – remain standing, like untrammeled archipelagos. The Russian army is, in essence, a diminutive, one-third-sized copy of the Soviet Armed Forces. Yet this copy is useless for the defense of the state. In fact, it endangers it.

Anatomy of a

Powderkeg

The Russian Army operates on the basis of general compulsory military service. This allows for a comparatively large army – some 1.2 million souls. And an inexpensive one. Suffice it to say that it costs just $500 a year to train, house and feed a Russian conscript. Yet these soldiers live in conditions which would be difficult to call humane. Thus does modern Russia, as the Soviet Union before it, for all practical purposes officially recognize that draftees do not have many of the basic rights of citizens. Doomed to suffer “fatigue and deprivation,” conscripted soldiers are slaves of the State, serving not only as soldiers, but also in construction, road and railroad corps, in order that the State might exact free labor.

If the Russian soldier is a slave, then the officer, especially the younger officer, is no more than a serf. He is entirely subordinated to the authority of two people – his immediate superior and the officer in charge of personnel. These two individuals can, without explanation, withhold an officer’s promotion. They also have it within their power to send the officer to serve in a large city or in some godforsaken sector along the Chinese border. It hardly needs to be mentioned that such a state of affairs quite naturally leads to corruption. What is more, it deprives officers of initiative, transforming them into apathetic executors, afraid of defying their bosses’ orders in even the least detail.

The power of such a large, inexpensive armed force consists in its capacity for swift escalation through mobilization. Such an army is doomed to success through numbers, rather than skill. In fact, the concept of the mobilizing army assumes that soldiers and officers are, as a clever general once put it, no more than “disposable goods.” A soldier is good for one battle, a tank for one shot. And the entire economy of the state exists to support the armed forces.

Of course, modern Russia, given all its imperfections, cannot support such an army. As a result, the army is disintegrating. Draft evasion has become a national sport. The military maintains it is only succeeding in drafting 10% of those who should be serving in the armed forces (see related story, page 34). Every spring and fall, local police in large cities ramp up their document checking efforts among young men, hoping to uncover those who are evading the national call-up. Workers from voenkomats [draft boards], together with the militia, set up ambushes at draft-evaders’ apartments, quite often “capturing” men with legal deferments. It is all more reminiscent of an 18th century European army, than one for the 21st century.

Should we be surprised then, that recruits do not meet even the most basic intellectual, physical or social requirements, and that the culture in a Russian barracks is that of a prison? Consider that, in the first ten months of 2002, according to data from Minister of Defense Sergei Ivanov, 531 servicemen died “as a result of crimes and incidents.” The General Prosecutor asserts that more than 20,000 crimes were committed during the last year in the armed forces, and that one in four was connected with violence in the barracks.

Given these conditions, the epidemic of desertion which has seized the army seems entirely just. According to the General Prosecutor, in 2002 more than 4,000 persons deserted the Russian army. Sometimes these desertions take on a “mass character,” in which whole platoons or companies desert their units. Armed deserters have even engaged in mass slaughters, like two commandos who left their brigade in Ulyanovsk and killed more than 10 people.

What is more, the army’s military preparedness is extremely low. The Second Chechen War is stretching on into its third year without any hope whatsoever of a swift victory. The Russian armed forces’ inability to operate effectively in Chechnya is all the more obvious before the background of the successful operations of the American army in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq.

All of this cannot but heighten the issue of military reform in the halls of the Kremlin. Yet this is not a new issue – it has been on the table since May 7, 1992, the date the Russian armed forces were officially founded. Several attempts at reform have been floated since that time, but they have all failed.

Now a new plan is in the works. At first glance, it seems that this time the military, which is subordinated to the president, is falling in line:

N In June, a final plan was to be approved whereby, over the next four years, 92 companies of the Russian army will be professionalized. This includes regular troops of the land forces, naval infantry and paratroopers – over 130,000 soldiers and sergeants in all.

N The military has for the first time conceded that only professional sergeants are able to guarantee discipline in the barracks. Defense Minister Ivanov has promised that professional sergeants will soon be present throughout the armed forces, and not only in those companies which are being converted to full professional status.

N Three years ago, in the name of military reform, it was declared that two military districts were to be merged, that space forces would be separated from the strategic rocket forces, and that a Main Command for Land Forces would be created (in a 1997 reform, on the other hand, space and rocket forces were to be merged and the Main Command for Land Forces was to be eliminated). It seems that now progress is at hand.

The Numbers Game

Yet many observers are sure that the generals will still find a way to lead these current military reforms up a blind alley. Beginning in the fall of 2001, after President Putin signed the first documents for converting the Russian armed forces to a contract basis, the higher echelons of the country’s military leadership did everything possible to see that this change did not come to pass. First and foremost, the military tried to prove to the president that the change was financially impossible. In November 2001, they asserted that conversion to a volunteer army would cost 500 million rubles per division. By March 2002, the figure had risen to R1 billion; by May 2002 it was R2.6 billion. Such huge disparities in the numbers simply proved that, despite their numerous declarations, the military had never seriously tabulated the costs of creating a professional army. They have simply dreamed up figures that they felt would be sufficiently large to scare the president.

To support their budget assertions, the generals began with the assumption that all kontraktniks [soldiers on contract, volunteer soldiers] would be guaranteed free government apartments. In Russia’s current situation, this is completely impractical. Suffice it to say that, at present, over 90 thousand officers’ families are without government apartments. Yet a year later it was announced that Vladimir Putin had not fallen for their ruse, and now kontrakniks will live in “crew-quarters” – three or four persons to a room.

Yet, even with this housing adjustment, overall cost estimates did not decline, but grew. The professionalization of 170,000 servicemen – 15-17 divisions – is now supposedly to cost 138 billion rubles over four years, or exactly what the military planned at the start. After the generals were unsuccessful at inflating the costs of conversion through housing construction (which, in Russia, we should mention, offers unrivaled opportunities for larceny), they moved on to their next ruse. The generals demanded that expenses be inflated to pay for the repair and purchase of military hardware. The logic here was simple: if we are going to be paying the kontrakniks salaries, then they should have the means for normal combat training. Interestingly, this argument illuminated the true attitude of highly ranked officers toward draftees: since the army receives them “for free,” it is completely unnecessary to train them properly for combat.

The defense minister offered this humanitarian explanation for the fact that the troops of the Northern Caucasus military district will be the first to be professionalized: in so doing, it is guaranteed that draftees will not end up in a “hot spot.” One should therefore be pleased: the draftee’s life will be threatened only by the fists of his drunken colleagues, and not by the enemy’s bullets or mines. And so, the fulfillment of one’s constitutional duty to defend the Fatherland (and the generals make a point of stressing this when demanding that the draft be retained) will be limited to menial roles.

The Missing Link

If Sergei Ivanov is to be believed, then the military has finally grasped what has long been known the world over: a professional army without professional sergeants is unthinkable. The minister of defense announced that professional sergeants will appear throughout the armed forces, and not only in those companies which are being professionalized. This means that, within a year, the army would gain a minimum of 40,000 professional sergeants. But where will they come from? There is no sign that special educational institutions are being set up in Russia to train this category of servicemen. Most likely, graduates of the usual educational institutions who have served a few months will be “persuasively” offered contracts to sign up “as a sergeant.”

Of course, such young commanders will have no authority, and thus there will be no change in the discipline situation in the barracks. And, in a short while, the generals will be able to declare that even the existence of professional sergeants offers no guarantee against hazing.

The ministry of defense has more than once declared that the system of military education must be changed, yet nothing has been done. In fact, if someone suddenly undertook the serious preparation of sergeants, it would quickly become obvious that Russia’s junior officer staff (junior lieutenant, lieutenant, senior lieutenant and captain) currently perform the tasks that are performed by sergeants in western armies. Russian officer training schools, we discover, are not producing professionals, but military craftsmen, who can only feel like independent professionals in a mass army lacking real sergeants.

In essence, the contract army which the Russian generals seek to build is an army of mercenaries, not professionals. The kontraktniks will volunteer for military service and be paid for it. But without the presence of professional sergeants and officers, they will never become a professional fighting force.

Mobilization,

the Draft

& Other Myths

The program proposed by the defense ministry cannot be called military reform. In essence, the generals have come up with a way (frittering away a not insignificant sum of money), to stumble past the demographic pothole that will be 2006-2010, when the universe of draftable males will decline by nearly half. Moreover, they are doing everything in their power to preserve a mass conscripted army.

Even if the declared plans are realized, the military intends to continue conscription indefinitely. Once kontraktniki fulfill 50-60% of posts now held by draftees, according to Vasily Smirnov, chief of the Main Organizational Mobilization Directorate of the General Staff, the draftee’s term of service will only be reduced to one year. At the same time, most deferments will be eliminated. Even though the plan foresees a modest goal of having 30% of soldiers and sergeants become kontraktniki by 2008, this will be achieved by professionalizing non-military units, rather than completely demilitarizing them (which would make the 30% goal harder to attain). Thus, over the next year railway troops will be professionalized. Interestingly, however, the construction battalion will not be professionalized – there is obviously too much to be gained from the free labor here. In short, despite “reforms,” there are clearly plans to keep the military’s structure – unique in the world – of 15 military and militarized departments for another decade.

Here it is worth mentioning the army reform plan put forward by the Union of Rightist Forces. It represents the first time in Russian history in which a political party has presented its own plan for reforming the armed forces. Under the plan, the Russian army would become 100% contract-based within three years. The persistence of the Union’s leader, Boris Nemtsov, has convinced President Putin that such a transition is feasible, and it has helped put the question of military reform at the center of public concerns. And yet, the plan is not without its contradictions. By way of compromising with the generals, the Union has retained conscription in their plan (with a six-month long term of service), for the sole purpose of training reservists. The generals of course seized on this idea.

The Ministry of Defense explains  that Russia, with its huge territory and comparatively small population, needs to be ready to conduct a general mobilization, which requires millions of reservists with military training. Not surprisingly, the plan for strategic military maneuvers (war games) which began in 1999 included the mobilization of reservists. Defense Minister Ivanov declared it one of the greatest achievements of 2002 that, in the course of maneuvers in the Siberian Military District, seven thousand reservists were successfully called up and transported several thousand kilometers. The minister wisely kept silent on the question of exactly how combat-ready these troops were, and whether such a mobilization would be feasible nationwide.

In reality, the possibility of such a mobilization is a myth. For a long time, there has been a strategic shortage of arms and ammunition to supply our multi-million soul army. And Russian industry is not in any condition to begin arms production. Therefore, the idea that millions of reservists could be mobilized during a “time of threat” is merely a myth cultivated by Russia’s General Staff.

If the draft is preserved in any form, then so is the bankrupt Soviet model of the armed forces. Such an army is a black hole, capable of swallowing up any and all financial and material resources, and offering huge opportunities for financial abuse.

The preservation of the draft means there is no need to change the system of military education and the system of officer service. As a result, over 50 military institutes and academies will continue to produce officers of the Soviet variety – individuals who know a certain military system and who have a completely perverted understanding of the outside world. Preserving the draft also justifies the abnormal structure of the officer corps, where there are as many colonels as lieutenants. (Based on the myth that, at some appointed hour, these colonels will command divisions of reservists.)

In reality, Russia has no need for a draft army cut from the Soviet mold. Younger officers do not want to serve in it, nor do ordinary troops. Yet the Russian generals need exactly this type of army. And it is not a matter simply of the many opportunities for thievery which such an army allows. Russian military bosses understand perfectly well that they only know how to command this type of army. A different type of armed force demands a different type of commander. It should not be surprising, therefore, that the Russian generals will, to their dying breath, battle for the type of armed forces which serve their mercenary group interests. RL