| The authorities and the media continue vehement
battles about alternative civil service, the terms of army service,
and cancellation of student conscription deferral. The heaviest
of the spring campaigns is under way, spring conscription. Military
enlistment registration offices and the police are chasing young
men who are avoiding their "sacred duty". Simultaneously,
operations to round up deserters - those whom enlistment offices
manage to force to don a uniform and take up an automatic weapon
- are being carried out in different places. Now, these young
men have something to fight with the authorities.
One out of nine conscripts from last autumn's intake has a criminal
record; at the time of recruitment, almost half of the new conscripts
neither worked nor studied; 20% do not have a secondary education.
The statistics on drug addiction, alcoholism, and poor health
among these young men vary from unfortunate to monstrous.
The top brass ask: "Where can we find good soldiers?"
and cite statistics: 85% of young men have student conscription
deferrals. This year the list of students entitled to a deferral
was expanded to include trainee priests, this year's school leavers,
and trade school students under twenty years old. Besides, 40,000
young men are avoiding military service: that is the equivalent
of three and a half divisions.
The numbers, strength, and combat ability of the Russian army
constitute a military secret and we can only refer to assessments
and statistics only - however, the army needs urgent reinforcements.
At present, Russian society is discussing four alternatives
to resolve the conscription issue. For obvious reasons, the plan
suggested by General Staff has the best chance of implementation.
However, there is no such plan at present. There is only a decision
of the Security Council as of November 2001 on cutting the Russian
Armed Forces by 600,000 people by 2005. By this time, the army
will consist of a million servicemen, including 542,000soldiers
and sergeants. The Ministry of Defense Ministry assumed the obligation
to present a detailed plan for the army reform to the president
only in 2004.
Overall, the position of the Ministry of Defence and the General
Staff is clear. Firstly, they will try to retain the two-year
term of army service - as a last resort it may be reduced to 18
months. Secondly, alternative civil service should be presented
as unattractively as possible. In these terms, Duma deputies completely
support the top brass - they have already passed in the first
reading a law establishing the length of alternative civil service
as four years.
Thirdly, the military insists on abolishing most conscription
deferrals connected with education. They propose retaining this
privilege only for institutes and universities included on a special
list - which has still not been composed to date - the so-called
state education order.
In addition, there should be no haste. According to Colonel
General Vladislav Putilin, the reform is to be carried out in
three stages. First of all a preparatory stage, which is to last
until 2004. The second is to be an executive one and is "to
be carried out by 2008-10", while the terms of the "final
stage have still to be determined."
This is about all the Russian military leaders say about conscription
reform. The conclusion is simple: to date it has nothing to do
with reform: this is simply a forecast. However, this forecast
is likely: the army will contract to a million owing to the impending
demographic crisis and mass exodus from the army.
Before starting - or not starting - the reform, Russian generals
suggest experiments. For instance, at present 15% of the Pskov
76th aviation division consists of contract servicemen, by mid-2003
this service will be completely voluntary. The military say: "This
experiment will show how we should transfer the Armed Forces on
a contract basis and how much it will cost." They demanded
2 billion rubles for the Pskov experiment, with most of the expenditure
to be made on building houses for contract servicemen.
According to General Staff calculations, the transfer of one
division on a contract basis will cost 500 million rubles. Today,
a soldier for a fixed period of time costs the state 16,800 rubles
a year, while a contractor costs 46,800 rubles a year.
The military say that this is all very expensive, and the country
cannot afford such expenditure. Our country is indeed poor: however,
if you perform the calculations: The difference in maintaining
a solider for a fixed period of time and a contractor comes to
30,000 a year. Consequently, if we now replace 400,000 recruited
soldiers with contractors, which is necessary to implement the
planned army cuts by 2005, spending on maintenance of the army
will grow by 12 billion rubles a year. If we add non-recurrent
spending on transforming for instance a hundred divisions on a
contract basis, we will have 50 billion rubles more. Overall,
it will cost 62 billion rubles - $2 billion to be clearer - which
is less than a quarter of the present military budget of the country
and about a third of the amount spent directly on maintenance
of the army. It should also be noted that all this expenditure
will last for several years.
Suggestions of the Yabloko party.
Sometimes, discussions about military reform suffer strange
transformations. For instance, when speaking about army reform,
the main "pigeon" of the country, humanist and protector
of human rights Grigory Yavlinsky acts like a real "hawk".
He suggests a sharp growth in military spending -from 2.6% to
3.5% of GDP - with a simultaneous reduction in the army to 800,000
people. According to Yabloko members, this would make it possible
to halt conscription immediately and switch fully to voluntary
army service on a contract basis. From the very first day of the
reform, all servicemen from soldiers to top officers will have
double salary, while retaining all their privileges. If the military
budget is increased in this way, it will make it possible to abruptly
change the ratio of army budgetary items: at present 70% of the
military budget is spent on army maintenance and only 30% is spent
on a technical upgrade of the army. Whereas the ratio under the
Yabloko project will come to 50/50.
Actually, the most interesting point of this programme is the
suggestion to use the Russian-speaking population of the CIS as
a resource for a contract-based army. So those willing to accept
Russian citizenship will be able to obtain it through army service.
The Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS) hired the Transitional Economy
Institute (ITPE) to prepare a military reform programme. ITPE
analysts calculated the cost of implementing the proposals of
the Defense Ministry and Yabloko, and concluded that the first
alternative, a relatively cheap one, would not resolve the problem
of transition to a professional army in the near future. The second
alternative, a rather expensive one, does not take into account
maintenance of the mobilization reserve at a certain level.
The ITPE plan stipulates mixed army conscription. In autumn
2002, young men will be recruited for a two-year term for the
last time. There will be no conscription next spring at all. From
autumn 2003 new recruits will undergo a six-month course of military
training in special training centres. Afterwards, those willing
to continue army service will conclude a three-year contract,
which is to be extended or not, depending on the will of soldiers
and their commanders.
According to the project's authors, such a system would make
it possible to resolve several very serious problems. First, as
the term of service is reduced so drastically, the number of draft-dodgers
will also decline considerably. Second, there will be no harassment
by older soldiers, as young recruits will enter and leave their
training together. Third, the young men will not be sent to any
combat zone against their will.
Professor Vitaly Tsymbal, head of the ITPE military economics
research section, says that the rate of army reductions announced
by the Security Council served as the basis for calculations:
by 2005 there will be 542,000 privates and sergeants in the army.
In his opinion, the number of recruits for a fixed term of service
would be 142,000 young men, while the number of contract servicemen
would increase from the present level of 150,000 to 400,000 contractors.
ITPE ordered the All-Russia Center for Public Opinion Research
(VTsIOM) to perform a national poll. Men from 18 to 28 were asked
what salary would be enough to serve in the army. It transpired
that 400,000 people would agree to sign a contract for 3,000 rubles
a month; 900,000 Russian men would go serve in the army for 4,000
rubles a month.
Therefore, if the salary is fixed at 3,500 rubles a month (currently,
it is higher), there will be more candidates than necessary. After
increasing the salary to 4,000 rubles a month, the Defense Ministry
would be able to hold contests, where two people would compete
for one position.
ITPE also compared the cost of the two alternatives for reform.
First, the project of the Defense Ministry, which stipulates that
the reform of the conscription system should be ready by 2006,
and the number of personnel should be reduced in accordance with
the scheduled plan, as well as expenditure on maintenance of the
military. The second is the ITPE programme, which stipulates that
the real transformation of the army and transition to a mixed
recruitment system would start in 2003. It transpired that the
second alternative would require 37 billion rubles more over the
next five years.
Vitaly Tsymbal mentions as a plus of the ITPE programme the
fact that no changes to the Constitution need to be made to implement
this plan, as the mandatory military conscription will be preserved.
Proposals from Garrev.
President of the Academy of Military Sciences Makhmud Gareev
has a concept of his own. It represents a hybrid of the ideas
of the Union of Right-Wing Forces and the General Staff. Gareev
proposes a transition to a professional army on a contract basis
over five to six years. In his opinion, it is necessary to determine
primarily the basic, regular component of the Armed Forces responsible
for implementing immediate combat tasks. According to the general,
this component will gradually be transformed into a completely
contract-based army over five to six years. Simultaneously, he
suggests retention of the conscription system.
Gareev believes that conscription should not only be preserved,
but also expanded: all unsubstantiated conscription deferrals
should be cancelled. At the same time, the term of military service
should be reduced to a year or eighteen months, and later to six
to eight months. The military serving under a fixed period of
service would consist of the so- called variable component of
the Armed Forces, comprising special training centres for recruits.
On the basis of decent financial incentives on graduation from
a training course at the centre, about half of the young people
would be able to sign contracts. Another component would acquire
a military profession and retire, thereby filling the military
reserve.
President of the Academy of Military Sciences does not agree
with the General Staff, which suggests that only 40-50% of sergeants
should serve by contract. According to Gareev, this category should
be entirely professional, and sergeants should be prepared at
special one-year schools. The author thinks that this project
can only be implemented, if there is "adequate funding for
the military budget", which amounts to no less than 3.5%
of GDP. Therefore, here Gareev agrees with Yabloko. The authors
of all four plans anxiously waited for the president's response
in his annual address to parliament on April 18. As usual, Putin
said something that did not satisfy anyone, represent an agreement
with the position of the General Staff. However, in his words,
this mechanism "should completely determine the whole mechanism
for transition of army and naval conscription on a contract basis."
So he was speaking only of a mechanism, while transition to the
contract basis is a set decision and the generals will be unable
to avoid reform.
Until recently, it seemed that the plan of the Union of Right-Wing
Forces and ITPE was winning supporters: both the presidential
administration and the Cabinet, and even the Defense Ministry,
accepted this concept. The only stumbling block was the timing.
The leaders of the Union of Right-Wing Forces and ITPE insisted
that the reform should start in 2003, while the General Staff
wanted a start in three to four years, extending over ten years.
However, after calculating the possible increase in costs, Prime
Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and deputy prime minister and Finance
Minister Alexei Kudrin retreated. At a meeting with the president
they stated that the 2003 budget would not have the money for
this. The military again started persuading Vladimir Putin - and
seemed to be successful - that a completely switch from conscripts
from year to year would lead to a decline in the nation's defense
capability. Finally, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said that
the idea of transition to a mixed conscription system was nonsense.
This means that over the next three years the Russian Armed Forces
will have neither reforms nor normal life - there will be experiments
costing considerable amounts of money.
It is easy to understand generals - they do not want the reforms,
and cannot want them. It is not because of money - at present
the nation is able to afford this not very expensive reorganization.
It is not because of the necessity to build new training centres
- the existing ones will receive no more than 60,000 people, while
it is necessary to train 140-150,000 and to reequip the present
ones. It is not because it is necessary to build new houses and
improve the living standards of the Russian military. It is not
even because today the army can exploit for free workers to build
generals' villas and summer houses, which is very significant.
Things are much more serious. For centuries the Russian army has
been based on a cheap and powerless soldier who has been the cornerstone
of the whole system. If this stone is taken away, if the Russian
soldier suddenly starts demanding that contracts be fulfilled
and his rights should be observed, and appeals not to the Committee
of Soldiers' Mothers but to the courts, then everything will fall
apart, and the army will be destroyed.
This also makes it possible to understand President Putin: if
the generals are against it, who will implement the reforms? However,
this is the case everywhere: courts object to the court reforms,
state officials are against the administrative reform; bankers
are opposed to the banking sector reforms, and so on and so forth,
right to the end of the list.
At present, there still is time to do everything gradually,
without haste. And the words "political will and political
support" are still the key words - no reforms can be carried
out without them.
See also:
The
Russian Army
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