General-Colonel Gerasimov (photo: RIA Novosti / Sergey Pyatikov)
Gazeta.ru pieced together RIA Novosti clips of General Staff Chief Valeriy Gerasimov’s session with foreign military attaches yesterday.
Gerasimov said army reforms begun by former Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov will be “corrected,” not radically altered:
“Anticipating your questions on the possibility of a sharp course change in military organizational development, I would note there won’t be one. In 2008, the Russian Federation President clearly indicated development tasks for our army, they will be fulfilled. Naturally, some issues are being subjected to certain correction accounting for deficiencies revealed.”
“Organizational development” is primarily (but not entirely) TO&E and force structure.
Gazeta reports Gerasimov said mixed conscript and contract manning will be preserved, and the one-year conscript service term won’t be increased as some would like.
The new NGSh said the Defense Ministry is creating its own element to track fulfillment of the state defense order (GOZ):
“And by the minister’s decision, a structure will be created in the Defense Ministry which allows for controlling not only the completion of contracts, but work in all phases of the production cycle.”
Serdyukov’s Defense Ministry had various organs with this responsibility, including Rosoboronzakaz, Rosoboronpostavka, etc. How will the new structure be better?
Gazeta closes with expert opinions on the fate of reforms introduced by Serdyukov. Igor Korotchenko says:
“We didn’t have Anatoliy Serdyukov’s reform, but a reform the main parameters of which were set by the president. That is the military reform course will continue fully with the exception of some cases of deficiencies revealed in the military education system, military medicine, and the reinforcement of control procedures over the activity of those structures involved in armed forces outsourcing.”
Ever-skeptical Aleksandr Khramchikhin doesn’t think there was a coherent course to be changed:
“In the army reform, there wasn’t a clear plan of action, one won’t appear under the new defense minister.”
“I don’t think Shoygu’s Defense Ministry will try to correct the course of reform or introduce some fixes. There is nothing to correct. Serdyukov’s reform had no kind of course, it went by the trial and error method. There are grounds to believe that Shoygu will act according to the same principle.”
There’s a long list of policies commentators think will or might be changed, but little so far officially. A new category to replace Serdyukov’s Reforms is needed. Maybe Shoygu’s Nuanced Corrections?
Russian Defense Policy 
According to Mil.ru’s account, Gerasimov said they’ll be looking at the state of affairs in military education, military science, and outsourced support functions. He reiterated that the MOD will try to get 50,000 contractees to join up every year for the next five. Based on past experience, this looks like a virtually impossible goal. With a supposed 425,000 contractees in 2017, Gerasimov said the ratio of contractees to conscripts will be 60-40. He wants to duplicate the new Mulino training center in the other three MDs. He indicated there is still on-going “large-scale work” to improve the org-shtat structure of formations and units. Kavkaz-2012 confirmed the effectiveness of the new OSKs as inter-service and inter-departmental C2 organs. He repeated Putin’s goal of 30 percent rearmament by 2015, 70-100 by 2020, etc. Military police are still on the agenda. He looks to the ODKB to form a unified air and missile defense system. Russia is still interested in peacekeeping under U.N. mandates.