Alexander Khramchikhin, Vitaly Shlykov THE RUSSIAN ARMED FORCES: HIGH EXPECTATIONS?
From: Alexander Khramchikhin To: Vitaly Shlykov Subject: who is threatening us after all?
Hello, Vitaly! Speaking about the future of the Armed Forces, it makes sense to speculate about the chal lenges and threats that the Russian military should be prepared for. If we take the open sources – published concepts and doctrines, the Russian politico military leadership, at least, has a vague understanding of the character of external threats that the country is facing. The provisions of the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation are so unclear that they leave enough room for any interpretations and conclusions (or, in other words, no specific conclu sions can be made on the basis of such documents). The «Actual Development Tasks for the Russian Armed Forces» published in October 2003 is a much more specific document (even though its status can be called into question), but it is full of internal contradictions. Let me emphasize a few principal ones. For instance, the «Actual Tasks» maintains that «the Russian military policy has adapted to a new global reality… In particular, nuclear warfare and large scale conventional wars with NATO or any other U.S. led coalition have been eliminated from the list of the most probable conflicts.»
However, in the process of describing the types of modern wars and contemporary armed VIEWPOINTS conflicts, the document argues that «the weapons used in modern warfare make it necessary to possess the forces and means to attack the military instruments of the adversary (long range high precision weapons, strategic aircraft) stationed beyond the actual conflict zone.» At present, the only country (beside the Russian Federation) that has long range high preci sion weapons and strategic aircraft is the United States. As far as it concerns future wars and conflicts, military construction and combat training, the «Actual Tasks» state that the «outcome of the armed struggle in general will mainly be deter mined by confrontation in the aerospace and on the sea, while ground forces will fix the attained combat results and provide for the achievement of the political goals.» It is quite obvi ous that the United States is again regarded here as one of the major adversaries. On the other hand, later on the document speaks mainly about combat training of the Army within the pla toon company battalion paradigm.» For instance, «the forces in the armed conflicts will not face a typical enemy, but rather a mixture of units with different equipment and levels of train ing. Those units may actively apply the tactics of guerrilla warfare, subversive and terrorist operations.» Only a short paragraph is devoted to the Air Force, while the Navy is not men
SECURITY INDEX No. 1 (86), Volume 15 57 tioned at all. Thus, the major kind of wars that the Russian military will be involved in is not the war with the United States, but the Chechen type conflicts. In general, there is an impression that this document was written by several groups of authors, each of which has a different view on military construction, and then all parts were mechani cally brought together. The Ministry of Defense (MOD) apparently suffers from tough contra dictions between those who cannot neglect the changing character of wars in the last 15 years, and the proponents of the «armor attack mentality» of the 1940–1950s. There are also evident differences between those in the national politico military leadership who see lit tle sense in confrontation with the United States and those for whom it is the only essence of life. Moreover, the practitioners, who passed through two wars in Chechnya, also have some influence. As a result, the opinions of all the aforementioned groups were mechanically assem bled into the single document. The challenges originating from the West and the so called international terrorism are looked at in an exaggerated way, through the prism of myths, while the Chinese threat is completely ignored. Yours, A. Khramchikhin
From: Vitaly Shlykov To: Alexander Khramchikhin Subject: the army should be flexible and can easily be tuned
Hi, Alexander, You argue that the existing official documents do not clearly define the types of wars and con flicts that Russia should be ready for – either with the enemy possessing long range high pre cision weapons and strategic aircraft, or with the enemy using the tactics of guerrilla warfare, sabotage and terrorism. For me the answer is obvious – to both of them. And to dozens of other threats, wars, and conflicts (information warfare, cyber warfare, etc.) that we are currently not even aware of. By asking for specific instructions of the politico military leadership with respect to threats to be repelled, you merely replicate the position of the Russian generals of the last 15 years. It is quite simple – give us such a military doctrine that has a clear range of all threats and equip us with arms and resources to resist them. And we will do everything all right. And now let us imagine that the Russian president and the government accept this recom mendation and will mark the Chinese threat as the major one, while NATO will be perceived as a paper tiger. It would be good to see the scenario for military construction and development in this case. I assume that Russia needs such defense that has a potential for self tuning, for preventing and confronting any possible threats and conflicts. And it would be advisable to consider the ways to create such defense, instead of speculating on one threat after another in accordance with some self invented range of challenges. To set up such a self adapting defense system, one needs something more important than weapons, i.e. education, decisionmaking ability, independence and creativity of thinking, ini tiative of the officers top down, and some mobilization mechanism enabling the economy to shift from peaceful state to war time mode and back with sufficient flexibility as far as the requirements of the military to the materiel and other resources are concerned. Naturally, the establishment of such system would require the formation of a brand new army and the replacement of the present day narrow minded defense industry with the sector capable of manufacturing both military and civilian products on the basis of the same tech nologies and enterprises. Yours, V. Shlykov
58 THE RUSSIAN ARMED FORCES: HIGH EXPECTATIONS? From: Alexander Khramchikhin To: Vitaly Shlykov Subject: be ready for everything?
Vitaly, And still I have got a question. Is it possible to carry out any military construction on the basis of the existing doctrines? If not, on what should it rely at all? Why are the generals not correct in claiming for the doctrine? Isn’t it the task of the political leadership of the country? Is it nor mal that the president has no military staff, nor even a military advisor? Bearing this in mind, is it possible for a person who made no attempts to understand the mili tary topics beyond PR effects, lead the development of the self tuning, innovative army? Does he realize what it is all about? I could not expect you to say that the generals should set tasks for themselves. I have two claims against Boris Yeltsin as far as the military construction is concerned. First – he rejected the idea of building an army from the scratch. Second – he permitted the generals to set the tasks for themselves. The mission of the political leadership of the country is to set the tasks for the generals, so that the latter could think about optimal ways to implement them. These tasks can be called a doctrine, a national security concept, or any other name – it does not really matter. And there is no need to explain to you that we are not the country that can do without any such document or set of documents at all. Of course, Hungary or Belgium does not need a military doctrine, while we do. It is also clear that such country as Russia may confront different challenges. The same can be said about the United States as well. However, Washington does not have several armies and pays only for the one, various components of which are meant for repelling different threats. And American generals get orders and tasks from politicians. I may have a wrong understand ing of your «self tuning army» concept, but it seems that in peaceful times such army should nearly be virtual. I have serious doubts that in case of real war (any) it will be able to react (to any threat) with such approach. Anyway due to the vagueness of the definition, it is difficult to have a dispute on this matter. How can a self tuning army be built without defining specific adversaries and taking into account possible current and future wars and geopolitical situation of the Russian Federation? In the European part of the country we at least possess a well developed transportation net work, while in Siberia and in the Far East any grouping should be formed in advance, since it would be difficult (or even impossible) to reinforce them in case of war. In fact, why does the U.S. politico military leadership easily name the list of nations that pose or may pose a threat to the United States, even though some of these challenges exist only as hypothetical types? VIEWPOINTS Due to the abstract and controversial character of the major doctrines, the military construc tion cannot be carried out on the basis of these documents. Hence, it is impossible to say how much the practice of military construction in Russia complies with these documents. And in this respect, it is impossible to analyze the defense budget of Russia, which is also not transparent and is highly confidential in nature. Akh
From: Vitaly Shlykov To: Alexander Khramchikhin Subject: and about concepts again
I feel like I am interrogated and get a pile of questions aimed at provoking tough polemics. Alas, there will be no polemics, since to each of these questions, often quite rhetorical, I am ready to provide a positive answer.
SECURITY INDEX No. 1 (86), Volume 15 59 «Is it possible to carry out military construction on the basis of existing doctrines?» No, since they are too abstract and lack the substance. «If no, what will be the basis for such activities?» Here you demonstrate the love to papers approved by the superiors. Perhaps, because they are easy to criticize. In fact, a doctrine is more than an official document, it is a set of specific views and decisions of the political lead ership. Many countries do not have officially formulated military doctrines set in paper and feel perfect without them. «Why are the generals who ask for the doctrine not right in their claims?» Simply because this is the way for them to facilitate their own life. It is clear that it is easier to implement the orders coming from the top than to act in the conditions of uncertainty and demonstrate the initiative in solving the emerging issues, which are not regulated with instructions of the political bosses. I can only repeat myself saying that the military doctrine is not and should not be an official mul tipage document signed by the president, but a set of his specific decisions and instructions. «Is it normal that the president does not have his own military staff, nor a military advisor?» This is not the issue of normality. Each president decides for himself and selects the most appropriate way. The French president has such staff, the U.S. one – does not have it. As far as the military advisor is concerned, in the United States this role is performed by the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In Russia the president can also always resort to the knowledge of the Chief of the General Staff. Does Putin understand what is «an innovative army»? It seems that you still speak about Vladimir Putin. Bearing in mind that we have a new president now, let me answer you with a high degree of conditionality. Yes, I believe that Vladimir Putin could lead the establishment of such an army. I am convinced in it because of two major, even revolutionary events – the appointment of Anatoly Serdyukov, the first real civilian at the post of the Defense Minister, and the very task of building the innovative army. Putin assumes that such army «sets different, most advanced requirements to professionalism, technical scope and competence of the mil itary.» Moreover, «the development of new technologies will require the revision of the strate gy of the Armed Forces. Advanced research in the area of bio , nano and information tech nologies may result in revolutionary changes as far as the weapons are concerned. And the issues of deployment, maintenance and use of the new generation of weapons can only be entrusted with the army that meets the modern requirements.» As far as the construction of the «self tuning» army without naming specific enemies is con cerned, I assume that it makes little sense to build an army for specific challenges. Such threats can be many and for each challenge (warfare) one will have to set up a special army. Evidently to fight with China you need the different armed forces than for war with NATO or in the Caucasus, while counter guerrilla warfare can hardly be conducted by the army, whose purpose is to repel the cyber attacks or strikes from outer space. By suggesting the link between the defense and military planning and specific threats, you totally neglect the experience of the Soviet Union. The latter had nearly half of the world in the list of its adversaries and was ruined by the huge defense burden. Putin should be praised for not dragging Russia into the new arms race. At the same time, he had enough powers to do so and was pushed to this slippery path by many, including you and your colleagues from the National Strategy Institute (NSI). V. Shlykov
From: Alexander Khramchikhin To: Vitaly Shlykov Subject: civilian minister?
I cannot understand your happiness about the «real civilian» defense minister. To my mind, this is again the replacement of the ends by the means. The very appointment itself means noth ing. For example, the formal introduction of democratic institutions in the country does not mean the existence of democracy – we could witness this in Russia, or in Iraq. There is a need
60 THE RUSSIAN ARMED FORCES: HIGH EXPECTATIONS? for the whole number of activities, in order to ensure the revolutionary changes in the sphere of military construction in Russia. I cannot see them, you – either, and you wrote about it. Under these circumstances, it is not clear what the value of the civilian minister, as such, is. I cannot understand the heroic deed of Vladimir Putin, who did not let the country enter a new arms race. Who is imposing the arms race on us (beside the Kremlin propaganda, of course)? I cannot get how the army can live without weapons. Apparently you don’t understand the sense of the current military technical policy either, it’s not me alone. But then why do you praise Putin? Obviously, due to the lack of specific views related to the military construction and civilian con trol over the Armed Forces, the present day military technical policy makes such a strange impression. The number of purchased items of new armament makes a few percent (or even decimals of percent) in comparison with the total amount of weapons in the Armed Forces and in comparison with the minimal requirements (even if we take into account the need for further reduction of the Armed Forces). A matter of particular concern is the rapid cuts in the strate gic nuclear forces (SNF) and, as a result, in the foreseeable future they won’t be able provide for nuclear deterrence against the United States and China. And no specific remedy against such trend occurs to me. Moreover, the novelty of the «new» weapons can also be called into question. Most of the armaments purchased by the army today were developed during the Soviet times, i.e. two decades ago. Thus, the issue of buying materiel, which is not principally new and is manufac tured in tiny quantities, becomes even more urgent. Yours sincerely, A. Khramchikhin
From: Vitaly Shlykov To: Alexander Khramchikhin Subject: who is to judge?
I am really surprised with your appeals to increase the weapons production and the previous statements saying that any military construction is impossible without well formulated views of the political leadership on the tasks of the Armed Forces. One can often hear the criticism of the MOD documents for their inability to «define the required number of arms and materiel which should be purchased for the Armed Forces in the foreseeable future and the qualitative characteristics of such materiel.» I can hardly believe that you are so na?ve to expect the answers from Vladimir Putin, Dmitry
Medvedev, the MOD, or anyone else. Don’t you know that Putin at the end of his presidential VIEWPOINTS term got rid of his only advisor on military issues General Alexander Burutin and sent him to the General Staff, and never had a military staff, like the French president, and never demonstrat ed any desire to get intellectual support on military affairs from the expert community? So not surprisingly during his presidency, neither in the government (including the MOD), nor in any other structure there emerged an agency that could try to answer all those questions. Best regards, V. Shlykov
From: Alexander Khramchikhin To: Vitaly Shlykov Subject: about the state of the Russian military industrial complex
What is the essence of the current military technical policy in Russia? What are the grounds it is based on? Why do we need to manufacture old fashioned weapons in tiny quantities and
SECURITY INDEX No. 1 (86), Volume 15 61 with the ever increasing defense budget? Isn’t it a waste of money and at the same time, the clumsy maintenance of the archaic structure of the defense complex? To what extent can we rely on the military industries during the war, taking into account high rate of casualties in the materiel during the modern warfare and the vulnerability of the very defense industry to the attacks of potential adversaries? What is done by the Russian leader ship to restructure the military industrial complex in conformity with the modern require ments? And is the very task of such restructuring understood and accepted? And what will the highly professional officer corps do, if the Armed Forces are not equipped with advanced weapons? Any parallels with the U.S. experience of the 19th century seem irrelevant to me due to the sharp contrast in historical and geopolitical situation of the then United States and pres ent day Russia. Isn’t it a tragedy that the SNF are in the collapse of reduction in the situation when Russia can base its defense policy only on nuclear deterrence, as it has neither economic and technolog ical might of the United States, nor the numerous human resources nor industrial might of China? And all the same question – why does the budget grow, while smaller and smaller amounts of weapons are produced? Here one has to speak about the problems of the Russian defense industry. Sharp decline in the defense contracts in the post Soviet era resulted in the loss of many important technolo gies and the most skilled labor. Hence, it becomes more difficult to carry out the task of devel oping brand new weapons and materiel, even if the funding is sufficient. The quality of the materiel that is manufactured becomes lower, the number of claims of the clients increases every year. Besides, many enterprises now look at the foreign markets, especially those that possess a good Soviet technological basis for production of materiel that is in high demand on the glob al market. Those enterprises survived the crisis and the lack of domestic defense contracts of the 1990s, but the military industrial complex itself got a strategic blow. These facilities depend on the production of the Soviet weapons – it brings profits and requires no restructur ing – and, hence, they are not interested in the development of new advanced samples of armament and materiel. Moreover, successful foreign trade adds to their lobbyist potential and enables them to impose on the government (which has no clear vision of military con struction) the production of morally outdated weapons for export and for the Russian Armed Forces. Additional problem is the high level of corruption in this sphere and uncontrolled increase in prices along the entire technological line. These factors explain why more and more money is spent on buying fewer and fewer weapons and materiel. Yours, A. Khramchikhin
From: Vitaly Shlykov To: Alexander Khramchikhin Subject: and again who is to judge?
Alexander, You condemn the current state of affairs in the military industrial complex and ask me the questions, to which you know the answers. And you ask them with the purpose of provoking me to argue that everything is all right in the area of defense. Don’t expect such response. However, I am polite enough to reply. One cannot rely on the capabilities of the cadre defense industry during the war, taking into account its vulnerability and inability to replenish the casu alties. I have been writing about this for the last 30 years. The Russian leadership does a little to restructure the defense complex in conformity with the modern standards. And the task of such restructuring is not understood well.
62 THE RUSSIAN ARMED FORCES: HIGH EXPECTATIONS? Then you ask me about the essence of the contemporary military technical policy. Well, I don’t know it, don’t ask me. I don’t know the assumptions it is based on, and don’t want to make guesses. Your question is addressed to a wrong person. «Why do we need to manufacture morally outdated weapons in tiny quantities with the ever increasing defense budget?» I would say – we don’t need this. Yes, I also find it unreasonable to waste the money and to maintain the archaic structure of the military industrial complex. I am simply confused with your desire to prove that Vladimir Putin did less to strengthen the defense than Boris Yeltsin, and eventually ruined the army and the defense industry. For instance, the authors of the recently published report by the NSI got involved in the popu lar game of the Cold War – bean counting – and calculated (here I can see your trace) the amount of materiel manufactured in 1992–1999 and in 2000–2007. Of course, such compar ison is not in favor of the Putin era. It turned out that under Putin’s presidency only 27 ICBMs were produced (three times less than in the 1990s), 90 tanks were manufactured (against 150), and the number of new heavy bombers was seven times lower (1 against 7). The cata strophic situation is in the area of aircraft production – only two new fighters (Su 34) in 2000–2007 against 100 in the 1990s. I have a different approach to the «achievements» of the Yeltsin epoch. The thing is that in late December 1991 I was Deputy Chair of the State Committee for Defense Affairs and attended the meeting of the Russian government that approved the plan of defense acquisitions for 1992. In accordance with the then Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar’s decision to cut down the funding for defense acquisitions by two thirds, the budget appropriated 11.2 billion rubles for that pur pose (instead of 29.6 billion rubles in 1991). The production of ICBMs should have been cut down from 43 in 1991 to 30 in 1992, the SLBMs should go down to 18 from 28, heavy bombers – from 18 to 8, combat aircraft – from 305 to 110. Thus, during the entire Yeltsin era the number of manufactured heavy bombers and aircraft was lower than the number of mate rial planned to be produced in 1992 only. I must say that the military who attended the meeting tried to prove that they did not need so much new materiel. They argued that they did not require new heavy bombers and asked for higher expenditure on spare parts and construction of housing and barracks for the troops being withdrawn from Europe. In response to the arguments of the military, the rapporteur (Deputy Minister of Economics I. Materov) explained that the acquisition of new weapons was needed to ensure sufficient load for the defense industry. Let me not discuss who was right and wrong in that dispute. Let me mention that the compar ison of weapons production output during Yeltsin’s and Putin’s era can hardly be correct. In VIEWPOINTS the 1990s the government set forth the tasks of manufacturing huge amount of useless weapons without any intention to pay for them. And it could not pay, even if it wanted to. If one estimates the planned figures of weapons production for 1992 in the current prices (and beside the abovementioned armaments, Russia was planning to manufacture a dozen of nuclear powered submarines and battleships), it would rise to several defense budgets of 2007. How could Russia then produce a hundred of aircraft, numerous vessels and ICBMs dur ing the Yeltsin time, which now serve as a reproach to Putin? It was possible only because these weapons were assembled from components stored since the Soviet times and thanks to the mobilization stockpiles created by the U.S.S.R during its preparations for a new world war. As a result, this production cost nothing to the budget. And by the time of Putin’s arrival in the Kremlin, these stocks were mainly exhausted and the pres ident, unlike Boris Yeltsin, had to pay for the purchased weapons. And it turned out that the armaments were not only expensive, but their price was growing all the time. For instance, the price of a T 90 tank in late 2006 amounted to 42 million rubles, while in early 2007 it cost already 58 million rubles.
SECURITY INDEX No. 1 (86), Volume 15 63 In fact, in the 1990s the government wasted a huge amount of resources for the sake of pro duction of outdated weapons. And Putin managed to curtail, if not to stop, this enormous waste, so he should be praised for this rather than criticized. V. Shlykov
From: Alexander Khramchikhin To: Vitaly Shlykov Subject: what are we arguing about?
Even if you published this text a week (month, year) ago and I would disagree on it 100 per cent, it would never occur to me to impose a discussion on the text and pick up its phrases, since the topic of our dispute is different. I am neither officially, nor in reality the only author of the report by the NSI. And the text belongs to the NSI, of which I am not an employee. Hence, in order to get involved in artificial polemics on the NSI text, I would at least have had to inform my coauthors, and I see little sense in it. I consider the accusations of bias to be the direct insult. I merely wrote down about the real state of affairs in the military construction during the presidency of Vladimir Putin. In a shorter way it is discussed in the previous episodes of our polemics, and it has turned out that you agree with many things that I have mentioned. On the other hand, I cannot understand how a person can pretend to be an independent expert, if he is a member of the body (even if it is a public council) attached to the MOD. However, it has never occurred to me to call into ques tion your independence in the course of our discussion. In general, what are the key trends in the development of the Russian Armed Forces? Is it the restoration of the former Soviet might, as it is declared officially, or the establishment of the brand new army, which meets modern requirements, or the final collapse of the Soviet army without replacement by a new one, and even without understanding the advisability of such replacement? After writing this text I suddenly noticed the following phrase, «Preserving the existing trends in the Russian army may result in the lowered combat readiness of the Armed Forces below the critical level.» This is the wording of the «Strategy of Social Development of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation until 2020» approved by the MOD on March 28, 2008. And my final question in this context is – which position do you support with respect to the present day sit uation and what are you arguing with? AKh
From: Vitaly Shlykov To: Alexander Khramchikhin Subject: innovative army means investments in human resources
It seems that the leadership of the country also thinks about the need to develop a brand new army rather than maintains the myth of the Russian military might restoration nearly to the Soviet levels (as the NSI claims). Otherwise why would Vladimir Putin set forth the task of establishing the innovative army? Such army cannot be set up, if the government and the MOD focus only on the elimination of all the numerous, real and false, flaws, which make the basis of allegations about the crisis in the Armed Forces under President Putin. What would happen if Vladimir Putin followed the advice of some experts and achieved the tripling of Topol missile production (from 27 to 80) during the eight years of his presidency? What would happen if he agreed to be engaged into a new arms race? What would happen if he stopped denying the existence of the Chinese threat and declared China the key potential adversary and reinforced the Russian grouping in Siberia and the Far East by a few hundreds of thousands of men? Isn’t it clear that Russia eco
64 THE RUSSIAN ARMED FORCES: HIGH EXPECTATIONS? nomically depends on China much more than Beijing depends on Moscow and that China can easily enlist ten times more soldiers in the Far East? No, by proclaiming the slogan of the innovative army development, Vladimir Putin found a rem edy to the actual complicated issues that Russia has to face in the area of defense and secu rity. The innovative army implies the investments in human resources. And Putin speaks not only about new maneuvering warheads, which sound fearsome for Western observers, but about the need «to raise the prestige of the military service, to further increase the monetary benefits of the military, to strengthen their social security, to solve their housing problems.» And he does not only mention these matters, he urges the government to pay. The program of providing permanent housing to the officers by 2010 and rent housing by 2012 demands sub stantial expenditure, which no one has yet managed to calculate, but which the country can finally afford. And the resolution of the housing problem may immediately change the situation of brain drain among the commissioned officers, as in this case the Russian army will be the only one in the world, which provides private housing to its officers. If one also takes into account the 2004–2011 program, which implies the conversion of all ser geants into contract servicemen and theoretically helpers of the officers (the latter will be saved from night duties in the barracks and other fuss), the country will eventually be able to start developing the innovative officer corps (but first, it should find the right definition for this term, of course). By the way, while paying so much attention to the comparison of combat capabilities and morale of the conscripts and the role of sergeants, the NSI authors say little or nothing about the role of the officer in the army. Meanwhile, such issues as dedovshchina (hazing in the mil itary, harassment of the subordinates), or the principles of military construction (contract ser vicemen or draft), are of secondary importance in comparison with the lack of professional officer corps in Russia. Obviously, I use the term «professional» in its Western meaning (let’s say in Huntington’s interpretation) and not in its original Russian meaning, against which I have been struggling for many years now. If we had a highly professional officer corps, we would have all the rest, including hi tech weapons. Professional military commanders will order the industry to manufacture only those armaments that are required by the army and not those that the defense companies would like to produce. And the professional officer corps can be a good basis for drifting towards the innovative army. Best, V. Shlykov
From: Alexander Khramchikhin
To: Vitaly Shlykov VIEWPOINTS Subject: professional army means the army of lumpprol
Professionalization of the Armed Forces naturally leads to their marginalization. However, the military commanders can hardly be blamed for this – this concept is not appropriate for Russia in principle, but was imposed on the Armed Forces for political reasons. At the same time, it is evident that real professionalization (in fact, starting from the scratch) of the sergeants and ser geant majors is necessary, but here we do not go beyond declarations and good intentions. The same can be said with respect to the formally most progressive undertaking – the estab lishment of three strategic commands (West, South and East). It seems that this idea is dead, or has been «improved» to such an extent that it would be converted from a good intention into a harmful initiative. The provision of housing for the officers is certainly a significant mission. Nonetheless, it is clear that even the availability of the best apartment by itself has no real influence on the skills of an officer. What is really done to form the professional officer corps and is this task under stood at all?
SECURITY INDEX No. 1 (86), Volume 15 65 Will the principles of combat training change after the transfer to a one year compulsory mili tary service, or will we lose the remnants of our combat readiness (since the recruits won’t be able to play the role of standby reserve even formally)? Should the adequate system of life long training be introduced, since without it, any draft in the army is senseless as such? Does the national leadership realize the need to restore the professional corps of junior com manders? Apparently the mechanical signature of contracts with all sergeants and sergeant majors will hardly mean the establishment of such corps. You fairly write that the sergeants can help the officers to get rid of a lot of fuss. So you understand how much the practice can be far away from the theory. Yours, Alexander Khramchikhin
From: Vitaly Shlykov To: Alexander Khramchikhin Subject: personnel is crucial
«What is really done to establish the professional officer corps in the country and is this task understood at all?» No, it is not so much realized yet. But I cannot justify the accusations of Vladimir Putin that he is a proponent of the contract army in detriment to the draft. Boris Yeltsin should be condemned for this much more than his suc cessor. I am not mentioning here his famous decree of 1996, in which he urged to set up the professional army by 2000. Let me only remind you of Decree No. 918 of November 30, 1992, which provides for the gradual shift towards contract service. To implement this decree, by 1995 (i.e. within two years) Russia signed over half a million contracts, turned to 18 months of draft service and introduced many benefits for young people who did not want to serve, which are now being eliminated by the MOD together with the State Duma. However, already in 1995 the majority of these contract servicemen were fired, since the gov ernment had to reduce the military expenditure twice. Yes, twice, whatever strange it may sound. And during five years of implementation of Putin’s program, only 100,000 people were enlist ed for contract service, while the total number of contract servicemen now is only 210,000 (i.e. twice as lower as in 1994). And half of them are females. Is this the army of mercenaries that Putin has allegedly built? I have no doubt that neither Putin, nor the Defense Ministry intends to eliminate the draft or make sharp increase in the number of contract servicemen a la Boris Yeltsin. Otherwise, they would never agree to introduce one year draft service. After all, it is much easier to force a two year service recruit to sign the contract for three years of service than to do the same with the person who has spent in the army only 12 months of his life. It is obvious that the shift toward one year of service should facilitate the draft and make the service more attractive for soldiers. The same goal is pursued by the 2009–2011 program of signing contracts with all the ser geants. Best regards, V. Shlykov
From: Alexander Khramchikhin To: Vitaly Shlykov Subject: conclusions
Dear Vitaly, Certain measures undertaken by Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov (e.g. the reduction of the officer posts and their replacement with civilians and sergeants) are quite progressive (and
66 THE RUSSIAN ARMED FORCES: HIGH EXPECTATIONS? even revolutionary) in nature. This accounts for the negative reaction by the majority of gener als. However, one cannot say now how adequately these activities will be performed. If one reads our polemics attentively, one would agree that the situation in the area of military construction has deteriorated nearly in all aspects and there is a strong trend towards further degrading. At the same time, the state leadership does not take any measures aimed at chang ing the situation, and seemingly does not even realize the nature of the problem. Yours, A. Khramchikhin
From: Vitaly Shlykov To: Alexander Khramchikhin Subject: our debate will continue
The thing is that after reading this material, I feel hesitation. On the one hand, I agree with your assessments concerning most of the discussion points – the military doctrine and the Actual Tasks, the state of defense complex and the deteriorating quality of materiel production, cor ruption, increasing weapon prices, incorrect professionalization of the army, declarative char acter of the efforts to restore the junior commanders institution and the establishment of the regional commands. Moreover, on most of these points I could provide much more negative and tough judgments. It would be interesting for me to discuss the NSI report, which you have signed. As far as my position is concerned, it is quite simple. The person cannot claim to be an independent expert by coauthoring such biased document, as the NSI report, the major goal of which is to blame Vladimir Putin for everything, and then to avoid unpleasant questions about biased collection of facts. And then make noise about the change of terms in debate. I hope that the readers will be able to find out who really changes the substance of the discussion. In conclusion, let me note that I have never been blamed for complimentary approach towards Vladimir Putin or top officers in my works, including those related to the Soviet times. I simply don’t want to maintain the discussion based on the thesis about irreversibility of negative trends in the military development during Putin’s era. However, if you and your fellows have additional arguments in favor of this thesis, I am ready to comment on them with pleasure. As people say, forewarned, forearmed. Best regards, V. Shlykov VIEWPOINTS
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