building the new russian army

47 Pages·2021·0.35 MB·English

Building National Armies
Russian Federation
ARCHIVES
1996- 2000
2000-2001

Baev, Pavel K.

The Plight of the Russian Military: Shallow Identity and Self-Defeating Culture.

Top of the Page

Via Ralph Davis
Vladimir Kuroyedov, Commander in Chief of Russia's Navy, Admiral of the Fleet

Russia Sets New Priorities In Its Naval Policy To Meet New Challenges

At the turn of the century, the Russian government established a policy aimed at reviving Russia's naval might and restoring
its positions in the World Ocean as a leading naval power.

Like any other state, Russia has national interests in the World Ocean, which extend to its inland waters, territorial sea,
exclusive economic zone and continental shelf, as well as to areas in the World Ocean outside the jurisdiction of coastal

.

Armed Forces & Society 29
Fall 2002

Military Parade
September-October 2002

states.

Russia has for centuries been a major naval power owing to its large territory, geophysical peculiarities and role in global and
regional international relations. It earned this status owing to its favorable geographic location ‹ access to three oceans and
extensive sea borders, as well as to its great contribution to the exploration of the World Ocean and development of sea
shipping, and to many great discoveries made by famous Russian navigators and travelers.

At the same time, the establishment of a state naval development policy always posed a problem for Russian governments.
For the incumbent Russian government this problem is probably more acute.

The future of the Russian Navy always depended on how well Russian government circles realized the importance of Russia's
being a naval power and of establishing a comprehensive state policy for developing the Navy. Underestimation of the
Navy's importance for the country's development and insufficient attention to the Navy's needs had grave consequences for
Russia.

Developments of the last decade have sharply changed the geopolitical alignment of forces in the World Ocean. They have
had a very unfavorable effect on Russia's naval potential, its economic and military aspects, and all interrelated components:
transport, fishing, naval and research fleets, oceanology, various industries, bases and terminals, and personnel ‹ researchers,
designers, engineers, technicians and especially sailors having versatile and unique specialties.

Russia's access to the sea in areas vital for sea shipping and the national economy has been dramatically reduced. This refers,
particularly, to Baltic communications, the shortest and cheapest for establishing ties with countries in Western Europe.
Russia's transport potentialities in the Black Sea have been more than halved. About 50 percent of the port infrastructure of
the once-single country is now in other post-Soviet countries. Almost 40 percent of Russia's foreigntrade sea transportation is
served by ports of the Baltic states and Ukraine. Russian exports and imports account for 70 to 80 percent of all cargo
transshipped at Baltic ports. These operations earn the Baltic states more than 30 percent of their gross national product,
whereas Russia loses over two billion dollars a year in them.

These developments hit the hardest Russia's Navy, a real force ensuring and protecting Russia's interests in the World Ocean.
The number of combat ships has shrunk by almost 75 percent; ship repairing facilities are facing great difficulties; and the
naval fleet is aging at a fast rate. The chronic underfunding of the Navy hits, above all, the construction of new ships.

Parochial approaches of various departments to the development of marine areas and resources resulted in conflicts between
different marine industries, kinds of marine activities, regions, and infrastructural centers. A recent armed conflict between
Russian border guards and fishermen in the Far East provides a graphic example of such conflicts.

As a result, in the early 1990s, Russia began to lose its positions of a great sea power. Russia's marine activities, aimed at
promoting the nation's interests in the World Ocean and utilization of its resources for national economic needs, approached
the point of decay.

This factor, as well as the lack of plans in Russia to restore its positions in the World Ocean, resulted in the growth of real
and potential marine threats to Russia's national security. This is why the Russian president and the Cabinet have been
devoting close attention of late to the protection of Russia's interests in the World Ocean and to ways to solve this problem to
promote the country's economic development and security.

The government has concluded that the existing negative tendencies in Russia's marine activities are rooted in the lack of a
prudent policy as regards the country's economic development and security, and pointed to the need for unified national
management of all kinds of these activities. Economic marine activities and potentialities for military-strategic use of oceans
continue expanding, ensuring and supplementing each other. The marine economy is turning into a complex multi-industrial
sector, in which all kinds of production and protection interact and are interrelated.

So the promotion and protection of Russia's national interests in the World Ocean must be made a top priority goal in the
country's national security policy and implemented without delay to ensure Russia's economic development and security.
Russia must remove threats and ensure its activities in the World Ocean using political, diplomatic, economic, information
and other nonmilitary ways, and at the same time have sufficient naval might to be able to effectively use it to provide power
support for its marine activities.

The significance of the World Ocean for Russia's stable development and the need to protect its vital national interests and
form marine culture in the society have attached national status to top-priority tasks pertaining to the World Ocean.

This means that the revival and development of Russia's naval might and its main component ‹ the Navy ‹ will become

possible only if Russia has a permanent purposeful, coordinated and successive state marine pol icy ( like foreign, home,
social, financial, agrarian, regional, military or other policy) and if this is implemented, firmly and consistently, at all levels
of executive and legislative power.

The president, the Security Council and the Cabinet of the Russian Federation have adopted basic documents intended to
promote the development of Russia's marine activities ‹ the president's March 4, 2000, decree On the Improvement of Marine
Activities of the Russian Federation and the Cabinet's June 14, 2000, resolution On Measures to Improve Marine Activities of
the Russian Federation ‹ and endorsed The Fundamentals of the Russian Federation's Marine Policy Until 2010 and The
Marine Doctrine of the Russian Federation Until 2020. The Russian government has established the Marine Board as its top
consultative body. The government has finally come to realize that the 21st century will be a century of the World Ocean and
that Russia must be ready for that.

The Fundamentals of the Russian Federation's Marine Policy Until 2010 set forth basic principles and provisions of the state's
policy aimed to preserve and develop its naval potential and use this potential to promote and protect Russia's national
interests in the World Ocean.

Russia's military doctrine emphasizes that the country's national interests in the World Ocean are protected in keeping with
The Fundamentals of the Russian Federation's Marine Policy Until 2010 and that military protection of these interests and the
ensuring of Russia's security in the World Ocean are major lines of the state's policy. The countering of threats and
guaranteed protection of state interests and the security of Russia and its allies in the World Ocean must be based on the
maintenance of a sufficient naval potential of the country. This is why the main objective of Russia's naval policy is the
development and effective use of this potential.

Achieving these objectives requires:

- centralized state management of naval activities, based on a single state policy;

- adequate mi li tary and nonmilitary response to military marine threats to the Russian Federation and its allies;

- non-infliction of damage to international security, and correspondence of Russia's naval activities to its legislation and
international commitments.

The Navy plays the leading role in countering marine threats and ensuring security of Russia's navigation, fishing, and
economic, scientific and other kinds of activities in the World Ocean. The Fundamentals of the Russian Federation's Marine
Policy Until 2010 describe the Navy as the main component of Russia's marine potential and as a service of the Russian
Armed Forces intended to ensure military protection of the interests of Russia and its allies in the World Ocean and support
military-political stability in seas adjacent to Russia and military security against marine threats.

Russia's marine doctrine, endorsed by the president in 2001, incorporates the state's scientifically substantiated views of
objectives, tasks and nature of the development of its activities in the World Ocean and adjacent seas, as well as ways to
translate them into life on the basis of the country's economic and shipbuilding potential, international law, and national
interests. The doctrine sets out notions, the content and ways to implement the national marine policy which is a major aspect
of Russia's geopolitics. The national marine policy must have functional and regional aspects. Functionally, the marine policy
views types of marine activities (transportation, fishing, research, naval activities, etc.) in connection with the economic and
military-political situation in the world and Russia's place in international relations. Regional aspects take into account the
geographical location of Russia, its spatial and geophysical peculiarities, and the policies of other sea powers in adjacent
regions of the World Ocean.

This division of aspects enables the state to coordinate activities of federal executive bodies having authority over fleets and
activities of authorities of Russia's maritime regions engaging in the marine economy.

Russia's marine doctrine has set the main objectives and priorities of the national marine policy in functional aspects and
ways to implement them in individual regions.

The doctrine is a follow-up to Russia's national security concept, foreign policy concept, military doctrine and other
documents and will underlie the state's marine policy in all lines of activities, including naval.

We hope that the marine doctrine will change dramatically parochial departmental approaches to the solution of problems
pertaining to Russia's marine potential and will promote steady development of each of its components. Even in conditions of
limited funding, this doctrine will become an effective instrument of the national system of coordination of the state's marine
activities, will help yield a national economic effect, promote Russia's national interests and strengthen the country's

international authority as a leading sea power.

On the Russian president's instructions, in 2001 the Russian government established the Marine Board. It is intended to create
conditions for the fulfillment by the government of various kinds of tasks in the World Ocean in foreign-policy, economic,
scientific, information, legal, military and other fields on the basis of Russian and international maritime legislation.

The Marine Board has been set the following tasks:

- drawing up proposals for implementing conceptual precepts and decisions made in the marine field;

- coordinating implementation of federal targeted programs;

- drawing up proposals for amending basic documents;

- assessing threats to Russia's national security;

- covering and popularizing marine activities in Russian mass media;

- drawing up proposals, in close coordination with various departments, for solving World Ocean problems;

- working out politico-diplomatic, economic, financial, information, military and other measures to promote Russia's national
interests in the sea, as well as power measures and ways to take them in the World Ocean to meet Russia's foreign-policy
interests;

- working out the marine policy and coordinating it with other important lines of the state's activities, as well as with
international programs;

- coordinating marine activities in the World Ocean;

- exercising control over the implementation of decisions made.

The establishment of the Marine Board will help restore the country's military might and enable Russia to take a worthy place
among the world's leading sea powers.

We are convinced that the revival of the country's military might can be achieved only if all state bodies, organizations and
persons who care for Russia's interests in the World Ocean pool efforts, with the state playing the leading role in them.

Russia's marine potential must be used to ensure the country's economic development and consistently strengthen its defense
capability. Development of individual components of Russia's marine potential, including the Navy ‹ outside the frameworks
of the state's single marine policy which provides for the comprehensive solution of all problems ‹ has no prospects.

Top of the Page

.

from WPS Monitoring Agency

Viktor Myasnikov

Where Can Russia Find Contract Servicemen?
The military reforms may be stalled
by a shortage of personne

The military reforms should be integrated and broad-ranging. So far, they have been restricted to sweeping cuts and
amalgamations of the branches of service. The public has its own ideas on the military reforms, and these ideas do not
venture beyond service by contract. For some reasons, politicians and taxpayers are convinced that citizens of the Russian

Vremya MN
30 January 2003

Federation are eager to sign up. In consequence, they blame the generals for a reluctance to accept volunteers. The
experiment with transition of the Pskov Airborne Division to service by contract is generally viewed as an act of sabotage
aimed at inflating expenses out of proportion and thus discredit the idea as such.
Generals cannot be trusted, that much is clear. Only facts are to be trusted. And the facts are as follows. Supreme
Commander-in-Chief and President Vladimir Putin outlined the task last December: the important units - space forces,
missile forces, nuclear-powered submarines and surface warships, Airborne Troops, and special forces - should receive
priority in recruitment. Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov recently described preparations for transferring part of the Armed
Forces to service by contract as a priority for 2003. A draft federal program for transition to staffing the troops mostly with
contract servicemen is expected from the Defense Ministry by June 1. Airborne Troops Commander-in-Chief Colonel
General Georgy Shpak gave the order to transfer the Stavropol Assault Regiment to service by contract by the end of the year
(the unit has all necessary facilities including a decent canteen and hostels with rooms for four). The 42nd Motorized Infantry
Division stationed in Chechnya is to be staffed with contract servicemen by the middle of the year. The same is expected of
the Internal Troops brigade stationed in Chechnya and the majority of special forces of the Airborne Troops. On the other
hand, all these units do include a lot of contract servicemen already. The Federal Border Guards Service is the leader in this
respect. According to its Director Colonel General Konstantin Totsky, 44% of its personnel are contract servicemen already.
All submarines of the Northern Fleet, nuclear and diesel submarines, will be manned with professionals by January 1,
2004. It takes a year to train an enlisted man for service on a submarine, and service by contract is to be restricted to a single
fleet for the time being. Volunteers from the Baltic Fleet are supposed to move north.
The Russian Armed Forces have 1,162,000 military personnel and 860,000 civilian staff. Servicemen by contract number
just over 100,000. Unfortunately, their numbers have been in decline even despite the Pskov experiment, falling by 20,000
contract servicemen in the last two years. Low salaries are the main problem. Economic growth in Russia is making civilian
jobs more attractive. Two-thirds of contract servicemen nowadays are former conscripts who signed up in the hope of
spending the next two years in more comfort. No one can say what they will do when their contracts are up. No one can say
whether contracts will be terminated when units staffed with contract servicemen are assigned to hotspots. The military
reforms may be stalled by a shortage of personnel...

Top of the Page

Mikhail Tsypkin

Rudderless in a Storm: The Russian Navy 1992-2002

http://www.csrc.ac.uk/pdfs/B58-MT.pdf

Top of the Page

Stephen Blank

This Time We Really Mean It: Russian Military Reform

The Chechen terrorist attack on a Moscow theater in October and its violent denouement stimulated Russia's government to
launch, yet again, a round of military reform. Immediately afterwards President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Sergei
Ivanov ordered fundamental changes in Russia's defense policy and posture.

They instructed the armed forces to devise a new national security concept emphasizing the priority threat of terrorism and
smaller-scale contingencies in the south (not NATO attacks), reorganized training to stress antiterrorism operations, and

CSRC

December 2003

Russia and Eurasia Review, Volume 2, Issue 1 -Jamestown Foundation

7 January, 2003

authorized additional spending on antiterrorism measures for the 2003 budget to the tune of 500 million rubles [US$15.7
million]. They initiated another round of demobilization, inadvertently confirming that earlier reductions had failed and that
the figures given then concerning the size of the military had been false. And Ivanov has announced that military
professionalization will begin in 2007, not in 2011 as envisioned by the General Staff. In December they also fired General
Gennady Troshev, commander in chief of the forces in Chechnya, when he publicly refused a new assignment, decisively
quashing his insubordination.

All these initiatives display important facts about the Russian armed forces. First, that despite years of effort, defense reform
has failed to either produce a competent army or achieve victory in Chechnya. Even though Putin allegedly gave the armed
forces new instructions concerning operations in Chechnya after the terrorist attack in Moscow, reports indicate that nothing
new had occurred. The destruction of the government headquarters in Grozny on December 27, at the cost of more than
eighty lives, dramatically underlined the military's incompetence. This bureaucratic foot-dragging and obstruction pervades
Russia's entire administration but the military has a special expertise here. Despite seventeen years of calls for military
reform dating back to Mikhail Gorbachev, nothing substantial has come to pass.

Instead, Russia's multiple military organizations have obstructed all efforts to create a professional, democratically
accountable, or technologically capable army adapted to today's real threats, and able to fight a war against them. Although
some of this stems from the ongoing economic crisis, this has also been an alibi for institutions that have rejected reform. The
multiple militaries reject democratic accountability or transparency and exploit the fact that neither Yeltsin nor Putin
submitted their policies to democratic scrutiny and budgetary transparency.

The military authorities also still insist on possessing a capability to mobilize all of Russia's resources to fight NATO or its
equivalent. They have constantly objected to and obstructed professionalizing the armed forces. The real reason, of course, is
not that professionals are costlier or less capable (arguments that do not stand up to examination over time) but rather because
members of such a force would have rights, could not, as is now the case, be treated like serfs. The repeated reports of
pervasive brutality, degradation and corruption within the military are well known but the problems continue with impunity,
costing some 3,500 lives each year. Similarly, the brutality in Chechnya also continues because Russian forces are
themselves brutalized. One oft-cited reason for continued war is that so many officers profit from it, often in deals with
Chechen terrorists, from sale of weapons to ransoming of captives (by both sides).

Despite Putin's overtures to the West, the regular military has steadfastly refused to jettison its cold war mentality that
America and NATO are intrinsically threats to Russia. Their exercises are all targeted against NATO and the United States,
hence the need for a new training regimen. Second, by obstructing partnership with NATO they have acted to frustrate one of
Putin's key priorities. Therefore he even asked NATO to help him with defense reform. While the Ministry of Emergency
Situations, EMERCON, has conducted large joint exercises with NATO, those have been the exception, not the rule.

These new trends also indicate that Putin's and Ivanov's unhappiness with the military leadership may finally lead to real
action to change it and the overall armed forces. Clearly this military kingdom of darkness and endless obstructionism has
endlessly frustrated them. Putin is frequently reported as being wholly disenchanted with the military but has not found a
leader who can transform the situation to his satisfaction. Chechnya is undoubtedly a prime reason for this disenchantment as
the army's repeated promises of imminent victory have never remotely approached realization.

Moreover, as Troshev's example indicates, the military undoubtedly felt it could run the war in Chechnya as it sees fit.
Defense officials have repeatedly stated that no negotiations with the Chechen leaders were possible and blocked all efforts to
move contacts with them forward. They publicly threatened to challenge Putin if he did launch such negotiations. This was
all part of the military's continuing belief that they only lost the first Chechen war because the politicians sold them out, a
view not unlike that of the stab in the back that so corroded Germany's politics after 1918.

Troshev's public insubordination and obvious effort to blackmail the regime was only the latest and perhaps strongest
manifestation of this consuming quest for vindication that has been the most consistent motivating force of the Chechen
generals since their defeat in 1996. In firing Troshev, Putin and Ivanov have perhaps begun to demonstrate that they will no
longer accept the generals' attempts to dictate the course of the war in Chechnya and will try to bring operations there back
under some form of political control.

Hence the new initiatives. Clearly they did not emerge suddenly after October 2002, but were instead being carefully
considered before then. Adroit politician that he is, Putin exploited the Chechen attack and its aftermath to impose these new
initiatives. We must be careful in assessing them, however, because we have been down this road before to no avail. The
General Staff has sabotaged the Pskov experiment, under which the 76th parachute division based there was to be the first
unit to be fully professionalized. Delays in paying salaries and providing housing have led to recruitment shortfalls. Although
Putin has doubled defense spending since 1999 and the military is now getting 30 percent of the federal budget, the generals
constantly complain of lack of funds for structural reform.

Rather than accept professionalization, the military leadership still believes in conscription and mass mobilization, as
evidenced by their recent calls to draft deferred college students, because the autumn draft collared only 11 percent of the
eligible pool.

Likewise we must wait on the new national security concept before being unduly optimistic. This document is critical
because it has normative and even, it is sometimes argued, judicial significance. By postulating the main threats to Russia
along with an officially sanctioned assessment of how to respond to them, it can open the way to creation of a new military
force posture and profile provided that Putin intends to make this happen. In doing so he would help move the army from its
reflexive hostility to the West that justifies its demands for large unaffordable forces and a rickety defense economy and
make progress toward building an army that could adequately defend against the real threats. No less important, such an
army, over time, might be more amenable to the kinds of democratization, both within itself and then vis-a-vis the state that
must develop if it is to be a viable institution in contemporary Russia. Finally such an Army would probably be more
receptive to cooperation with the West and give defense integration with Europe and the United States much needed impetus.

Finally, the prospect for military reform is inextricably bound up with the course of events in Chechnya, and the
government's ability to extricate Russia from this unwinnable war. Placing the war under effective political control that is
bound up with the genuine search for a negotiated settlement would both weaken the terrorists, and allow for military reform
to take place since it is virtually impossible to reform an army that is engaged in a war.

Such steps would indicate a genuine rethinking of overall national security policy if they were to materialize. However, we
should not hold our breath. Too often reforms have been proclaimed only to wither. We need proof of a real commitment to
new men and new policies before abandoning a skeptical view of defense policy and the likelihood of reform. For while this
military continues to dominate defense policy and Russian leaders refuse to democratize the armed forces and defense policy;
Russia will have armed forces that cannot defend the country but that actually will continue to be the main threat to Russia's
security, prosperity and democracy.

Top of the Page

.

Gloaguen, Cyrille

L'armée russe à l'aune des campagnes tchétchènes

Top of the Page

.

Thorniké Gordadze,

Le tournant géostratégique de Poutine et l'armée

Top of the Page

Défense nationale
December 2002

Critique internationale # 17
October 2002

Via BBC Monitoring Service
Vadim Solovyev and Mikhail Khodarenko

Defense Ministry: Without Rudder and Without Sail.
The Military Department Has Lost Control of Both the Rank and File and the Generals

If among the numerous polls regularly taken in Russia there were one rating scandals, it could with every justiification be
claimed that the lead positions here are held by the Russian Federation Ministry of Defense. In December alone large groups
of soldiers twice went AWOL from their units and sought the support of the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers (see the material
below). Colonel General Gennadiy Troshev, commander of the North Caucasus Military District, also rebelled at the same
time. Another scandal, involving Colonel General Georgiy Shpak, commander of airborne forces, is brewing as well.

THE "LITTLE-MAN" GENERAL

Recently and quite unexpectedly Georgiy Shpak, commander of airborne forces, convened a most extensive news conference.
There was loud mention of the successes of the winged infantry, guarded mention of the problems and shortcomings. There
was, though, a reason for the meeting with reporters, all the same, but it was carefully concealed from the public.

The point being that the country's first paratrooper will next year be 60 years old-the maximum age for military service.
According to extraordinarily confidential information, the requisite set of papers for the appropriate authorities, which decide
questions of an extension of military service over and above the timeframe established by law, was prepared for General
Shpak some time ago. And then, shortly before the news conference, intimates of the commander of airborne forces were
signaled from above that they may not be able to count on a positive result. The impending retirement and discharge of
Georgiy Ivanovich is thus a matter of the very near future.

General Shpak has as one of the best paratroop commanders maintained his fitness-he holds his spot on the horizontal bar
longer than many of his subordinates. But there is one bad point-wandering from one trouble spot to another on official
business, the military commander is not overly fastidious when it comes to issuing statements that drive the silent generals
from the General Staff to distraction. About the fact, for example, that the losses of airborne forces in the Chechen war (from
October 1999 through this December) have amounted to only 330 men and officers. Whereas total losses of the federal forces
in the same period have amounted to almost 5,000 men. After all, the airborne forces are supporting the main combat load in
the counterterrorist operations, and only a negative conclusion may be drawn as regards the training of other forces. The
general is all too straightforward and candid in his remarks on other military-political matters that excite the public also.

None of this is said out loud in the lofty offices of the Ministry of Defense, naturally. It is kept in the head, as it were. The
official reason for the "highest displeasure" with Shpak is the unsuccessful experiment in the Pskov Division, which is to be
converted to the contract principle of manpower acquisition. But just one regiment, and that only to the extent of three-
fourths, has been manned as yet. No direct blame attaches to Georgiy Shpak here, evidently, it is simply that right from the
outset he was prescribed conditions that are leading only to the debasement and subsequent failure of the experiment. You
don't get a high-quality professional warrior for pay and allowances that are the equivalent of $150 a month. As the airborne
forces' command has acknowledged, the level of compensation of martial labor needs to be raised threefold, at a minimum.
But no one dares even mention this in passing in the corridors of power. So it is that the draft boards in various regions of
Russia are catching whoever happens by, a "collection at random," so to speak, and sending them to Pskov.

One-fifth of the new contract paratrooper recruits have to be let go in the first weeks of service, and the missing warriors
have to be made good from other airborne units. On the whole, observers note, much in Pskov is the most commonplace
window-dressing. And an altogether incomprehensible situation has taken shape with the construction of living quarters. It
was originally decided to put up eight apartment buildings for the contract servicemen. Then came a command from
Moscow-economize. The foundations of three buildings together with the funds for their construction were buried overnight.
The remaining five buildings will clearly be unable to provide the necessary housing conditions even for one regiment.

Much other confusion has come to light also in the year that the state unbuttoned about R2 billion for fielding a professional
division. The Pskov experiment is degenerating into its opposite, discrediting the very principle of manpower acquisition on a
professional basis. Both the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff should own up to their share of the blame, but the
finger is being pointed exclusively at a paratrooper hero-Georgiy Shpak, commander of airborne forces.

Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye
20 December 2002

In a word, the commander of airborne forces shares, by all accounts, the dismal career change for General Troshev,
commander of the North Caucasus Military District, who also is being moved with an accompanying row to a rear district.

THE MILITARY COMMANDER DISOBEYS

"I have presided over the North Caucasus Military District for three years," General Troshev said to a large group of reporters
in Makhachkala. "There have been no complaints about the district. There have been no complaints about me as commander
either. I cannot understand what's behind the minister of defense's proposition concerning a move to the Siberian Military
District."

The hero of Russia and combat general, who has trodden the most difficult roads of the first and second Chechen campaigns
and who has many successful military operations to his credit, was probably counting on another, far better, career fate.
Specially since there are examples of this. General of the Army Anatoliy Kvashnin, the present chief of the general staff of
Russia's armed forces, formerly commanded the North Caucasus District, and another commander of the North Caucasus
Military District, Viktor Kazantsev, became authorized representative of the president of the Russian Federation in the
Southern Federal District.

Not that long since the broadest prospects of political growth were opening up to General Troshev. He was named among the
contenders for high office in the Chechen Republic. It is not inconceivable that he would have taken, had he so wanted, the
office of president of the Chechen Republic even. Gennadiy Troshev could have run at the elections for governor of Rostov
Oblast that were held not that long since and, like General Vladimir Shamanov, have taken charge of one of the wealthiest
components of the Russian Federation. He would have been assured of the voters' support.

But the general did not consent to the nomination, hoping that there would have to be a claim on his knowledge and
experience in the army.

Some analysts discern in the career measures that are being prepared in respect to Gennadiy Troshev indications of the start
of a broad-based offensive against the "Chechen" generals, who have made their contribution and who are now an
impediment in a settlement of the military-political situation in the North Caucasus. Hero of Russia Aleksandr Baranov,
former chief of staff of the Joint Group of Troops (Forces), has been appointed commander of the interior Volga-Urals
Military District, while General Ivan Yefremov, chief of the Military University (the former Lenin Military-Political
Academy) has been "yanked out" to the Moscow Military District. General Valeriy Baranov, who commanded the force
grouping in the North Caucasus for more than a year, is not seen or heard today. After Chechnya, Vladimir Moltenskoy
obtained an appointment to the position of deputy commander in chief of ground forces, in charge of sports and military
education in this branch of the armed forces.

There are in the case of Gennadiy Troshev certain personal motives. Exploiting his Chechen combat past and present,
Troshev has in reent years, being himself unaware of this, most likely, has put on political weight and hereby earned many
personal enemies. The book My War. A Foxhole General's Chechen Diary engendered a dislike of him on the part of certain
representatives of the military elite. But a book is a book, and the leadership of the military department is clearly not
managing to persuade Troshev toward the close of his military service in his 57th year to go to the Siberian Military District,
to bring to a close with his own hand, that is, his martial, and political, biography. Although arguments for such a
contingency are always held in reserve. Attempts will be made to remind the general of some awkward facts linked with his
name that leaked into the press prior to the start of the second Chechen campaign. Questions could be asked concerning his
former inner circle-special messengers and adjutants with whom, having served with them for more than 10 years, he was
forced to part overnight for their monetary stunts. And who knows what other things besides.

But it is perfectly obvious that in cranking up another top-personnel intrigue in the Ministry of Defense it is hardly likely that
anyone in Russia's top strata is concerned to consolidate the personnel potential of the "forces'" entities and, consequently, to
promote to the highest echelons of the military-political leadership the most gifted, promising people. Troshev would not be
Troshev were he to view all this with indifference. It would do our nomenklatura no harm, consequently, to recall the wealth
of Soviet experience when it comes to the dispatch of those that it finds objectionable as ambassadors to far-off countries, as
commanders to unimportant districts, and so forth. Or rewards by retirement with one's uniform, pension, and country
cottage.

One sole conclusion suggests itself: Moscow greatly dislikes generals that have been through the Chechen war. The generals
are paying the "Trans-Arbat Military District" back in the same coin. And not only they: not that long since Admiral
Komoyedov, commander of the Black Sea Fleet, disagreed with a personnel decision of Moscow and went public with his
complaints. Yet just 10 years ago any directive from the capital was perceived as a command from God. It is hard to imagine
such public rows arising in the MVD or FSB or any other "forces'" entity. In the Ministry of Defense this is now practically
the norm. Together with the wholesale escapes of servicemen from their units, the present protests of the generals and

admirals are eloquent testimony that Sergey Ivanov has lost control of the armed forces.

You get the impression that Russia's military department has become a kind of debating club: orders are more often discussed
than executed. You never know, the aggrieved "Chechen" generals will unite with other bypassed military commanders in
opposition to the center. It is, in any event, just one or two steps to a situation reminiscent of the protest of the Decembrists in
1825. It is now December, what is more.

Top of the Page

.

Pavel Felgenhauer

The Military's Festive Fracas

As the year ends and Russia drifts into the period of the Christmas and New Year closedown, tensions inside the Defense
Ministry are growing. There are constant rumors of imminent changes at the top that will be followed by extensive middle-
ranking personnel changes. But it seems that no one knows who is slated to go up and who down, so all normal work has
terminated long before the onset of the official holiday season.

It is rumored that Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov will be promoted out of his present position to be a supreme coordinator of
defense policy in the rank of deputy prime minister, for example; while his present No. 2 man -- Anatoly Kvashnin, head of
the General Staff -- will be bumped up to the top position. Kvashnin has long had aspirations of becoming defense minister
and if he succeeds, his supporters within the ranks -- already the most prominent clan of generals in the ministry -- will
receive plenty of promotions. Ivanov has a reputation in the Moscow elite of being highly ineffective. Since being appointed
defense minister in 2001, Ivanov has strained relations with virtually all prominent defense journalists and is getting lots of
bad publicity. The uniformed military also scorn him as incompetent and ineffective.

But the majority of his uniformed colleagues, the press and the Moscow elite equally despise Ivanov's archrival Kvashnin for
his incompetence and ineffectiveness. Ivanov is a trusted personal friend of President Vladimir Putin, while President Boris
Yeltsin promoted Kvashnin to his present position in 1997, when oligarchs unfriendly to Putin ruled in the Kremlin. It's
obvious Putin has a situation on his hands inside the Defense Ministry. Most likely Putin, as on many other occasions, will
try to do nothing and postpone for as long as possible any drastic personnel changes. But can the president afford to pay the
price of continued indecision, with the military disintegrating at an alarming pace?

Ivanov recently presented the outline of his long-awaited military reforms, but has failed to convince any of his critics.
Liberals are outraged by plans to continue the draft indefinitely, while generals who do not want to downsize the Soviet
military machine continue to sabotage attempts to create all-volunteer combat units.

Ivanov has announced that the airborne 76th division, based in Pskov, near the border with Estonia and Latvia, will be the
first model unit of the new army, manned only by "contract" soldiers. But this official "experiment" has already gone wrong:
The authorities have failed to find enough volunteers to man a single regiment of the 76th division.

The pay of contract soldiers is low -- just over $100 a month. An ambitious project to build new housing for soldiers in Pskov
has been cancelled. Last month, Kvashnin announced that in several months the new contract soldiers of the 76th will be sent
to fight in Chechnya "to demonstrate what they are worth." To die or get severely wounded for $100 a month is hardly an
attractive proposition even in Russia, so it is no surprise that volunteers are not coming forward. And many Russian generals
secretly applaud this fiasco.

Military reform is teetering, discipline is collapsing, conscripts are deserting in droves and this week a leading general, the
three-star commander of forces in the North Caucasus and Chechnya Gennady Troshev, publicly challenged the authority of
the defense minister.

Troshev, a popular member of the Kvashnin clan, who is accused by human rights groups of major war crimes and murder of
civilians in Chechnya, told journalists that he had refused an offer from Ivanov to become the commander of the Siberian
military district. In the North Caucasus, Troshev is today in command of most of Russia's battle-ready units, while Siberia is

Moscow Times
December 19, 2002

a backwater of a district with virtually no conventional combat troops.

In 1997, Kvashnin was promoted from the North Caucasus district to Moscow, becoming No. 2 in the military hierarchy.
Troshev, Kvashnin's long-time loyal subordinate, was also awaiting promotion to Moscow (in recognition of all the war
crimes he has committed in Chechnya in Putin's name).

Troshev has publicly dismissed Ivanov's offer of Siberia as an unjust demotion and also an unwarranted attempt to end the
carnage in Chechnya. If Putin was hoping to maintain the status quo in the Defense Ministry, Troshev's open insubordination
may force the president's hand and speed up top-level changes.

Top of the Page

.

Via WPS
Alexander Golts

CONSCRIPTION SYNDROME.
Military reforms stall because the top brass is addicted to conscription

Following a Cabinet meeting on November 21 and the meeting of the top command of the Armed Forces which ended on
November 26, the Defense Ministry was instructed to carry out experiments and continue the development of the federal
program for transition of the Armed Forces from conscription to contract service. The only specific obligation of the Defense
Ministry is to transfer 92 units to a contract basis by 2007 or 2011, if circumstances are favorable.
Time to mark an anniversary. Exactly a decade ago, on November 30, 1992, a Cabinet resolution instructed the Defense
Ministry for the first time to develop plans for moving the Russian Armed Forces to contract service - you'll laugh at this -
from 1993.
It has long been clear that the top brass is making great efforts to delay military reforms - now they are producing a
simulation of reforms under pressure from the president. Some time ago, President Putin seemed to understand the degree of
deterioration in the Russian Armed Forces, and it seemed he would not allow the generals to sabotage his plans. However,
the words of the Supreme Commander-in- Chief at the recent meetings dispelled this illusion.
The past year has brought unprecedented evidence of the degeneration of the Russian Armed Forces: soldiers deserting en
masse, and 20 people murdered by deserters. Military helicopters have crashed almost every week; military supply depots
burn every month. However, Putin was very mild in speaking to the generals: "There have been many disappointing failures
and emergencies this year, but I want to say that the public is growing more confident in the Armed Forces. I hope that
measures will be taken for strengthening discipline and improving personnel work in the near future."
Real military reforms would inevitably lead to a conflict with the top brass. But Putin does not have any other generals
available, and he is unwilling to wreck relations with the present ones a year before an election.
Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has reported on the situation in the Russian Armed Forces. Putin did not respond to the
information that 531 soldiers have died and 20,000 have been injured this year due to various accidents and crimes - besides
the casualties in Chechnya! The Russian security structures have crossed a very important line: they no longer try to conceal
the terrible statistics. After the public showed that it could tolerate the deaths of over 120 civilians in the course of an anti-
terrorist operation, who will be concerned about the deaths of a dozen boys in uniform per week due to the negligence of
officers? The president didn't even make a show of outrage about it. Moreover, speaking to students at the Ryazan
Paratroopers School a week later, the president confirmed that despite all reforms, the conscription system will be retained
indefinitely. According to Putin, conscripts are necessary for "guarding weapon storehouses and doing other heavy labor in
the military - it is impossible to replace everyone with contract personnel." This means the president understands very well
that soldiers are conscripted not in order to defend their motherland, but in order to perform unskilled jobs in the bloated
military, which cannot exist without their slave labor.
A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE
This is how numerous "experts" from the General Staff have brushed off all kinds of "unqualified civilians" over the past
decade: "Why are you focusing on how military personnel are recruited? That isn't the most important part of military
reforms. It's far more important to determine what is threatening national security and to equip the Armed Forces with
modern weapons, and to change the structure of the Armed Forces, to improve the living conditions and the social status of
the military."
Over the past decade, the Defense Ministry has stubbornly sought the enemy in the West - since its intention to preserve

Yezhenedelnyi Zhurnal, No. 48
10 December, 2002

the Soviet model of the Armed Forces can only be attributed to a need to oppose the leading world powers. However, now
the president has ordered changes in the military doctrine and the national security concept, in order to concentrate on
opposing terrorism. Undoubtedly, the General Staff will manage to prove that terrorism can only be fought with millions of
military personnel.
The General Staff has been enthusiastically busy with structural changes for ten years, each of which was inevitably
declared to be the most important stage of the military reforms. Some of the changes were necessary, while others reinforced
the bureaucratic victory of one top brass faction over another. However, they had nothing to do with the situation in the
Armed Forces. The present defense minister has many more opportunities that his predecessors: under Putin defense
spending has steadily grown, and next year it will be 345 billion rubles, or triple the defense spending in 1999.
Due to this, Sergei Ivanov managed to resume the development and acquisition of new weapons, which is now presented
as the most important part of the reforms. To all appearances, this time the money allocated for the military reforms will be
spent entirely on vain attempts to re-equip the Armed Forces. The 300 single samples of weapons and hardware which Sergei
Ivanov bought for the Armed Forces represent a useless waste of money. Several dozen of the design bureaus in the defense
sector have designed new weapons in the form of one or two samples. The Defense Ministry pays for their work without
being sure if it will be possible to make their production regular. Moreover, very often design bureaus try to deceive the
Defense Ministry and present a modified version of some old hardware as a new design. Hence, despite the rapid growth of
defense spending, the might of the Armed Forces is not increasing.
With the acquiescence of the president, the military is preserving a model of the Armed Forces which cannot help being a
black hole that "swallows both people's lives and state funding". However, the resources are rapidly running out, and very
soon the Supreme Commander-in-Chief will have to listen to those who say that the main stage of the military reforms is
changing the recruitment system.
TRANSITION FORMULA
Methods of transition to an all-professional military are well- known: the United States went through the process 30 years
ago, and France completed it a year ago. It is well-known that professional corporal...