Wednesday’s Argumenty nedeli looked briefly at the reversal of Defense Minister Serdyukov’s cuts in the Russian officer corps, as well as plans to increase officer pay.
AN said Serdyukov said 70 thousand officers were needed to establish Air-Space (Aerospace) Defense (VKO), but noted he didn’t say where he would find so many officers for such a complex and specialized military field.
Those thrown out of the service in the course of implementing the “new profile” can’t be brought back, and training new officers will take 10-12 years following the reform of the military education system and the liquidation of the Mozhayskiy Military-Space Academy.
And, says AN, radically increasing pay won’t be so simple. The budgets for 2011 and 2012 have been approved, so pay raises will have to wait until 2013 and 2014, after a new Duma and president have been elected. And increasing the number of contractees [also with higher pay] will be another factor in army financing problems.
A General Staff source told AN:
“The approximate manning of VKO in all duty positions, including conscripts, contractees, and officers, will be 20-22 thousand. This means the majority of duty positions will transfer there from Space Troops (KV), air defense troops and missile defense. But after the mass cuts there aren’t enough commanders on the level of company, regiment and even brigade commanders. And in all services and branches of the Armed Forces at that. Therefore, it’s incorrect to think that all 70 thousand are going into VKO.”
According to him, the establishment of any new service [if it is a service rather than a branch], especially one as high-tech as VKO, requires “decades of work by all staffs.”
AN also cites Aleksandr Khramchikhin:
“It seems to me that constant casting about on the size of the officer corps just says that military reform issues haven’t been worked out in a strategic plan.”
A short item that says a lot . . . just a couple comments:
- This piece is saying that VKO officers and specialists will be taken from the ranks of those currently serving in KV, PVO, and PRO.
- The 70,000 additional officers will plug holes in command positions throughout the Armed Forces.
- It would be difficult to bring back dismissed officers. But there are lots of serving officers living in limbo outside the shtat (штат), outside the TO&E at the disposition (распоряжение) of their commanders, who could be called back to their units.
- Military education’s been hammered, but it looks like Mozhayskiy’s still operating.
- Delivering the promised new higher pay system in 2012 will be difficult under current and projected budgetary constraints. So it’s another opportunity for the regime to fail. But the Kremlin and White House don’t really need to worry about military votes anyway.
- Kramchikhin’s right on. Serdyukov’s idea to cut the officer corps in half – from more than 30 to 15 percent of Armed Forces personnel – was right. But he failed to plan properly for it, and he tried to do it too fast. Without accounting, or compensating, for the myriad historical, economic, and cultural reasons Russia had so many officers in the first place – reliance on conscripts and the lack of a strong NCO corps being first and foremost. So another correct step is discredited by hubris, lack of foresight, and poor execution. Serdyukov didn’t need to measure seven times before cutting, but twice would have been nice.
- Taking “decades” to put VKO in place would certainly be the old-fashioned speed of Russian military reform. But if it’s to be done quickly and successfully, it has to be done with more care than Serdyukov’s demonstrated over the last four years.
Russian Defense Policy 