We’ve had conflicting reports of late about the resurgent Russian bear, flexing his muscles with flotillas to Venezuela and marching into Georgia. But all is not well with the Russian military. In my last two trips to Russia, I’ve had the opportunity to see some of Russia’s military in situ. In Ryazan, I watched young paratroopers (from either the parachute school or the 137th Airborne Regiment) seeing the sights at the Ryazan Kremlin. For elite soldiers, they didn’t seem to be a very crisp bunch.
On another trip, I had the opportunity to enter and drive around the air base at Monino with a Russian friend, while going to the air force museum located there. The base was in rather sad shape – even the main gate and guard house were in poor condition (although the duty officer was a decent guy). It was my untutored impression that the Russian military had fallen on hard times and it was difficult to square my observations with much of the hype surrounding an aggressive Russia.
So, imagine my surprise while reading today’s Moscow Times online. Alexandr Golts discussed the annual Defense Ministry conference held on November 11. As he noted, the conference was quite different this year: the president did not attend and what terse information was released related to massive cutbacks in ground forces and a possible end to conscription:
The only thing we know from a short, terse document that the Defense Ministry released after the meeting is that the number of officers will be reduced from 355,000 to 150,000 and the number of military educational institutions will be cut by 80 percent. In addition, the ministry announced that the elite Tamanskaya and Kantemirovskaya divisions as well as the 98th and 106th Airborne Divisions are scheduled to be disbanded in 2009.
You read that correctly. The officer corp (active and reserve) is to be cut in half and four of the most famous units in the Russian army are to be demobbed. According to Golts, these cuts signal the end of the ‘mass mobilization army’ for good in favor of a very small professional force:
The proposed cuts and reorganization are so significant that they will cause dramatic changes to not only the quantity but also the quality of the armed forces. I have already written in previous columns that the large reduction in the officer corps and the creation of a professional army effectively means the end of the mass mobilization army.
The head of the General Staff, Nikolai Makarov, and lawmakers from the State Duma and Federation Council have only recently learned of the reduction figures. There should now be only 1.7 million military personnel during wartime. In the event of a war, only 700,000 soldiers will be called to service instead of mobilizing several million reservists.
This means that the country no longer requires a huge pool of reservists. It also eliminates the need for conscription.
But why the end of conscription, which has always been practiced rather callously in Russia (in fact, one of the very worst things to be in Russia is a new army conscript). For those with knowledge of modern Russia’s demographics, the answer will come as no surprise:
The authorities have apparently decided that they will either make drastic cutbacks to the conscription numbers in 2012 or eliminate conscription altogether. Which way will it go? Makarov gave us a clue when he recently said on television: “In 2012, 2013 and 2014 there will be a significant drop in demographics. … Our conscription pool is now only one-half of what it was in 2001. But we hope to double or triple the salaries of professional military personnel by that time to attract contract soldiers on that preferential basis and to put an end to that question.”
In Russia today, the birth rate is on a down escalator and the average life expectancy of Russian men has declined to an average of 58 years. There just aren’t that many conscripts to be had. As recently noted by Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute, ‘Russia is in the midst of a genuine demographic disaster from which its rulers have no obvious exit strategy.’
But from a purely strategic point of view, however, these reforms speak volumes about how the Russian brass views current threats to their country:
Judging by the planned military reforms, it is clear that the top brass in their heart of hearts do not consider the United States and NATO as serious threats to Russia’s security. But the leaders in the Kremlin and the Defense Ministry are not ready to admit it publicly, and that is why they remain silent about the reforms.
I would have to agree.
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