Military Reform and Militarism in Russia 9781735275277

Table of contents :
Jamestown’s Mission
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: The Reform That Got Away From the Kremlin
Chapter 1: A Vicious Circle
Chapter 2: A Breakthrough and a Retreat
Chapter 3: The Unfinished Reform
Chapter 4: Military Reform in an Authoritarian State: The Prussian Case
Chapter 5: The Country of Victorious Militarism
Conclusion: Is Catastrophe Inevitable?
Bibliography
About the Author

Citation preview

MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA __________________________________________________

By Aleksandr Golts

Washington, DC December 2018

THE JAMESTOWN FOUNDATION Published in the United States by The Jamestown Foundation 1310 L Street NW Suite 810 Washington, DC 20005 http://www.jamestown.org Copyright © 2018 The Jamestown Foundation All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written consent. For copyright and permissions information, contact The Jamestown Foundation, 1310 L Street NW, Suite 810, Washington, DC 20005. The views expressed in the book are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Jamestown Foundation. For more information on this book of The Jamestown Foundation, email [email protected]. ISBN: 978-0-9986660-2-0

Cover art provided by Peggy Archambault of Peggy Archambault Design.

To my wife, Alena.

Jamestown’s Mission The Jamestown Foundation’s mission is to inform and educate policy makers and the broader community about events and trends in those societies which are strategically or tactically important to the United States and which frequently restrict access to such information. Utilizing indigenous and primary sources, Jamestown’s material is delivered without political bias, filter or agenda. It is often the only source of information which should be, but is not always, available through official or intelligence channels, especially in regard to Eurasia and terrorism.

Origins Founded in 1984 by William Geimer, The Jamestown Foundation made a direct contribution to the downfall of Communism through its dissemination of information about the closed totalitarian societies of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. William Geimer worked with Arkady Shevchenko, the highestranking Soviet official ever to defect when he left his position as undersecretary general of the United Nations. Shevchenko’s memoir Breaking With Moscow revealed the details of Soviet superpower diplomacy, arms control strategy and tactics in the Third World, at the height of the Cold War. Through its work with Shevchenko, Jamestown rapidly became the leading source of information about the inner workings of the captive nations of the former Communist Bloc. In addition to Shevchenko, Jamestown assisted the former top Romanian intelligence officer Ion Pacepa in writing his memoirs. Jamestown ensured that both men published their insights and experience in what became bestselling books. Even today, several decades later, some credit Pacepa’s revelations about Ceausescu’s regime in his bestselling book Red Horizons with the fall of that government and the freeing of Romania.

The Jamestown Foundation has emerged as a leading provider of information about Eurasia. Our research and analysis on conflict and instability in Eurasia enabled Jamestown to become one of the most reliable sources of information on the post-Soviet space, the Caucasus and Central Asia as well as China. Furthermore, since 9/11, Jamestown has utilized its network of indigenous experts in more than 50 different countries to conduct research and analysis on terrorism and the growth of al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda offshoots throughout the globe. By drawing on our ever-growing global network of experts, Jamestown has become a vital source of unfiltered, open-source information about major conflict zones around the world—from the Black Sea to Siberia, from the Persian Gulf to Latin America and the Pacific. Our core of intellectual talent includes former high-ranking government officials and military officers, political scientists, journalists, scholars and economists. Their insight contributes significantly to policymakers engaged in addressing today’s newly emerging global threats in the post 9/11 world.

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Table of Contents Acknowledgements…………………………………………….ix

Introduction: The Reform That Got Away From the Kremlin....1 Chapter 1: A Vicious Circle……………………………………12 It Always Looks Easy on Paper……………………………….13 Personalities: The Paratrooper Who Had Bad Luck…………18 Fake Modernization……………………………………….24 Jousting With an Open Visor………………………………...30 Personalities: A Strongman Without Power……………….31 Personalities: How One Dilettante Walked With the Powers That Be……………………………………………………..33 Two Conceptions…………………………………………..38 The Art of Handling a Butcher Knife………………………...46 Personalities: The Technocrat from Vlasikha……………...46 Personalities: A Lonely Rugby Player on the Military Exercise Field………………………………………………………..49 Personalities: The Staff General……………………………56 Attempts at Rehabilitation………………………………...59 ‘The Book of the Dove’ for the Hawks………………………62 Commanding a Conflict…………………………………....66 The War of Clans…………………………………………..69 A Meaningless Renaissance………………………………….75 Personalities: A Teflon Shadow……………………………77 Running in Circles (for a Lot of Money)……………………85 The Draft Syndrome……………………………………….87 The Contract Pyramid……………………………………102

vii Rearmament or a Big ‘Siphon-Off?’………………………109 Everyone Under Arms!…………………………………....114 Chapter 2: A Breakthrough and a Retreat……………………121 Creating a Never-Before-Seen ‘Image’……………………...121 Personalities: Not a Man, but a Function………………...122 An Attempt to Understand……………………………….129 The Victory that Resulted in Doubts……………………...139 The System Loses Meaning……………………………….144 A Secret Reform…………………………………………...151 Getting Rid of the Ballast…………………………………154 Now Hiring: A New Type of Officer……………………...158 An Atmosphere of Hatred………………………………..161 Tossing and Turning Over Conscription………………....166 To the Rear, Forward, March!……………………………...179 Personalities: A Manager and a Courtier………………..179 How to Save Reform—and Not Run Afoul of the Top Brass……………………………………………………....187 PR—Nothing but PR……………………………………..203 Bureaucratic Battles……………………………………...205 How an Exercise Became a War…………………………209 Chapter 3: The Unfinished Reform…………………………222 The Rejection of Mass Mobilization Means the Rejection of Conscription………………………………………………..225 Sergeants Are the Backbone of the Army…………………..226 The Officer Is the Future of the Armed Forces……………..228 Civilian Control…………………………………………….231 The Army and Politics……………………………………...238 The Devil Is in the Others…………………………………..249

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Contents cont… Chapter 4: Military Reform in an Authoritarian State: The Prussian Case………………………………………………...257 The Defeat at Jena………………………………………….257 The Scharnhorst Commission and Its Proposals…………...262 Victory Over Napoleon……………………………………..269 Liberalization, Prussian Style………………………………271 The Collapse of the Reformers’ Hopes……………………...276 No Deliberation!……………………………………………277 A State Within a State……………………………………...283 Militarism Instead of Modernization……………………....288 Chapter 5: The Country of Victorious Militarism………….293 What Is Russian Militarism?……………………………….294 The Militarism of the Russian State………………………...320 Militarism and Public Opinion……………………………..330 Militarism and the Army…………………………………...337 Militarism and Russia’s Ability to Compete………………..341 Conclusion: Is Catastrophe Inevitable?……………………...355

Bibliography………………………………………………….362

About the Author…………………………………………….371

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Acknowledgements The author expresses deep appreciation to Claes Levinsson and Stefan Hedlund as well as all the staff of the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies (IRES) of Uppsala University. Without their constant help and support, this book would not have appeared. The author would also like to express admiration for the wonderful work of Masha Kipp, who translated the book from Russian in to English. Thanks also go out to Glen Howard and all the staff at The Jamestown Foundation, who made it possible to publish this book in the United States.

Introduction: The Reform That Got Away From the Kremlin The past four years have brought Russia a series of military successes that, it turns out, her citizens have been dreaming of for a quarter of a century. These triumphs began in February 2014, when “polite green men” blocked off the local parliament building in Crimea, cut transport and communications between the peninsula and Ukraine and encircled Ukrainian garrisons. The purpose of these moves, as Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin said six weeks later when he acknowledged that Russian forces had participated in “Crimea’s return home,” had been to ensure the local population had the freedom to exercise its will. The “polite” folks did, in fact, “assist” those few parliamentarians who were allowed to enter the Crimean Assembly to make the decision to conduct a secession referendum. In the wake of the Crimean events, observers noted the amazing metamorphosis the Russian military had undergone in the five years since the victorious war in Georgia. Fit, tidy, well-disciplined (and, for the record, quite sober), these Russian soldiers were markedly different from those who had brought Russia victory in 2008. Let us not forget that during the 2008 operation, Russian soldiers did not shy away from unabashed looting and robbery, relieving defeated Georgian units of anything they could get their hands on, from US Humvees to boots (this kind of looting had also occurred during the Soviet war in Afghanistan and Russian military operations in Chechnya).

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2 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA The uniform of the troops participating in the Crimea operation was called a “ratnik,”1 and it became one of the symbols of the operation. A journalist from Moskovskii Komsomolets wrote an article entitled “From Vatnik to Ratnik.”2 The intelligence and communication equipment possessed by the participants in the Crimea operation deserves attention. All soldiers had individual communication devices. New York Times reporters were surprised to discover that soldiers also possessed a device that could suppress enemy communications. Particularly impressed were those who remembered Anatoly Khrulev, the commander of Russian forces in Tskhinvali, Georgia, who had to borrow a cell phone from a reporter to give an order to his subordinates. On the other hand, the events of February–March 2014 on the Crimean Peninsula do not paint a complete picture of the transformation of Russia’s Armed Forces. In 2008, military actions were initiated by Tbilisi, and Moscow had to throw into action units deployed near South Ossetia. Conscripts accounted for nearly onequarter of the hurriedly assembled force. They used whatever combat equipment was available, including what had long been kept in storage depots. Half of the Russian combat vehicles broke down before reaching the Roki Tunnel. In the Crimea operation, as the commander-in-chief later acknowledged, brigades of GRU Special Forces and Airborne troops (i.e., the military elite) were redeployed to the peninsula beforehand.

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“Ratnik” [ратник] is an old Russian word for “warrior.” In this case, it refers to modern means of protection, communications, surveillance, targeting, weapons and ammunition. Research and development of the modern ratnik was carried out by dozens of Russian defense enterprises, such as the Federal State Unitary Enterprise. Vatnik [ватник] refers to the padded jacket worn by Soviet and Russian troops. (Translator’s note). 2 Ignat Kalinin, “Ot Vatnika do Ratnika. Pochemu amerikantsy promorgali Krym,” Moskovskii Komsomolets, March 30, 2014, http://www.mk.ru/zlobadnya/article/2014/03/30/1006019-ot-vatnika-do-ratnika-pochemuamerikantsyi-promorgali-kryim.html.

Introduction | 3 A combination of factors accounts for the ease in which the peninsula was seized. The most important was the fact that the overwhelming majority of the Crimean population supported the annexation of Crimea by Russia. Another factor was the unwillingness of the Ukrainian side to engage in a military confrontation. It was also relatively easy to cut off Crimea from the rest of Ukraine. All the Russians had to do was to block access to the highway and rail line through the Perekop Isthmus. A few hundred well-trained personnel, or one or two GRU brigades, was enough to achieve this. From the military point of view, the operational deployment of substantial Russian forces along the Ukrainian border during the Crimean campaign represented a much more significant success. Most probably, despite Putin’s claim that there had been no plans to conduct combat operations, the Russian General Staff had not ruled out the possibility of resistance from Ukrainian forces. Therefore, for Russian forces, the initial goal of the build-up along the Ukrainian border was to contain Ukrainian forces and prevent reinforcements from reaching the peninsula. Russian forces were subsequently used to support secret operations in the Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts. The first deployment of Russian forces was conducted under the guise of a surprise combat-readiness check, which the commanderin-chief had ordered on February 26, 2014. The forces of the Western and Central military districts were scrambled, and paratroopers, aerospace forces, military transport and long-range aviation were deployed. Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu claimed the “combatreadiness check” involved 150,000 military personnel. From today’s perspective, it is abundantly clear that these exercises were carried out in preparation for the Crimean operation and subsequent operations in Ukraine. The “combat-readiness check” made it possible to mobilize formations and to ascertain equipment and materiel readiness. NATO claimed that up to 40,000 Russian troops had turned up along the Ukrainian border out of nowhere. This means that the Russian General Staff managed to secretly move up to 40,000 military personnel, in about 36 hours, into an area of operational deployment.

4 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA According to Shoigu, the surprise “combat-readiness check” involved the command and staff structures of three military districts and four armies—something that demanded a high level of organization. In comparison, after Chechen bands invaded Dagestan in 1999, it took Russian forces around two weeks to deploy. The success of the 2014 surprise deployment on the RussianUkrainian border, of Crimea’s “return home” and the subsequent “victories” at Novoazovsk and Debaltsevo in the hybrid war in Donbass, were logically transposed into the rapid deployment of Russian aircraft in Syria, which shocked Western observers. For Moscow, the resurrected military has become its most important, if not its only, foreign and domestic policy tool. In order to break out of its international isolation, the Kremlin announced its intention to enter into armed struggle with world terrorism. Russian air raids enabled Assad’s military, which only a short time before had been on its last legs, to launch a counteroffensive and retake Aleppo, Syria’s second city. In response to Russian mass media hysteria about the military, an impressionable Russian population suddenly feels a burning desire to fight for the fatherland. According to a poll conducted by Levada Center, a record 58 percent of respondents backed the idea that Russia needs a universal draft. Sociologists, meanwhile, recorded a phenomenon never seen before in Russia: her citizens dreaming of war, believing it will solve all existing problems.3 An overwhelming majority believes that Russia is surrounded by enemies and that their patriotic military will heroically defend them. Even “counterpartners” began to talk about the growing potential of the fatherland’s Armed Forces. When President Obama referred to the Russian Armed Forces as “the world’s second,” Deputy Prime Minister

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Aleksey Levinson, Stepan Goncharov, “Voina vmesto budushchego: reshenie dlia anomicheskogo soznaniia,”Vestnik Obshchestvennogo Mneniia, 3–4, 2015.

Introduction | 5 Rogozin strongly disagreed: “Our military may not be the first, but it is certainly not the second.”4 It would appear to be an ideal situation: One military success follows another and the population—which for a quarter of a century was pained that no one was afraid of Russia—is experiencing imperial ecstasy. The Afghan and Chechen syndromes have healed. Indeed, now several decades in the past, these bloody escapades are perceived as a heroic epoch. Created in 1992, the Russian military, for its first 16 years, led a wretched existence. Corruption plagued the Armed Forces. Draft evasion became something of a national sport. Young men did not want to join the military, believing it would bring them nothing but hardships and deprivations, violations of human rights, humiliations and victimization, as stipulated by formal and informal regulations. The Russian military was becoming one of the country’s worst social evils. In the 1990s, it was still possible to justify this degradation by noting that the state treasury was empty. However, the degradation continued for most of the 2000s, when the military budget was increasing by 20 percent per year. Obviously, the problem was not only, and perhaps not at all, caused by a shortage of funds. Until 2008, military leaders managed to maintain the Soviet model of the Armed Forces (albeit three to four times smaller). This model could be effective only if the country’s entire economy supported it and the entire male population was viewed as a “mobilization reserve” that, at least in theory, could be called up at any moment. Obviously, such a system could function only in a totalitarian state. In the 1990s and 2000s, Russia had a market-oriented economy, however peculiar, and fundamental rights and freedoms and the rule of law were guaranteed, at least on paper. But the military was not reformed, and attempts to maintain the Soviet military system led to 4

Andrei Sidorchik, “No tochno ne vtoraia: Obama i Rogozin posporili o moshchi armii Rossii,” Argumenty i Fakty, February 19, 2016.

6 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA degradation and a structural crisis. The manning of the Armed Forces was severely impacted. Formally, Russia still had a universal draft. However, young men considered military service to be a legalized form of servitude, and not without a reason. They did everything possible to avoid it, often choosing semi-legal or totally illegal ways to dodge the draft. Even today, there persists a huge criminal industry of providing deferments. It involves corrupt officials at recruitment centers, the healthcare industry and certain institutions of higher education that, according to former Education Minister Vladimir Filippov, are able to maintain high enrollments only because they provide deferments. In 2005, the Indem think tank estimated the average yearly cash flow of this corruption at $350 million. These are the reasons that, in the early 2000s, the Defense Ministry was unable to find enough conscripts to fill the required positions. Those who were recruited did not measure up to intellectual, physical, or moral standards, even minimally. Indeed, they were not much different from the prison population. And the military leadership was forced to acknowledge its inability to control dedovshchina, or the hazing of new conscripts. Dedovshchina often turned into tragedy. Sergey Ivanov acknowledged that within a 10-month period of 2002, 531 men died and 20,000 were crippled due to “crime or incidents” in the military. Desertion rose to epidemic proportions. Sometimes whole platoons or companies deserted because of unbearable conditions. Soldiers often committed terrible crimes immediately after deserting. The weak combat capability of the Russian Armed Forces was clearly demonstrated in the two Chechen wars. The only thing that could improve the situation was major reform that would replace conscription with a volunteer-based system, improve service conditions for officers and the system of military education, and create the institution of professional noncommissioned officers (NCOs). Reform would also have to fundamentally transform the Defense Ministry, making it into a civilian government entity staffed by civilian bureaucrats. This entity would need effective civilian

Introduction | 7 oversight. There was a lot of talk about such reform, literally from the moment of the inception of the Russian Federation’s Armed Forces. Several unsuccessful attempts at reform were made. But it was only after the war in Georgia that Russia’s military-political leadership realized that, despite substantial spending increases under President Putin, the Armed Forces remained ineffective and, had the opponent been even slightly stronger, Russia could have lost the war. The root of the problem was that national defense was based on the concept of mass mobilization. Adherence to this concept was precisely what led to monstrous structural disproportions, such as a ratio of one officer for every two enlisted men. Theoretically, mass mobilization allows the mobilization of millions of reservists on short notice. But today’s demographic situation makes it practically impossible to carry out— there are simply not enough reservists. In other words, the incompatibility of the fundamental organizational principles of national defense and the demographic situation had rendered the military totally ineffective. Putin openly acknowledged this fact several times. No easy solutions appeared. To abandon the concept of mass mobilization would entail the mass discharge of Putin’s voter base. Anyone who tried to tackle military reform inevitably set himself up for the role of scapegoat. In 2007, Anatoly Serdyukov was appointed to do the dirtiest part of the necessary work: to throw out of the Armed Forces thousands of officers and warrant officers, to eliminate all cadre units and large formations. He wound up being dismissed from his post under the pretext of corruption. As for military reform, it was hailed as successfully completed as early as 2012. In reality, however, only the numerical side of the transformation was achieved—that is, the officer cadre was reduced and large units not ready for combat were liquidated.5 Reformers came close to achieving the goal of

5

The General Staff’s definition of “combat-ready” applies to large units brought up to war strength.

8 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA increasing the number of volunteers. Such soldiers are motivated, their pay is relatively high and they train continually. The Kremlin now has at its disposal 30–40 elite units that can be sent into action within a few hours. This is the real-life result of “Serdyukov’s reforms.” This is what has given Russia absolute military superiority in the post-Soviet space. The annexation of Crimea, the “hybrid” war in Donbass and the air operations in Syria have demonstrated that the use of military power in combination with covert operations and aggressive propaganda have become part of the Kremlin’s long-term strategy. These operations have also revealed a certain Russian military superiority over the West: the speed of decision making. In Russia’s political order, the supreme ruler has no need to consult with anybody—he makes his own decisions. The Federation Council needed but a few minutes to rubberstamp the decision to send troops to Syria. The “discussion” about sending troops to Ukraine did not take much longer. And modern communication and control technologies, of course, allow orders to be transmitted instantly. The Kremlin is reaping the benefits of quantitative changes, such as the reduction of the officer cadre and large units, but has not yet started working on qualitative changes. Serdyukov and his team had serious plans to reform the system of military education to create a new type of officer capable of, and willing to, continuously learn and improve. The curriculums of military institutions of higher education used to include humanities subjects—first and foremost, foreign languages. Sergey Shoigu put an end to this and placed military schools, once again, under the commander of each branch of the Armed Forces. The role of future officers was reduced to that of military personnel able to master no more than two weapons systems over the course of their career. Nothing more is expected of them in the Soviet military model. The Defense Ministry continues to be dominated by the military. Civilians occupy secondary posts. Civilian personnel even wear something that looks like a uniform that marks their “second-rate” status. No civilian control is possible in Russia because parliament’s

Introduction | 9 function is purely decorative and the administration consistently suppresses any attempt by citizens to exercise their political rights as set out in the constitution. Had reform continued long enough to enter the path of qualitative transformation, it could have, in the long run, exerted a significant influence on the structure of the Armed Forces and on society as a whole. From the moment the regular Armed Forces were created in Russia 300 years ago, rulers have always regarded citizens primarily as a resource for wars. The ideology of governing was built on the idea of the country as a military camp, a fortress under siege. Abolishing mass mobilization and replacing it with volunteer soldiers would fundamentally change the relationship between the citizen and the state. Serdyukov’s reforms, which infused the Armed Forces with precisely those qualities that guarantee today’s military successes, have clashed with Kremlin ambitions. Reforms are in trouble. The military is continually given new tasks. The tactical battalion groups that were tasked with short-term combat operations have remained at the Russian-Ukrainian border for two years. This has worn them out. Russia’s military actions in Ukraine compelled NATO to send rapid deployment forces and heavy weaponry to the Baltic countries, Poland and Romania. According to the Kremlin’s logic, Moscow must “respond” to these steps. The creation of new divisions on the “western axes” has been announced. A 2016 article in Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie said “eight new operational formations, containing more than 25 divisions (combined arms, aviation and air defense, surface warships) and 15 independent brigades were added.”6 But not even Putin and Shoigu could change the demographic situation. In 2016, the Defense Ministry planned to increase the numerical strength of the Armed Forces by 10,000. This is а negligible number, certainly not enough to create 40 new formations. The only response to this situation was to forget Serdyukov’s reforms and go 6

Nikolai Poroskov, “Nekolokol’nye interesy Rossii,” Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie, February 19, 2016.

10 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA back to creating skeleton units that would have many more officers than enlisted men. It was quickly discovered that there weren’t enough commanding officers. And to think that just a short time ago, there were so many officers that lieutenants had to perform the duties of NCOs. The only part of Serdyukov’s reforms still maintained is a firm orientation toward professionalism. The Defense Ministry leadership insisted that even the deep economic crisis would not prevent increasing the contract military by 50,000 a year. By the end of 2016, the total was supposed to reach 400,000. It is possible that in the near future, generals will present the president with data showing that millions of Russian citizens have a burning desire to fulfill their patriotic duty. The slightly manipulated figures will be aimed at persuading the boss to return to a draft-based military. More than once, Vladimir Putin has mentioned 1999, when, nominally, the numerical strength of the Armed Forces stood at 1.3 million. But the commander-in-chief was unable to put together a force of even 60,000 enlisted men and officers. Reform was undertaken to avoid this scenario in the future. But it turned out the Russian government was not ready to sustain the necessary reforms. Russian military operations in recent years have posed an important question: What role can modernization of the Armed Forces play in a country that remains authoritarian? I thought it would be interesting to compare the military reforms of today’s Russia with the Prussian military reforms of the early 19th century. The foundational principles of the German armed forces were developed by “the uniformed liberals” Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Clausewitz. They urged lifelong autodidactic learning for officers and the creation of a draft-based military, which they believed would become a community of “citizens in uniform” and something of a school that would help citizens understand their rights and responsibilities. The Prussian reformers considered military reform a key element of the creation of a constitutional monarchy. They believed this was the most progressive form of government in the early 19th century.

Introduction | 11 Hopes that military reform would become a vehicle for general modernization did not come to fruition in either 19th century Prussia or in 21st century Russia. The fact is that when, 200 years ago, “a liberal model” was applied to the profoundly authoritarian Prussian state, it led to the creation of an almost perfect military machine that ultimately blindly followed the orders of the fuehrer. Will the future bring to Russia a “new militarism,” where contemporary models of military development will combine with a conservative nationalist ideology that demands a mass mobilization military? There is no guarantee that even a “correct” reform carried out in one particular sphere, such as military affairs or tax policy, will result in the positive evolution of an authoritarian regime. It may actually strengthen such a regime by providing it with effective tools: modern financial institutions and modernized armed forces.

Chapter 1: A Vicious Circle In the recent history of Russia there have been at least five attempts at military reform. “Grachev’s reform” was triggered by the presidential decree of November 30, 1992. “Baturin’s reform” was supposed to begin after two other presidential decrees: “On the Transition to the Formation of Armed Forces Based on a Contractual Principle of Service, Starting 2000” (May 1996), and “On Measures Guaranteeing Military Construction,” or the comprehensive provision of the Armed Forces with material means (November 1996). The “Sergeev-Kokoshin reform” was to start in July 1997 following the decree “On Priority Measures for Reforming VSRF (Armed Forces of the Russian Federation) and Improving Their Structure,” and in 1998 after the signing of “The Conception of the Government Policy on Military Construction to 2005.” The “IvanovKvashnin reform” was launched after Putin approved “The Plan for the Development of the Armed Forces for the Period up to 2010.” Finally, “Serdyukov’s reform,” which none of its authors dared to refer to as a reform, began after an interview the defense minister gave on October 14, 2008.7 Today’s defense minister, Sergey Shoigu, has sought to maintain his high approval ratings while simultaneously not spoiling his relationship with other Russian leaders. He quietly tries to preserve the achievements of his predecessor but, at the same time, makes no attempt to stop the conservative lobbying of security chiefs 7

“Leitenantov – pobol’she, generalov – pomen’she,” Vecherniaia Moskva, October 14, 2008.

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A Vicious Circle | 13 who are striving to reduce to a minimum the results of “Serdyukov’s reform.” Each new attempt at reform has either completely negated or simply ignored the experience of earlier efforts. From 1991 on, the process of military reform has followed the same vicious circle: The Kremlin would realize that the existing situation was not sustainable and announce that a fundamental reform was necessary. This would trigger a serious discussion among military-political leaders about what reform should involve. Then the head of state would choose one of the proposals and fire the supporters of the others. Substantive results are not achieved. After a while, the process starts over. “Serdyukov’s reforms,” of course, stand out. They were at least partially successful. This is why moves to abandon them altogether have proceeded at a slow pace. The foundation of the 2008–2011 reforms was a drastic reduction in the number of skeleton units and formations. But the Defense Ministry, trying to meet the growing ambitions of the country’s leaders, now produces more formations and military-educational institutions. Sooner or later, the complete abandonment of “Serdyukov’s reforms” will occur. It Always Looks Easy On Paper Soviet leaders were the first to speak about military reforms. In the late 1980s, the Soviet press began to publish a serious debate between the leadership of the Defense Ministry and scholars, primarily from the Institute of the USA and Canada. The scholars argued, competently, that Soviet military might was totally excessive and that military superiority over NATO and China, which the USSR had been striving to achieve for so long, had in no way strengthened security. Top-level leaders began to show concerns about military issues. The Gorbachev-Shevarnadze foreign policy, aimed at reducing excessive military capabilities and developing a defensive military doctrine, came to be viewed as “military reform.” But no one raised

14 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA the issue of fundamental changes in the organization, recruitment or structure of the Armed Forces. The military leaders whom Gorbachev asked to think about reform saw it exclusively in terms of adapting the existing organization to the optimal use of modern military technology. Here is how General Vladimir Lobov, first deputy of the General Staff, whom Gorbachev put in charge of reform, described his understanding of the objective: “Reform was necessary not only on the top, which was what the political leadership was concerned with, but also on the bottom… Some normative inconsistencies became apparent. [For instance], when a squad attacks at the front line, it charges forward approximately 70 paces (with seven paces between soldiers). That had been so in 1904 and it was still so in 1987. And do you know why it was seven paces? It was the distance that two soldiers needed when they moved left or right with а Mosin rifle (with a bayonet, it was 2.5 meters long) supporting each other in hand-tohand combat. The rule had not changed for 90 years, yet a motorized rifle squad is equipped with a BMP-2 armed with a machine gun, an anti-tank guided missile and cannon.”8 Lobov’s report was a strange mix of recommendations that did not necessarily have anything to do with military reform. It caused Gorbachev to lose all interest in the subject. Before the demise of the USSR, military reform existed mainly as an ideal of the democratically-minded part of society. However, the issue acquired urgency immediately upon the signing of the Belovezha Accord. At that point, the term “reform” was applied to attempts to exercise control over the process of the disintegration of the USSR’s massive Armed Forces. The break-up of the Soviet Union raised the critical issue of control over the world’s largest nuclear arsenal (30,000 pieces of nuclear ammunition and 40,000 tons of chemical weapons). 8

Anatoly Dokuchaev, “Geroizma bol’she, chem professionalizma,” Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie, November 10, 2000.

A Vicious Circle | 15 The leaders of the three republics, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, who signed the Belovezha Accord formalizing the dissolution of the USSR, understood that partitioning the Soviet military was not only extremely difficult, but also dangerous. Apparently fearing undesirable excesses, everybody agreed that the Armed Forces must remain under the unified command of the defense minister of the USSR, Marshall of Aviation Evgeny Shaposhnikov, who was named commander-in-chief of the Unified Armed Forces of the CIS. This explains why Marshall Shaposhnikov was informed about the Belovezha Agreement before Mikhail Gorbachev. Shaposhnikov referred to his proposals as “military reform,” but they were in fact plans only for a system to demarcate authority and responsibility between the civilian leaderships of states that were already de facto independent and the leadership of a “unified” Defense Ministry. In September 1991, a meeting was held between the leadership of the Defense Ministry of the USSR and representatives of the newly independent former 15 Soviet republics. It was proposed that the republics create defense ministries as purely civilian departments in charge of raising and maintaining national armed forces. The Defense Ministry of the “union” would coordinate these efforts. The operational leadership would be carried out by the unified General Staff. It soon became apparent that Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia (which was fearful of the rapidly increasing military power of Azerbaijan) were the only states interested in maintaining a unified military. The rest of the republics preferred to have their own armed forces. Ukraine and Belarus viewed having their own armed forces as a necessary attribute of sovereignty. As for Georgia, Moldova and Azerbaijan, their leaders could not wait to use military forces to solve their internal disputes. In the post-Soviet space, national armies formed rapidly. Formations were hastily placed under the jurisdiction of the new states. Officers faced the necessity of swearing a new oath. Leaders of the new states called on Soviet military specialists to return to their

16 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA motherlands, promising them respect, high pay and, above all, housing (the most important benefit for any Soviet person). Competition over who got what weapons broke out across the exUSSR. In Ukraine, the excesses of nationalization amounted to a few pilots refusing to take a Ukrainian oath and instead hijacking their planes and flying back to Russia. In Transcaucasia, it led to bloodshed. In the midst of this chaos, the High Command of the Unified Armed Forces (UAF) of the CIS hurried to move to Russia whatever it could, including Ground Forces units, equipment and, crucially, tactical nuclear weapons. Until the very last moment, when the militaries of the new states simply stopped responding to its communications, Moscow continued to claim its goal was to maintain the unified Armed Forces. Objectively speaking, the High Command of the UAF CIS (I am sure the world will one day appreciate those unsung heroes) did the right thing when they reduced the military might of the regimes that were willing to use guns to resolve their internal political disagreements (and that would have certainly not shied away from using weapons of mass destruction had they possessed them). But it was no longer possible to stop the armed conflicts in former Soviet republics like Transnistria, Abkhazia and Tajikistan. Crises arose one after another in direct proximity to the Russian border. Soviet arsenals engendered a few ambitious plans, even among those who had no intention to go to war. Some imagined that getting hold of a nuclear weapon would somehow allow them to be admitted to the club of great powers. I remember how shocked representatives of Moscow and Washington were in 1992, during consultations on implementing the agreement to reduce strategic offensive armaments, when Ukrainian and Kazakh diplomats claimed rights to Soviet nuclear weapons. Due to joint Russian-American efforts, the rise of new nuclear powers was stopped. In the case of Ukraine, a special memorandum was signed in Budapest, according to which Russia accepted the responsibility to guarantee the territorial integrity of its neighbor in exchange for Ukraine giving up weapons of mass destruction. Could anyone have foreseen that 20 years later, Moscow

A Vicious Circle | 17 would arrogantly renege on these guarantees? And in Kiev, they would regret that they had given up the only means of containing their neighbor? The Kremlin was concerned that officers of the formations deployed on the territory of the Russian Federation showed no respect for the new Russian leadership. The officers believed that this leadership was responsible for the break-up of the great Soviet power. The degree of hatred they felt became apparent on January 17, 1992, when 5,000 commanding officers gathered at an officers meeting. They greeted Yeltsin with stamping and whistles, condemned “the plot of the three presidents,” and demanded that the Soviet Union be restored. These circumstances required Moscow to establish strict control over the huge part of the Soviet military that Russia inherited. In early 1992, Russian state structures began work to create the Armed Forces. As early as August 1991, a State Committee of the Russian Federation for Defense-Related Issues was formed. On March 16, 1992, Boris Yeltsin signed a decree “On the Defense Ministry of the RF and the Armed Forces of the RF.”9 This was followed on April 4 by a directive on the creation of a state committee charged with forming the Defense Ministry of the Russian Federation. Colonel-General Dmitri Volkogonov was appointed its chair. On May 7, 1992, the Russian president signed a decree “On Creation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.” The new Russian military would not simply consist of formations deployed on the territory of the Russian Federation—it would also inherit the Soviet military’s administrative structure. Yeltsin could not afford to take the risk of accepting the proposal by some liberal leaders of the State Committee on Defense to transform the Defense Ministry into a civilian department charged with developing military policies and

9

Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta RF i s’ezda narodnykh deputatov RF 1992, No. 19, p. 1077.

18 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA making personnel decisions. It was assumed that the General Staff would be responsible for operational command and combat training. The conception of Volkogonov’s Commission prevailed. It envisioned an essentially Soviet structure for the Armed Forces and their administrative organs. This, for all practical purposes, also defined the post of defense minister. Only a professional military could handle this newly revived military-bureaucratic monstrosity. Boris Yeltsin appointed Airborne General Pavel Grachev the first defense minister of the Russian Federation. Personalities: The Paratrooper Who Had Bad Luck Of all the characters in this book—and none of them were angels—Pavel Sergeevich Grachev had the worst reputation. In the early 1990s, the name of the first Russian defense minister became synonymous with corruption on a gigantic scale, the bloody bacchanalia and Russia’s humiliating defeat in the First Chechen War, and the murder of Dmitri Kholodov, a young reporter for Moskovskii komsomolets. Public opinion was so firmly set against Grachev that the ex-minister’s friends, who held their posts for a relatively long time after he was dismissed, could not find him a prominent new position. Even Grachev’s 2002 appointment as chair of the commission inspecting the Tula Airborne Forces Division ended up a scandal. It is not my intention to render a verdict on the charges against Grachev. Rather, I am trying to understand to what degree the personal qualities of Grachev and other figures may have predetermined the failures of Russian military reform. As someone who observed Pavel Sergeevich Grachev closely for almost the entire time he was in charge of the Defense Ministry, I can say with certainty that he was no villain. He was a professional, and rather talented, military commander. It was a cruel joke of fate that propelled him too quickly to the country’s highest military post. I assume the same thing happened to those lieutenants whom Stalin elevated before the war to the commanding posts, only to cruelly destroy them later, blaming

A Vicious Circle | 19 them for the initial failures. Had they held slightly lower positions of command, they might have had time to learn to lead units and fight, and their names would be included in the list of canonized commanders of the Great Patriotic War. Under different circumstances, Pavel Grachev would be respected no less than his former subordinates. During Soviet times, this village lad had come up through the ranks in an honest way. It was nearly impossible for an airborne officer to avoid serving in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and Grachev did two tours there, in 1982–1983 as a regiment commander, and in 1985–1988 as a division commander. He received the decoration “Hero of the Soviet Union” for having accomplished his Afghan combat missions with minimal losses. On his own initiative, Grachev “negotiated” with Afghan authorities to reduce potential losses. The person who reported that when Grachev said goodbye to his division “even regimental dogs cried” was obviously exaggerating. However, the general’s rise through the ranks speaks for itself. Upon his return from Afghanistan, Grachev was immediately sent to the General Staff Academy. The fact that he studied there would play an important role in later developments. It is important to recall that during his years at the academy, an armed conflict broke out in Azerbaijan. Georgia, Moldova and the Baltic republics, meanwhile, were grappling with strong nationalist movements. In all these conflicts, Moscow tried to intervene militarily, using first and foremost the Airborne Forces. But Moscow’s actions were irresponsible and incompetent. Had Grachev not been at the academy at the time, he certainly would have participated in such operations, would have hated the “democrats,” and would have been dragged into the mud up to his ears (which is what happened to the commander of the Trans-Caucasian Military District, Colonel-General Igor Rodionov, after a bloody crackdown on demonstrators in Tbilisi). Consequently, Yeltsin and his closest ally, Yuri Skokov, would not have tried to develop a closer relationship with the young prospective general. Grachev, immediately upon his appointment as commander

20 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA of the Airborne Forces, gave an interview with Krasnaia Zvezda in which he spoke against using the regular military internally. The thendefense minister of the USSR, Marshal Dmitry Yazov, verbally reprimanded Grachev. It is telling that Grachev was not trusted with the deployment of the Tula airborne division to Vilnius and Riga in January 1991. This task was given to Grachev’s predecessor, Vladislav Achalov, shortly before Achalov’s appointment as deputy defense minister. By early August 1991, when Defense Minister Yazov ordered Grachev to report for a conversation with the all-powerful KGB head Vladimir Kriuchkov, the young Airborne Forces commander already had a rather good relationship with Boris Yeltsin, chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation, who had established himself as an independent player in opposition to the Kremlin. Grachev visited Yeltsin at his summer residence and they discussed problems facing the military. Grachev belonged to the category of men the future president of Russia trusted unconditionally: a manly man, tall, broad-shouldered, not too good with words, but able to handle alcohol. To be sure, Grachev never demonstrated any leanings toward democracy whatsoever. The sharp-tongued Aleksandr Lebed once observed that a democratic general is about as natural as a Jewish reindeer breeder. At the same time, Grachev held no pro-communist views. His behavior prior to and during the coup attempt was defined by his desire to survive and end up in the winning camp—and his deep distrust of all participants. Grachev found himself in the center of the coup plot. Kriuchkov proposed that Grachev develop a plan to deploy forces during the “transfer of power” from Gorbachev to another leader. And Grachev carried out the order. The history of how the commander-in-chief of the Airborne Forces, in the company of two KGB operatives at a secret KGB summer house, studied military coups in other countries and wrote his own plan would make a great thriller. According to Grachev, neither he nor the two KGB operatives were too enthusiastic about the assignment, and thus their plan was somewhat wishy-washy. According to the plan, forces were to be used to secure critically

A Vicious Circle | 21 important facilities. Essentially, military units would be brought into Moscow as a show of force only. The commanding officers received no clear orders for a military takeover. To a great extent, this was precisely what led to the plot’s failure (I shall discuss this later). However, Grachev did not inform Yeltsin about preparations for the military coup. “Of course, during the early days of our work, I wanted to report to Boris Nikolaevich about what we were doing,” he said years later. “But from the moment when I started working at that summer house, I felt that I was being continually watched. In addition, I was under strict orders from Yazov and Achalov that, under no circumstances, should this information reach Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin.”10 On August 19, Grachev acted as if he were supporting each of the opposing sides. He sent a battalion commanded by his deputy, Aleksandr Lebed, to the building of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. He then informed the conspirators, including Defense Minister Yazov, that his paratroopers had “established control” over the building of the Russian parliament. To Yeltsin, he reported that he had sent paratroopers to defend Russia’s leaders. The moment of truth came the evening of August 19, when Achalov ordered Grachev to arrest the entire leadership of Russia by 6 a.m. the next day. Grachev claims that he and his deputy agreed that they would not carry out the order, even though they knew they could face a court-martial. After receiving Achalov’s order, Grachev immediately met with Yuri Skokov in the park across from the Airborne Force headquarters. He informed Skokov of his refusal to storm the White House. “Finally, I said to him, ‘Yuri Vladimirovich! I will not storm,” Grachev recalled. “But for me and my family—well, it’s not about me. After all, I spent five-and-a-half years fighting in Afghanistan. But I want guarantees with regard to my family, that it will be safe, that they won’t be persecuted and destroyed by Yeltsin’s 10

Boris Pasternak. “Ne v vostorge ot poluchennoi zadachi,” Vremia Novostei, August 17, 2001.

22 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA people.’”11 One can only imagine what Grachev had read at the KGB summer house, and what kinds of plans he had been drawing up there, that would compel him to propose such conditions. After protecting himself from danger on that front, Grachev went to work on an alibi to avoid a court-martial in case the other side won. He clearly understood that neither Yazov nor Achalov wanted to take upon themselves the responsibility for bloodshed. Grachev called the defense minister and asked him to “clarify the mission.” However, neither Yazov nor Achalov were willing to talk—their respective staff members told Grachev that they were “resting.” The general called the commanding officer of the KGB unit “Alfa,” Colonel Karpukhin, who also agreed not to carry out Achalov’s order. The next morning, Achalov demanded a progress report. This time, Grachev did not talk to him as a superior officer. “When I called your office to get clarification of the objective, you turned out to be sleeping,” Grachev said. “I called the office of the defense minister— he, too, was resting. I am 100 percent sure neither of you were resting. Why are you setting me up? There are, by the way, a whole lot of witnesses of my making those calls, so you cannot catch me there. You withdrew from responsibility. Why should I be a scapegoat and, consequently, be court-martialed?”12 What is obvious from this episode is Grachev’s deep distrust of his superiors, whether Kriuchkov, Yazov, Achalov, or Yeltsin. It is also clear that Grachev worked out a method to avoid carrying out unpleasant orders. It involved acting as if he were extremely confused and needed endless clarifications from his superiors of previously issued orders. Grachev would employ this tactic in October 1993, when Yeltsin, in contrast to members of the State Committee for the Extraordinary Situation in the USSR, exhibited will and persistence and found it necessary to personally go the Defense Ministry to “clarify” to the hesitating general his mission to storm the White House, where members of the outlawed parliament were located. 11 12

Ibid. Ibid.

A Vicious Circle | 23 There is evidence suggesting Grachev later made a maximum effort to delay the invasion of Chechnya. Of course, the fate of reforms was significantly influenced by the fact that Grachev was not, as they say, a “great military thinker.” To his credit, Pavel Sergeevich was critical of his own abilities in this area: “It’s not because I am stupid—after all, I graduated from two military academies with a red diploma,” he was quoted as saying in 1998. “But the profession of paratrooper is quite specific. It is somewhat ‘narrow’ in comparison to combined-arms professions. Therefore, I lacked practice in finding solutions to global problems.”13 To some extent, the above statement is correct. Soviet military education (as in today’s Russia) was highly compartmentalized. Even the highest-ranking officers learned mostly what was “relevant” to them. Airborne forces were meant to take and destroy strategic objectives, such as headquarters, rocket facilities, storage facilities for weapons of mass destruction and things of that nature. Teachers were thus not looking for great intellectual abilities in our diligent general. On the other hand, had Pavel Sergeevich internalized everything he was taught at the academy, it is unlikely it would have helped him much in reforming the Armed Forces. At the heart of the educational process lay the mythologized experience of the Great Patriotic War. From that, it follows that the Soviet military is an absolute ideal. Hence, there is nothing to reform. Perhaps the most valuable thing Pavel Sergeevich acquired at the General Staff Academy was a circle of friends who would become his closest advisors for years to come. Valery Lapshov would become chief of staff of the defense minister. Dmitry Kharchenko would be appointed head of the defense ministry’s Directorate of International Treaties. It was at this time that fundamentally new relations between Moscow and its old enemies, the USA and other NATO countries, were being established. Gennady Ivanov, Grachev’s favorite teacher at 13

Grigory Mikhailov. “Pavel Grachev: Zdravstvui, oruzhie,” Profil’, 1998, No. 1.

24 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA the Academy and “the most intelligent military man” Grachev had ever met, became first deputy defense minister in charge of military policy and later head of the Directorate for Force Development. Ivanov became the principal theoretical force behind this era of military reform efforts. To sum up, at the most critical moment for the Russian Armed Forces, its leadership was entrusted to a brave but narrowminded man who lacked convictions and an adequate education. He did know one thing: Whatever his superiors demanded was always either criminal or unachievable. He considered it a virtue to dodge such orders. Military reform, to Grachev, was just such a demand. Fake Modernization Grachev and his team faced gigantic tasks. The Soviet military had disintegrated. It was necessary to retain at least minimal operational control over formations deployed on Russian territory; to implement agreements on withdrawing a 1.5 million-strong military contingent from Eastern Europe and the Baltic states; and to fulfill provisions of the Lisbon Protocol of 1993 on transferring nuclear weapons from Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus back to the Russian Federation. Against the backdrop of redeploying forces and the most destructive weapons, the demand for military reform that the president pushed for in his speeches appeared nothing less than frivolous. Gennady Ivanov hastily, by mid-summer of 1992, prepared a plan for military reform. The plan was known only in readout form. From what we can gather, it was little more than an average, meaningless bureaucratic piece of paper, not unlike an order to strengthen fire safety measures that every formation commander would already have on file. Should there be a fire, the commander could always present this order to the fire inspector as evidence of his untiring fire safety vigilance.

A Vicious Circle | 25 “Ivanov’s reform” had three stages.14 The first stage envisioned “taking inventory” of weapons and military equipment; withdrawing forces from abroad; cutting the number of military personnel and weapons; developing the legal basis for the development and functioning of the Armed Forces; and concluding the process of reorganizing the Defense Ministry and the system of top military administrative organs as a whole. In the second stage (1993–1994), the plan was to “develop fundamental principles for creating a new organizational and staff structure of the RF Armed Forces.” The existing service branches and command structure would be preserved until 1995 (and later, until 2000). However, the plan also proposed to create a mobile force, a new combined arms force that would include airborne, Naval Infantry, light formations of Ground Forces, aviation transport and helicopter units. The creation of new groupings of forces was also planned. The number of formations and larger units was to be reduced, and those remaining would be brought up to full strength. Cadre units and formations would be liquidated. The plan also included transitioning from the division structure of the Ground Forces to a corps and brigade structure. These reasonable and necessary measures later formed the basis of “Serdyukov’s reform.” They were finally implemented, barely squeezing through, 18 years later, in 2009. Transitioning to a mixed system of recruitment for the Armed Forces, combining a draft and voluntary enlistment, was also announced. The number of military personnel was to be reduced by 700,000. By January 1, 1995, the number of servicemen was to be cut to 2.1 million. The third reform stage (1995–1999) envisioned completing the withdrawal of forces from abroad; initiating the reorganization of service branches; abandoning the system of military districts and instead creating territorial commands; completing the grouping of armed forces and military infrastructure for peacetime; and reducing the number of servicemen to 1.5 million. 14

Krasnaia Zvezda, June 23, 1992.

26 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA Grachev and his team never moved beyond the first stage. They got stuck “taking inventory.” The process made them aware of the untold riches accumulated by the Soviet Union. Preparing for an allout global war, Soviet leaders knew that western economies, especially that of the United States, were far more efficient than theirs. They therefore focused on creating huge stockpiles of strategic arms, military equipment, foodstuffs, fuel and raw industrial materials. When the Soviet Union fell apart, the Defense Ministry instantly became the sole proprietor of most of these treasures. Grachev managed to push through documents allowing the Armed Forces to get rid of military surplus on its own. This created opportunities for larceny of truly epic proportions. The accelerated pace of withdrawal of forces from Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, with exceedingly valuable materiel in transit, created additional opportunities for theft. Of course, was it really fair to blame Pavel Seregeevich when looting state property was a common practice in every government institution of the Russian Federation during that period? The infamous restructuring measures kept the top administration of the Defense Ministry busy. But it was not long before the Armed Forces became involved in the conflict between President Yeltsin and the first Russian parliament. The conflict significantly impeded the implementation of the most obvious element of reform: the reduction of the size of the Armed Forces. In their efforts to gain the support of the officer corps, the president and parliament hastened to outdo each other in terms of promises to the military, whose support could deliver victory to one side in the conflict, which soon turned violent. A decision was made that no officer could be discharged from service without providing him and his family with adequate housing and 20 months of salary as severance. Just at that time, apartments that had always been property of the state were in the process of being privatized. Housing now had market value, and even construction agencies within the Defense Ministry system hurried to raise prices for housing. As a result, each officer’s discharge cost the government an unthinkable (for that time) amount of money: $30,000 (a ridiculously low sum in today’s Russia). This set in motion the process

A Vicious Circle | 27 that transformed the structure of Russia’s officer corps into something ugly. There were now more colonels in the Armed Forces than lieutenants. Thousands of high-ranking officers could not be discharged from service simply because the government was not able to provide them with housing. (By the way, today, two decades later, discharging military personnel is still a serious problem. Serdyukov was forced to deal with a backlog that dated to the early 1990s. Thousands of personnel were on waiting lists, which only started to shorten around 2015, under Sergey Shoigu.) It appears the only serious step toward reform was the attempted transition to an all-volunteer Armed Forces. What gave impetus to this attempt was a catastrophic recruitment situation after parliament passed laws that allowed deferment for a large number of young people. By the end of 1992, the Armed Forces were manned to no more than 50 percent of the required strength. In the Ground Forces, Air Defense Forces and Air Force, it was no more than 30–40 percent. Because the term for selective service was reduced from two to 1.5 years, 320,000 servicemen were discharged to the reserve in 1993, while only 90,000 could be drafted in the same year. Transitioning to contract-based service seemed to be a way out of this situation. On November 30, 1992, the government issued a decree, “On Measures toward a Several-Stage Transition to a Volunteer, Contract-based Recruitment for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.” The transition was to be carried out in three stages. The first stage, in 1993, envisaged recruiting 100,000 enlisted men and NCOs (approximately 10 percent of the entire number of servicemen in this category at that time). During the second stage (through the end of 1995) the number of contract-based servicemen was to reach 300,000. Finally, during the third stage (through the end of 2000) the number was supposed to reach 500,000. The Defense Ministry calculated that hiring contract-based servicemen in 1993 would require six billion rubles, and the government allocated this sum. What happened next leaves the impression that somebody purposely tried to discredit the idea of a

28 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA contract-based Armed Forces. No serious documents establishing hiring guidelines were developed. The contract did not represent a legal document that spelled out the obligations of the soldier and the state, but looked like only a declaration of intent. Recruitment offices received orders “to recruit” a certain number of personnel, and units received personnel “allocation” plans. The experience of the West, in which the creation of volunteer forces begins with forming professional NCO corps, was completely ignored. NCOs maintain discipline in the barracks. They transform people with low intellectual and moral qualities (which unavoidably is often the case with many who enlist in a volunteer military) into professional soldiers. In 1993, no one gave it any thought. Money was allocated and the recruiting campaign proceeded at high speed. The first 100,000 volunteers signed up in a record time during April–July 1993. As one would expect, none of this contributed to improved combatreadiness. The transition to a contract-based Armed Forces turned out to be a sham. Servicemen dealt with it accordingly. Officers saw it as an opportunity to improve their financial situation: Their wives and the wives of warrant officers signed up en masse. Between 1993 and 1995, contracts were signed with almost 500,000 people—although by the middle of 1994, the program was already slowing because of drastic budget cuts. Rather than using the limited funds to create two or three military schools for professional junior commanders, who would be able to maintain a certain level of discipline among volunteers and draftees, the Defense Ministry pushed through the Duma bills extending the term of service and revoking the right to deferment for students at technical and vocational schools and some higher education institutions. The first attempt at qualitative, rather than organizational, changes failed completely. (In contrast, the formation of а contract-based operational group of Russian forces in Transnistria and the 201st Division in Tajikistan proceeded with great success. Two factors contributed to that success. The first is that, against the backdrop of a total economic collapse in Transnistria and Tajikistan, the contract serviceman’s salary, though modest by

A Vicious Circle | 29 Russian standards, was a real fortune. Secondly, serving in the Russian Armed Forces held out hope of acquiring Russian citizenship.) In Russia, this attempt to transition to a contract-based military resulted in disillusionment. In 1996, when Boris Yeltsin signed a decree on transitioning to all-volunteer forces beginning in 2000, no one took it seriously. In October 1993, the military demonstrated it was not particularly loyal to the president; and the early stage of the Chechen War showed what Grachev’s upbeat reports about the creation of mobile forces were really worth. The entire Russian Armed Forces turned out to have no more than five combat-ready formations. This is why, in January 1995, Naval Infantry battalions of the Pacific and Northern Fleets were redeployed to storm Grozny. As for the Ground Forces, only platoons were brought in from military districts and had to be combined into companies. According to some clearheaded experts, such as Vitaly Shlykov, the Russian Armed Forces in Chechnya fought no worse than the Soviet military in WWII.15 Only this time, commanders were deprived of the ability to bring in unlimited reinforcements from the pool of draftees and reservists. On February 23, 1995, Yeltsin declared: “Chechnya made it clear once more that we are running behind with our military reform. Life itself demands that we reform the military, and 1995 will be a significant stage of rejuvenation of Russia’s Armed Forces. I am prepared to personally oversee the course of military reform.”16 In reality, the president was only interested in the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections. Reform was the last thing on his mind. In summer 1996, when he sought out Aleksandr Lebed as

15

“Chechnia i sostoianie rossiiskoi armii.” Voennyi Vestnik MFIT, No. 6, Moscow, Mezhregional’nyi Fond Informatsionnykh Tekhnologii, December 1999. 16 “Armiia nuzhdaetsia v reformirovanii,” Nezavisimaia Gazeta, February 24, 1995.

30 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA an ally, he did not hesitate to throw “the best ever minister of defense,” Pavel Grachev, under the bus. Jousting With an Open Visor Bending to political reality, Yeltsin sacked Grachev. Yet he did not trust Lebed or Lebed’s protégé, Igor Rodionov, who was appointed defense minister in July 1996. The president decided to hand the responsibility of overseeing military reform not to Rodionov, but to the secretary of the newly formed Defense Council, Yuri Baturin. The decree “On Measures for Ensuring the Armed Forces Development in the Russian Federation,” signed by Yeltsin in November 1996, placed responsibility for developing a concept of military reform, and a schedule for carrying it out within the period ending in 2005, on Baturin. The decree also required that the share of the military budget in the total budget be defined for the next five years. Each specific program of restructuring was supposed to receive earmarked, guaranteed funding. The most revolutionary element of the decree made all draftees, beginning in 1997, part of the Armed Forces proper, including border, internal and Railway Troops. This meant that agencies like the Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information would get no draftees at all. The decree also required a 15 percent reduction in the number of servicemen in units and organizations “outside the numerical strength of the Armed Forces.” This meant the leadership of at least a dozen departments would be forced to radically reduce the size of their own “army.” The decree was almost immediately shelved. The decision to reduce the draft was never implemented. These measures interfered significantly with the interests of the Russian military elite. Igor Rodionov could not but become the defender of their interests. Perhaps for the first, and last, time in the 25-year history of military reform in contemporary Russia, proponents of two directly opposing approaches did not shy away from an open confrontation. Baturin and Rodionov were the most impressive examples of the two groups that entered the military

A Vicious Circle | 31 reform battle. Each was absolutely certain he was right and had no qualms about hurting the dignity of his opponent. They were doomed to fight a cruel battle. Personalities: A Strongman Without Power When he was appointed defense minister in 1996, Igor Rodionov was an “elite general,” according to Aleksandr Lebed—that is, one of the best of the late Soviet period generals. His record of service proves that. Rodionov had no cushy jobs except, perhaps, when he served as a lieutenant in Germany (most probably not due to any connections). He did not skip steps and dutifully soldiered everywhere he was asked to, from the Far East to Afghanistan. Yet he cannot be seen as an average serviceman. He graduated from the Armored Forces Academy with a gold medal. Two former Soviet defense ministers, Dmitry Yazov and Evgeni Shaposhnikov, people totally different from each other, regarded Rodionov as а highly professional and talented leader. Yazov was notably enthusiastic in his characterization of Rodionov. Rodionov’s subordinates, more often than not, said positive things, citing his integrity and honesty. The general was known for declining gifts of any kind. He rightfully took pride in the fact that, whether serving as a division commander or minister, he had never made servicemen perform work for him personally. As defense minister, coworkers were surprised when he complained he no longer had time to garden at his summer house. Rodionov was also seen as a religious man. In theory, a clear conscience and integrity, combined with regular physical exercise and endurance training (the general ran barefoot in any weather) make a man calm and self-confident. Events, however, proved that this was not true of Rodionov. For seven years, from 1989 to the day he was appointed defense minister, fear and memories of past humiliations consumed him. In 1988, the battle-hardened Rodionov, a veteran of the Afghanistan War, was appointed commander of the Transcaucasia Military District. All his

32 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA positive qualities notwithstanding, he was absolutely politically unbending, as Soviet generals were expected to be. There exists, of course, a legend that, at a Communist Party conference, the general intended “to give them a piece of his mind” about the Afghan adventure. But the legend is a product of the overactive imaginations of journalists. As defense minister, Rodionov expressed disgust with those who believed that a soldier should have the right to decide whether an order is criminal. On April 9, 1989, when Rodionov received a directive from Moscow to restore order in Tbilisi, where antigovernment riots had broken out, he was ambivalent. But his doubts were of a practical nature. He suggested that using internal forces would be preferable to paratroopers in this situation. However, he followed his orders and deployed paratroopers. This was the first time under perestroika that the country’s leadership was willing to spill blood to protect itself. And it used Rodionov as its agent. What followed was general indignation. A special commission of Supreme Soviet deputies was created. Gorbachev put the blame on Rodionov, presenting him as essentially the initiator of the bloodshed, and left the general to extricate himself from the mess. Rodionov tried to do that, but in a way typical of a Soviet general—that is, quite clumsily. Initially, he did not talk at all. Then, at the next conference of the Supreme Soviet, he blurted out that he “did what was right.” He went through a difficult time after that. The only gratitude he received from those who hid behind him was his appointment as head of the General Staff Academy. For a commander of a military district, for whom the next step was usually either head of the General Staff or the Defense Ministry’s main directorate or deputy defense minister, this was synonymous with downfall. From that time forward, fear inhabited the general’s heart. It is said that the failure of the August coup plunged Rodionov into complete shock. When he was summoned to the Defense Ministry for an interview, he could not stop his hands from shaking. And it was not because he sympathized with the coup participants. Rather, he was scared that, once the democrats came to power, they would remember

A Vicious Circle | 33 his role in the Tbilisi events. But they did not. During the tumultuous years when graduates of his academy withdrew Russian forces from Eastern Europe, dealt with conflicts in Abkhazia and Transnistria, had to decide whether to storm the White House, and fought in Chechnya, Rodionov lived in the quiet waters of academic life. The general made waves now and then by publishing articles intended to demonstrate the nonsensical nature of the theoretical constructs of Grachev’s upstarts. Not more than that. To Grachev’s credit, the minister ignored these attacks. Yet Rodionov’s articles had an effect. The rising Aleksandr Lebed needed someone to put together a more or less meaningful military program. And he remembered Rodionov. After Lebed became the president’s national security adviser, he promoted the idea of making Rodionov the new defense minister. Actually, the newly baked politician did not much care whom he promoted. Lebed mostly wanted to demonstrate his power. Of course, he did not have a large pool of candidates. Because he never finished the General Staff Academy, which usually opens the door for the third star, Lebed’s connections in the world of generals were limited. This is how the Defense Ministry got a leader who spent six years outside the power centers. The same is true of the majority of Rodionov’s team. Personalities: How One Dilettante Walked With the Powers That Be If Igor Rodionov looked upon the changes taking place in the country with fear and hatred (it is telling that he devoted the last few years of his life to “defending” the Russian people against Zionist plots), Yuri Baturin was in favor of changes. After all, it was precisely these changes that elevated this unknown armchair scientist to the political Olympus. In the Soviet Union, Baturin would have no chance to get anywhere close to where he found himself in Yeltsin’s Russia. Baturin is a typical intellectual of the 1970s, a member of the socalled “lost generation” of the period of stagnation. There was no place

34 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA for them to go, whether in science, industry or politics. All positions were occupied by people who belonged to the system: They were old but had no intention to leave till they dropped dead. Intellectuals of Baturin’s type were doomed to waste their lives as junior researchers. It did not help Yuri Mikhailovich that he was from a “correct” family—his father was a legendary intelligence officer, head of the resident agency in Turkey during the war. Not being in demand, these intellectuals spent their energy on trekking, singing around campfires, and countless hobbies. Our hero paid tribute to these things. He vacationed on TyanShan. He knew Vysotsky’s work so well he thought of writing a book about him. No matter what he pursued, Baturin always operated on a professional level. At Energiia, the famous Korolev rocket and space corporation, where he worked in the theoretical division after graduating from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Baturin developed navigation and control systems for spacecraft. But it was not enough. He obtained permission to work in the test flight department. Baturin also never gave up hope of getting another degree, this time in humanities. He applied to the department of philology and the journalism department at Moscow State University, and later to the Foreign Language Institute. Baturin was not admitted to any of those places due to a policy prohibiting a second college degree in an additional field. And then the test flight department decided it needed its own lawyer. Baturin turned out to be the only young researcher eager to go back to school. They sent him to the All-Union Law Institute by Correspondence. A year later, he would be admitted to the Moscow State University journalism department. His passion for space exploration yielded to political science, which was then considered “the whore of imperialism.” He was particularly interested in creating mathematical models of political processes. He was lucky enough to run into prominent scientist and party member Georgy Shakhnazarov. In 1978, Shakhnazarov organized a successful symposium of political scientists and obtained party permission to create a political science department at the Institute of State and Law.

A Vicious Circle | 35 He offered Baturin a position there, although Baturin still had another year to complete his law degree. Yuri Baturin told me that, being used to the quasi-military discipline of Energiia, he was shocked by the relaxed atmosphere that reigned at this academic institution. People trickled in by 11 a.m., impassively discussed the news of the day and continually drank tea and smoked. By 4 p.m., everyone was gone. To protest, Baturin who had never seriously smoked before, brought to the office a pipe he had received as a gift. He spent hours defiantly puffing away. Ironically, he was promoted two weeks later. Baturin brimmed with energy. In four years, he defended his dissertation on the European Parliament and its mechanisms. This was a somewhat delicate topic, especially considering the level of parliamentary culture in the Soviet Union at the time. He next focused on “computer law”—something that was relatively exotic in the USSR of the 1980s, when computers were, for most people, still a foreign rarity. He devoted most of his time to this topic, which, by the way, did not prevent him from translating Lewis Carroll and compiling commentaries on Carroll’s work. Baturin’s scholarly endeavors were soon interrupted. The country was going through perestroika. In 1987, Baturin joined the team that was developing the “glasnost law,” which the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, of course, gutted. However, it was precisely then that Baturin understood for the first time that he could apply his many talents to matters of the state. Just three years later, the new Supreme Soviet passed the new law on media. Baturin was one of the law’s three authors (with Mikhail Fedotov and Vladimir Entin). This first victory in Baturin’s new sphere of activity began as an intellectual exercise with no particular strings attached. Yet within 10 days, the three lawyers, sipping beer, wrote a law that prohibited censorship and fundamentally changed the relationship between the mass media and the state. They managed to shame the commission created by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Later, the same authors penned essentially the same law for Russia.

36 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA The law is so coherent, and inherently logical, that the Russian government has not yet been able to destroy it with amendments. However, Baturin was not invited to join the administration. Instead of going to the Kremlin, he went to America. At the Kennan Institute in Washington, D. C., Baturin worked on computer law. Gorbachev had no need for people capable of translating political reality into precise legal language until the ground beneath his feet began to shake—that is, until the Soviet Union started to fall apart. Once hired, Baturin was immediately assigned to the team developing a new union treaty. By then, however, no treaty could save the state. In December 1991, Baturin and the rest of Gorbachev’s team left the Kremlin. Yuri Mikhailovich says the six months he spent in the Kremlin proved more valuable than his years at the institute. The legal scholar had an opportunity to learn about the real-life laws of Russian politics. The contrast between theory and practice was apparently so shocking that, after Baturin was offered the position of legal issues adviser to Yeltsin, it took him two months to decide to accept the position. In the meantime, Baturin received a doctoral degree in law. He also acquired prominence as a regular consultant on the television program “Itogi.” In the early days of 1993, the conflict between the president and the Supreme Soviet was intensifying daily. The Supreme Soviet passed laws. Yeltsin responded with legally dubious presidential decrees. The president desperately needed a professional lawyer to reconcile legal dogma with the reality of the situation. Baturin’s only demand when he finally accepted the offer was to be able to inspect each decree before Yeltsin signed it. But there was no way to control all decrees, especially those the president signed on the go. In many cases, these were responses to requests for benefits. Nevertheless, Baturin managed to establish some semblance of order. The president, consumed by political battles, had hired Baturin to lend a more civilized appearance to the workings of his administration. But civility did not last long. When Yeltsin ordered the infamous Decree No. 1400, which essentially proclaimed the

A Vicious Circle | 37 elected parliament outside the law, Baturin meticulously carried out the president’s wishes. He later admitted: “In the name of some higher interests, we positioned ourselves above the law and our children will be the ones to pay for it.”17 Unfortunately, we must acknowledge how farsighted he was. After the events of 1993, Baturin worked to establish the legal boundaries of Russia’s political life. He was no longer alone in his efforts. Yeltsin understood that loyal intellectuals without any political ambitions could be useful. He drew into his circle Satariov, Lifshits and Krasnov—brilliant people capable of finding unexpected, nontraditional maneuvers. It is with their help that the president, and the country as a whole, were able to emerge from the crisis of 1993 with minimal losses. In later interviews, Baturin has suggested that some individuals had pushed the president toward introducing entirely undemocratic institutions. In early 1994, the issue of power structures came to the fore. During the crisis, these structures had not demonstrated the loyalty that the president had expected. Baturin was named the president’s national security adviser. This was a challenge to the generals, who argued that a “suit coat” would not be able to handle the problems of national security. Baturin stressed that he was not interested in the fine details of commanding forces. He was instead preoccupied with concepts of national security and military doctrine. Practitioners of war viewed these intellectual exercises as child’s play and amateurism—especially because, when Baturin visited military units and training areas, he never missed an opportunity to fire a machinegun or cannon. Notably, the president did not give his adviser access to the most serious matters. During preparations for the Chechen campaign, Baturin was sent abroad to get him out of the way. Baturin did not participate in the infamous Security Council meeting that decided on 17

Leonid Nikitinskii, “Prezidenta podtalkivaiut k narusheniiu prav cheloveka v Rossii,” Izvestiia, October 15, 1993.

38 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA war. He did, however, obediently seek legal justification for the decision in the Constitutional Court. Once again, Baturin met the challenge. His argument allowed the court, which was loyal to Yeltsin, to rule that the president had acted legally when he sent military forces to Chechnya. Baturin, who had repeatedly proven his loyalty, was obviously useful to Yeltsin. But the president did not consider him irreplaceable. During the presidential campaign, Yeltsin did not hesitate to fire Baturin and hand his position to Aleksandr Lebed in exchange for Lebed’s support in the second round of voting. But Baturin’s unemployment did not last long. To limit the political power of Lebed, who was simultaneously Security Council secretary, national security adviser and head of the Commission on Higher Military Ranks, Yeltsin and his allies created the Defense Council. Yuri Mikhailovich agreed to become its secretary. His moment had arrived. For the first time, Baturin decided to navigate the political waters on his own. Two Conceptions After the Chechen debacle, it was clear something had to be done about the military. Grachev’s optimistic reports about the successful completion of the first stage of reform and the smooth transition to the second stage were nothing but fiction. Rodionov, who replaced Grachev, behaved bizarrely. If history will remember Nikolai Ryzhkov as the “crying prime minister,” Igor Rodionov may well be remembered as the “weeping defense minister.” “As defense minister, I have become an outside observer of the wrecking of our army,” he complained to the media. “But I cannot do anything about it.”18 Rodionov also bemoaned his fate in a meeting with retired military: “What kind of a defense minister am I? I am the minister of a disintegrating army and a dying Navy.”19 18

Iliia Bulavinov, “Rodionov pomirilsia s Baturinym,” Kommersant, February 8, 1997. 19 “Tsitata na pervuiu polosu,” Izvestiia, February 22, 1997.

A Vicious Circle | 39 Rodionov was far from pessimistic at the time of his appointment. “If I did not see […] the light at the end of the tunnel,” he told Krasnaia Zvezda, “I would not have agreed to take on responsibility for the Defense Ministry.” He added: “Thank God I have the health, the energy and, above all, faith that, if we put together what is the best in our country and in the military, we can create an armed force worthy of Russia.”20 His thoughts on the state of the Armed Forces and the necessity of military reform were, while not revolutionary, at least sound. Asked whether Russia would be able to maintain a 1.5million-strong military, Rodionov replied in the negative. He stressed that the Defense Council was created precisely to define the optimal numerical strength of the Armed Forces and map the path of reform. Half a year later, he was singing a different tune. Instead of carrying out Yeltsin’s decree and developing a plan for reform, Rodionov appealed to the general public and complained about economic difficulties. His views on what must be done to build up defense capabilities became increasingly strange. He also implicitly criticized the commander-in-chief when he stated that a professional military was a hoax invented by “the new Russians” who like “to fly to the Canaries while others spill blood for their country.”21 Speaking to journalists in February1997, Rodionov said that neither nuclear arms nor well-trained professional Armed Forces could counter a determined aggressor. In the event of war, he said a peacetime military would be annihilated in a few weeks of combat. He argued that the most important thing was the military organization of society and a powerful battle-ready reserve. In Rodionov’s opinion, an aggressor could only be stopped by fear of losses in a protracted war. In other

20

Sergey Kniaz’kov, Vladimir Chupakhin, Anatoly Stasov, “Nado sdelat’ vse vozmozhnoe, chtoby armiia vyshla iz krizisa,” Krasnaia Zvezda, February 10, 1998. 21 Iliia Bulavinov, “Ministr oborony reshil vyiasnit’, kuda delas’ armiia,” Kommersant, February 21, 1997.

40 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA words, only a high level of societal awareness of threats—not cannons, tanks and a professional military—could guarantee security. Such awareness no longer existed in Russia, Rodionov suggested, and he implied that the leadership was to blame. Rodionov’s pronouncements during his 10-month tenure as defense minister boiled down to the view that the Soviet military did not require reform, but instead should be maintained as much as possible. The Defense Ministry insisted it was too early to downsize the regular Ground Forces and Navy, ignoring that the president’s decree was based on the idea that these reductions were inevitable. According to Rodionov, military reform should not be about reforming the military, but about changes in the military organization of society. This meant placing the forces of all ministries and state agencies under the Defense Ministry. He insisted that military reform could only begin after changes in the military-industrial complex, the clean-up of military law, and the development and finalization of military doctrine. He must have known that implementing these changes would take years. The Defense Ministry argued that huge additional funding was necessary to begin reform. It demanded that the defense budget be no less than 15 percent of GDP. This would mean the country would have to direct all its resources toward maintaining the Armed Forces. All of this occurred in early 1997, when most competent economists were predicting an economic crisis. Rodionov’s demands clearly did not represent a plan for reform, but rather a somewhat unintelligible rationale for why reform could not be carried out. The financial demands and all the talk about the military organization of society had one obvious goal: to push any real changes into the distant future. The 1,500 generals who would have to be discharged during the process of reduction turned out to be highly influential. Rodionov, the second civilian defense minister in the history of modern Russia (Yeltsin had him discharged from active service), was first and foremost concerned with demonstrating his loyalty to the military establishment. He could not but be against downsizing the military. He could not accept that dozens of those he

A Vicious Circle | 41 had educated at the General Staff Academy would be forced out of service. At this point, Baturin, who was essentially an armchair scientist tortured by the “Hamlet complex” of an inability to act, decided his hour had come. The Defense Council staff began to disseminate an alternative reform plan. However, it is doubtful that this document was developed by the Defense Council under the leadership of Baturin. I know of at least three prominent military analysts who could claim authorship. New projects to reform the Russian military—workable and, more importantly, economically sound—did not surface in 1997. A year earlier, immediately upon Grachev’s dismissal, First Deputy Defense Minister Andrei Kokoshin told journalists (myself included) that a team of Defense Ministry and General Staff experts had prepared a report entitled “Building and Reforming the RF Armed Forces and Other Troops.” This document was radically different from others. For the first time, a document gave detailed estimates of costs: what it would cost to maintain a division, a flotilla, a squadron. The document reportedly proposed an optimized Armed Forces structure based on military-political and military-economic analyses. Rodionov initially shared the authors’ position. However, he backed down after running into unyielding opposition from the new General Staff chief, Victor Samsonov, who declared that “no changes” would be allowed. The ideas presented in the document (which was “privately” circulated by the staff of the Defense Council) were suspiciously reminiscent of ideas that had been discussed by Kokoshin. Either these were self-evident truths that were “in the air,” or the deputy defense minister had decided not to enter into direct conflict with his boss and had instead passed the final part of the document to Baturin, who was eager to join the battle. I shall address later the ambiguous role that Kokoshin played in various reform attempts. For the top brass, who were fully Soviet in their ideology, the Defense Council’s plans looked like a revolution, especially in regard

42 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA to the Armed Forces’ objectives. The proposals, in essence, excluded the possibility of a “large-scale conflict” (in the General Staff’s vocabulary this meant “world war”) from the system of military planning. The military must prepare for local conflicts, the authors insisted, which “shall be neutralized by the forces of a single military district; and for regional conflicts which shall be neutralized by the forces of two or three military districts.”22 This implied that the military was to drop the main objective of the Soviet Armed Forces: preparing for global war simultaneously on all fronts. The authors of the document had come to a logical (although shocking to many) conclusion: Should a future war move beyond a regional conflict, Russia could and must resort to the first use of nuclear weapons to deter the opponent. A limited nuclear strike, the authors insisted, would de-escalate an armed conflict and prevent its transformation into a large-scale war.23 Bringing nuclear arms into the equation opened the door to fundamental structural changes. It was proposed that during the first stage of reform (which would transpire over five years), the Ground Forces and Navy should be cut to 1.2 million. In 1997 alone, the regular Armed Forces would be reduced by 200,000, to 1.5 million. The number of generals would be reduced from 1,928 to 1,700, while troop formations attached to other state agencies would be cut by onethird. The number of branches and services would also be reduced. The Strategic Rocket Forces, Aerospace Forces and Space Missile Defense Forces would merge to form the Space Rocket Forces. The Air Defense and Air Force would be amalgamated to form the Air Defense Forces. The proposal included a significant broadening of General Staff functions. Territorial formations, including military districts, and Interior Ministry and border troop districts, would be placed under the General Staff. The Ground Forces command would be eliminated 22

Aleksandr Golts, “V Rossii ministr oborony -grazhdanskii! No ne shtatskii,” Itogi, No. 321996. 23 Ibid.

A Vicious Circle | 43 altogether. By insisting on significant reductions, the authors proposed a solution to a problem that Rodionov had presented as totally unresolvable. Of course, adequate financing did not exist to discharge such a large number of officers and warrant officers. Military financial experts insisted that the cost of discharging each one was as high as 150,000,000 rubles, the equivalent of $25,000–30,000, according to the exchange rates of the day. To even begin implementing the reform would require, in the authors’ opinion, 10,000,000,000 rubles. The 1997 budget had earmarked 6.5 trillion rubles for reform. The rest of the funding was supposed to come from savings as the result of greater efficiency in maintaining power structures. The secretary of the Defense Council proposed to eliminate the military’s commercially unfeasible agricultural farms, the inefficient system of military trade, and duplication in the systems of civilian and military education. It was also proposed that a significant number of Defense Ministry properties be privatized, including industrial production plants and land holdings. Тhe Defense Ministry owned 150,000 hectares of land in the Moscow oblast alone. During the second stage of reform (2001–2005), the Armed Forces were supposed to be manned with volunteers only. Simultaneously, a system of training reservists would be created. They would be called up for 45 days of military training each year. For those who did not wish to go into the reserve, an alternative civil service option would still be available. It was obvious from the beginning that the project represented a direct challenge to the Defense Ministry. One had the impression the authors wanted to drive the generals out of their minds and trigger a direct conflict. In the first stage of reform, the plan proposed to liquidate 300–500 generals’ positions. This implied a threat to the middle leadership of the Ground Forces and Navy—precisely those who could drown in bureaucratic red tape even the best of projects. The plan seemed likely to cause bureaucratic wars for survival as branches of the Armed Forces were combined and commands

44 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA abolished. The operational subordination of internal and border troops to the General Staff would cause vehement protests by those services. To justify his proposals, Baturin stressed it was not possible for Russia to maintain its existing military. It had inherited 85 percent of the Soviet Armed Forces, but only around 60 percent of Soviet economic power. The funding problems, the secretary of the Defense Council insisted, reflected this imbalance. A scandal erupted when “Baturin’s” plan became public. Rodionov accused the Defense Council secretary of usurping power and misinforming the president. The two men were unable to convey an appearance of decorum. Baturin and Rodionov were supposedly having a dialogue, yet they talked past each other, pretending not to notice that they directly contradicted each other. This “cold war” continued through the first half of 1997. While “Baturin’s” plan was widely known and discussed in the press, Rodionov stubbornly refused to present the Defense Ministry’s proposals, claiming they first had to be presented to the commander-in-chief. A meeting with the president occurred on May 17, 1997. Many observers expected a bitter discussion, but no one anticipated what actually occurred. “I am more than unsatisfied, I am indignant about the implementation of reform in the military and about the state of the Armed Forces altogether,”24 Yeltsin said in his opening statement to the Defense Council. The president placed responsibility squarely on Rodionov’s shoulders, saying “nothing has been done with regard to military reform” since Rodionov was appointed defense minister. Yeltsin accused the military leadership of “not wanting to reduce the numerical strength of the military and the number of generals.” Baturin could not conceal his satisfaction with the outcome of the meeting, telling the press that the president had finally been fully informed about the condition of the Armed Forces. Rodionov and Samsonov had sent their reports to Yeltsin as early as April. This gave 24

Evgeni Moskvin, “Prezident sdelal okonchatel’nyi vybor strategii voennoi reformy,” Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie, 1997, No. 18.

A Vicious Circle | 45 Yeltsin the opportunity to compare the data presented to him by the military leadership with the situation spelled out in actual military documents. Rodionov and Samsonov, for example, reported that the military’s stockpiles were completely depleted. Yet the command of the Transnistria operational group, which Baturin visited in February 1997, reported that their warehouses were full. When Yeltsin inquired about the reorganization of the Airborne Forces, the Defense Ministry replied that a report on it was included in a document on military development that was sent to the president. In fact, that document contained no such plan. This was the last straw. Yeltsin canceled the reorganization. Other incidents could be interpreted as sabotage. The Defense Ministry and General Staff presented to Yeltsin a project to reduce the Armed Forces by 200,000 men by 2001. They did this even though Yeltsin had signed an order to carry out the same reduction by the end of 1997. Yeltsin blamed these failures not only on Rodionov and Samsonov, but on all Russian generals. “Today, the major obstacle standing in the way of military reform is our generals,” he said in late May 1997.25 The tone of the president’s statement made it clear he did not have particular individuals in mind, but rather the whole caste of high-ranking officers. Generals, Yeltsin believed, were not interested in reforming the military because they were afraid to lose their privileges. “The soldier is getting thinner, while the general is getting fatter,” the president said. “They have built themselves dachas all over Russia!”26 After this dressing-down by the president, Rodionov and Samsonov refused to deliver presentations to the Defense Council meeting. Rodionov said he would not be able to limit his report to the 15 minutes he had been granted. He added angrily that when a meeting starts this way, it will not end well. And that is exactly what 25

Vladimir Klimov, “Poslednii vykhod ministra,” Rossiiskaia Gazeta, May 24, 1997. 26 Ibid.

46 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA happened. The commander-in-chief fired both Rodionov and Samsonov right on the spot. Many observers felt the president was simply venting frustration. However, over the next few years it became apparent that the first president of Russia did not so much understand, as intuitively grasp, the central nerve of military reform. Yeltsin did not stop with firing those who had sabotaged the modernization of the Armed Forces. During the same meeting of the Defense Council, a decision was made to prepare the final version of the reform concept by June 25, 1997. Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin was appointed head of the commission to develop the document. Another commission was created to address the issue of financing the Defense Ministry and other power structures. Yeltsin declared he would continuously follow the process of reform. It appeared the reformers had won a decisive victory. But for Baturin, it turned out to be pyrrhic. The highest echelon of Russian bureaucracy rejected the man who had not been afraid to take to the general public the debate on the holy of holies of the Russian state: its military. Several months later, the Defense Council was abolished. Baturin moved on to the conquest of space. The Art of Handling a Butcher Knife Despite Baturin’s departure, it appeared the third attempt to reform the Russian army had a chance to be successful. The new leadership of the Armed Forces seemed, initially, to share the same views on reform. Personalities: The Technocrat from Vlasikha On the eve of the May meeting of the Defense Council, it was obvious to practically everyone but Rodionov that his days as defense minister were numbered. However, no one, including Igor Dmitrievich, had anticipated that General Sergeev, commander-inchief of the Strategic Rocket Forces, would become his successor. When, after dismissing Rodionov and General Staff chief Samsonov,

A Vicious Circle | 47 the president called out Sergeev’s name, everyone assumed that Sergeev was simply invited to speak. The general started toward the podium, but the president stopped him to offer the ministerial post. The general accepted, without reservations or conditions. General Viktor Chichevatov, on the other hand, turned down becoming the new General Staff chief when he was offered the position a few minutes later. Sergeev’s eagerness was not surprising. Igor Dmitrievich was one of those ambitious people who figure that fate gives everyone a chance. The difference is that the lucky ones are always ready to exploit every opportunity that comes their way. As a young Navy lieutenant, Sergeev underestimated the opportunities that opened to him in the early 1960s, when he was unexpectedly transferred to the newly created Strategic Rocket Forces. The thought of saying goodbye to his black service coat, dagger, and (especially) his black navy shoes, made him sad. “I’d rather quit service than put on army boots,” he complained to his mates. In the end, he had to put on boots, and rubber boots at that, since the launching sites for the Strategic Rocket Forces were located in marshy wilderness. According to people who knew him at the time, Sergeev did not pine long for his Navy uniform. While officers brought in from other branches of the Armed Forces complained about their hard lot, Sergeev threw his energy into mastering a fundamentally new technology. This ability to concentrate fully on the task at hand was what secured his steady professional advancement. Sergeev had a love of learning throughout his professional life. He did not limit himself to the two educational institutions required for advancing in rank, the Dzerzhinsky Academy and the General Staff Academy. In 1997, Sergeev defended his doctoral dissertation. The topic was not military, but technological—automated control systems. Sergeev took the work on his dissertation quite seriously. He even started to smoke again after years of abstinence. When, along with the whole army, Sergeev found himself in a totally unfamiliar situation, he did not lose courage. Instead, he began

48 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA to search for answers, and, uncharacteristically for a practitioner of war, he turned to theory. In 1993, when his colleagues saw economic journals on his desk, they shrugged—after all, they thought, one had to replace documents related to the latest CPSU congress with something. Sergeev soon entered the Management Academy and dragged his subordinates along. Multiple-star generals went back to the classroom and even earned master’s degrees in economics. I do not claim that the degrees the generals received indicated educations of the highest scientific standards. But this does not matter. What matters is that high-ranking missile officers became the first in the Armed Forces to familiarize themselves with the fundamentals of a market economy. I believe this knowledge helped the leadership of the Strategic Rocket Forces avoid panicking in 1995– 1996 when financing issues became dire. Sergeev managed to concentrate on the most important axes, navigating between Scylla of funding shortfalls and the Charybdis of force degradation. During the combat-readiness check of 1996, only the Strategic Rocket Forces were deemed combat-ready. There is no doubt that, in the final analysis, the economic studies are responsible for the revolutionary changes that occurred in the mind of the former Soviet general. Sergeev was one of the first and, unfortunately, few military commanders who understood that, from this point on, the government will give the army not as much as it “needs,” but as much as the government can afford. The objective of the ministry is not to search for the argument that would force the government to open its purse, but to learn how to spend every penny efficiently. It is not a coincidence that one of the first things Sergeev did after becoming defense minister was to create an economic management department in the Defense Ministry. Former subordinates of Igor Dmitrievich have said he was a tough commander. Those who mistook his polished manners for weakness quickly learned how wrong they were. If someone tried to be too familiar, Sergeev swiftly and mercilessly showed him his place. A staunch believer in the principle of unity of command, he was suspicious of even the slightest infringement upon his right to make

A Vicious Circle | 49 the final decision on any issue. As a missile man, Sergeev, had been frustrated with what he viewed as Deputy Defense Minister Andrei Kokoshin’s over-sophisticated conceptions of “strategic stability.” Still, in the early stages, when Sergeev was in need of new ideas, he maintained a good working relationship with Kokoshin. As a commander-in-chief of the Strategic Rocket Forces, Sergeev had tried to avoid being seen in the halls of ministries. He was cautious, did not argue with ministers, and kept his opinions to himself. On issues of fundamental importance, however, he expressed himself clearly and firmly. He remained a staunch supporter of the Russian-American START-II Treaty despite Rodionov’s antipathy to it. This was partially because he knew that the rockets that were to be dismantled under the treaty would have to be liquidated anyway, since their life cycles were about to expire. Shortly before Rodionov was fired, he had shocked the world with his statement that it was possible Moscow could lose control over nuclear arms because of insufficient funding. Surprisingly, an inspection ordered by the Kremlin established no such loss of control. On the contrary, it turned out that complete order reigned in the rocket forces, despite a chronic lack of funding. Personalities: A Lonely Rugby Player on the Military Exercise Field The time to shine was coming for Andrei Kokoshin, yet another man who had always loved to stay in the shadows. In April 1992, this American studies specialist was appointed deputy defense minister. It was not particularly surprising: This was a romantic period when a lab director could be offered the post of deputy prime minister. The military was somewhat lucky in this respect. The deputy minister was actually a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. There is something else striking about Kokoshin: He is a survivor. He lived through the entire “Sturm und Drang” era, from Grachev to Sergeev. He outlived everybody. He survived when Grachev was firing deputies. He kept his position when first Lebed and then Rodionov

50 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA fired members of Grachev’s team. Kokoshin was untouched by the thunder and lightning of Yeltsin’s wrath that destroyed Rodionov. What was the secret of Kokoshin’s longevity? His comrades from the early democratic period believe he survived because he never fought with generals. He yielded to the military bureaucracy on all serious issues and was satisfied with the role assigned to him. In the opinion of many of his former allies, however, his results are very poor. Kokoshin discredited the very idea of civilian control over the military. The bureaucrats of the Defense Ministry rendered him harmless. Others disagree. They claim Kokoshin acted correctly by not trying to carry out a revolution in the Defense Ministry. His tactic of incremental steps, aimed at the eventual acceptance of a civilian in charge of the Defense Ministry, has borne fruit, they say. It taught generals to listen to the opinions of civilians. Kokoshin approached the eternal dilemma of the relationship between the intellectual and bureaucracy—to fight it or to learn to live with it—very differently from Baturin. He chose to live with it. I doubt the decision came easy. It appears that two opposing personality traits have always struggled inside Andrei Kokoshin: the dedicated rugby player, tough, capable of charging like a bull; and the quiet scholar. His powerful athletic body seemed constrained in a suit coat. The transition from scientist to deputy defense minister was not the first radical change in Kokoshin’s life. In 1969, almost immediately after graduating from the Bauman Institute with a degree in radio electronics, he entered graduate school at the elite Institute of the USA and Canada (ISKAN). At that particular moment, this traditionally liberal arts institution suddenly felt a need for engineering experts. It all started when, during negotiations between the USSR and US, an unpleasant circumstance came to light: The Kremlin could not figure out the logic that guided the potential opponent. Russian intelligence officers had scrupulously counted American missiles and warheads and sought as much information as possible on their technical characteristics. Russian diplomats closely followed the rivalry between the Pentagon and the State Department. But they were unable to

A Vicious Circle | 51 understand the logic behind the decisions made by the American government. Eventually, someone figured out that US strategic conceptions were developed not by generals, but by political scientists. They were the ones who came up with the theory of deterrence, which became the foundation of US nuclear strategy. The Kremlin needed specialists capable of both objectively evaluating these theories and understanding their practical application in the development of nuclear weapons systems. ISKAN was charged with this task—and this is when Kokoshin became a rising star. In 1972, he defended his dissertation, entitled “On the Development of Forecasting in International Relations in the USA.” His adviser was Anatoly Andreevich Gromyko, son of the foreign minister. Interested in the border area between foreign affairs and military science, Kokoshin has written several important works analyzing the military theory and strategy of the United States. Kokoshin’s pieces are written in the style of reports to the “appropriate authority,” which in the language of that time meant the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR. The objective was to tell at least part of the truth without infuriating the administration. This style found its way into both Andrei Afanasievich’s works and life. Step by step, the ISKAN department of military-political research, which Kokoshin headed in the mid-1970s, became something unique and almost unthinkable in the Soviet Union: a center of independent military expertise. By combining American methodology with their own, these scholars developed the necessary tools for an objective evaluation of the state of the Soviet military. And their hour did come. In the late 1980s, they subjected the entire military system of the USSR to thorough and well-substantiated critique. They were the first to argue that the scope of Soviet war preparations “was outside any reasonable parameters.” The articles that ISKAN Director Georgi Arbatov and his researchers published drove Marshall Yazov mad. But there was no way to argue with these “suit coats.” They knew what they were talking

52 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA about. The Institute was labeled a CIA cell and its members “agents of influence” of American intelligence. Of course, Kokoshin himself did not rush to the barricades in this battle. He had only kick-started the debate. And he did that in his usual manner, by the way of allusions. In 1987, he collaborated with retired Major-General Valentin Larionov on an article entitled “The Battle of Kursk in the Context of Contemporary Doctrine.” Kokoshin was quite aware of a special feature of Soviet military thought: that any significant question had to be discussed using the mythologized experience of the Great Patriotic War as its point of departure. Disregarding historical truth, Kokoshin and Larionov argued that the Kursk Battle was won thanks to “defensive defense.” Soviet military science always regarded defense as the first stage of preparation for offense. Kokoshin’s conclusion was that, to defeat an aggressor, it is not necessary to strive for absolute superiority over it in peace time. Kokoshin left to others the thankless job of showing that to achieve such superiority, the Soviet army had exhausted the country’s resources. In the 1980s, Kokoshin helped prepare for very important Soviet-American treaties on nuclear arms reductions. Some people claim he also took part in developing the Warsaw Pact military doctrine adapted in 1987. Kokoshin always tried to avoid open conflicts. Essentially, Andrei Afanasievich represented the third, quite refined, generation of Central Committee advisors: intelligent, well-educated, but also set on avoiding responsibility. An adviser may develop ideas, sometimes quite creative ideas, but he never takes the decision to implement them. Instead of fighting with representatives of the militaryindustrial complex, or with the military itself, Kokoshin tried to establish good relations. Primarily due to his efforts, for example, the General Staff Academy and the Committee of Scientists for Global Security conducted a seminar on “Politics and Military Strategy.” After initial disagreements and accusations, seminar participants ended up having a constructive discussion of the concept for a new military doctrine. Kokoshin earned a reputation as an expert on military issues (to the extent, of course, that this “higher sphere” of knowledge is accessible to a “suit coat”), and, at the same time, as a

A Vicious Circle | 53 moderate (in contrast to his ISKAN colleagues, who were seen as ferocious critics of the army). In the spring of 1992, the army was demoralized after the August putsch and continuing to deteriorate in the wake of the Belovezha Accord. The Kremlin understood it was not feasible to preserve the Unified Armed Forces of the CIS. Officers were demanding a welldefined military policy and clear social guarantees. At the same time, the general public demanded military reform. There was an obvious need for people who were capable of bringing the situation under control and leading the Russian Defense Ministry. Yeltsin did not particularly trust his generals. At the same time, he understood that “hardcore democrats” like Major Vladimir Lopatin, former director of a regimental club who had acquired prominence by loudly condemning the Soviet military machine, had no effective organizational skills. Lopatin’s braggadocio and General Kobets’ incessant drinking, to a significant extent, discredited the work of other members of the State Defense Council, including Vitali Shlykov, who actually had a clear vision of how to reform the Armed Forces. The president spent a great deal of energy searching for an appropriate candidate to lead the Defense Ministry. Kokoshin won support from Democratic Russia (which was seeking to become the leading national party), top figures in the military industrial complex, and prominent academicians like Ryzhov and Velikhov. After thinking for a while, Yeltsin appointed […] himself. A little later, he chose Kokoshin as his deputy. Most people thought the president wanted to soften a painful blow for the Armed Forces by easing the transition to civilian leadership. Kokoshin was expected to become defense minister in a few months. But that did not happen. What the president needed at the time was a strong man who could control the army. He chose Grachev. God only knows what went through Kokoshin’s mind. But his previous experience working with “higherups” helped him here as well. Unlike the deputy president of the State Defense Committee, Vitali Shlykov, who tendered his resignation

54 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA immediately upon Grachev’s appointment, Kokoshin did not exhibit indignation over the fact that the president had undermined the very idea of civilian control. Instead, Kokoshin dealt with the situation. What interested him most were issues of military technology policy, financing, and international military cooperation. When, due to intrigues within the ministry, his administrative staff was cut, reducing his office to the status of a secretariat, he did not resist. Some of his former subordinates have never forgiven him for this. He also offered no resistance, at least publicly, to Grachev’s drive to control financing. Kokoshin quietly went about the boring job of finding the necessary money. Kokoshin was responsible for military technology policies—and this involved reeducating the captains of the military-industrial complex. They lobbied and demanded that the government continue to buy tanks and cannons it could not afford. They were adamant about preserving the Soviet tradition of different construction bureaus developing the same type of weapons (giving troops different models of the same weapons systems). “I am so tired of all this talk about yet another superweapon that has no analogue anywhere in the world,” Kokoshin told me. “You start examining it and it turns out that this never-yet-seen rocket or aircraft is equipped with electronics from before the flood; that no one knows in what type of military actions, in fighting what type of opponent, this miracle technology is supposed to be used; and that the super missile has no dedicated aircraft to deliver it.” Kokoshin found allies in the Defense Ministry and in the General Staff to cooperate on developing a government program for weapons systems. The document they created represented the first attempt to clearly state what military technology the Russian army would need in the next century. It suggested particular industrial production plants (out of hundreds) that could fulfill orders. A lot of work went into the project, and it stepped on a lot of toes. For at least five years, Kokoshin remembers, directors of defense plants pestered him with questions like: “Will you tell us, once and for all, whether the ministry needs us? If it does, then give us contracts. If not, set us free.” A document finally

A Vicious Circle | 55 appeared that listed which of them were needed and which were not. But instead of being happy, those who had been “set free” started writing letters to the president about this evil man, Kokoshin, who was destroying Russia’s military-industrial complex. I had an opportunity to witness the anger that Kokoshin’s name inspired. “Who does he think he is to make decisions on what weaponry Russia needs for national security!” raged one member of the military-industrial complex. A military-technological policy is mostly useless unless it is included in an overall plan of military reform. Earlier, I spoke of the group of analysts who, during Grachev’s tenure and under the direction of Kokoshin, quietly developed an extensive document describing the structure of the future army and the characteristics of the armaments it should be equipped with. An important feature of this document was that it combined purely military analysis with precise economic data. Many of the steps the document proposed did not please the generals. These included reducing the Ground Forces to 10–15 full-size multifunctional divisions, abandoning the concept of “Command of the World Ocean,” concentrating the Navy’s efforts on creation of the “Northern Strategic Bastion,” and much more. They first started talking about this document immediately after Grachev had been fired and Rodionov, who supposedly shared the idea of reform, was appointed minister. However, Rodionov soon changed his mind, and Kokoshin shelved the proposal. In the fall of 1996, a proposal amazingly similar to Kokoshin’s surfaced in analytical reports developed by the staff of the Defense Council. In 1997, Kokoshin found himself in a unique situation. He no longer had to hide behind anyone. Sergeev urgently needed a concrete plan for reform, or, more precisely, for optimization of the Armed Forces. Kokoshin offered his project to Sergeev.

56 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA Personalities: The Staff General The third member of the reformers’ team was the new chief of the General Staff, Anatoly Kvashnin. This was the man in charge of all practical work on reforming the Armed Forces, the man who had to turn conceptions into strict orders and directives. He did not resemble Sergeev or Kokoshin in any way. He was, in fact, their total opposite. Kvashnin was drafted for a two-year term in the army after graduating from Kursk Institute of Mechanical Engineering. Witnesses say that when he decided to become a cadre officer in 1971, his commanders were not terribly enthusiastic. This “suit coat” was too eager, according to his critics—he was the sort who would squeal on them to make a career. But Kvashnin got lucky. Due to a soldier’s negligence, a tank caught fire in the company where he was serving as deputy commander for technical matters. Kvashnin threw himself onto the fire and saved the mechanic-driver. Of course, the person responsible for the accident was first and foremost the officer—that is, Kvashnin himself. It was his subordinate who had violated fire safety regulations. But Kvashnin’s superiors understood they could not put the blame entirely on a two-year draftee lieutenant. Someone of a higher rank would have to bite the bullet. They decided it would be better to present the lieutenant as a hero. From that point on, it became a pattern with Kvashnin: He would fail ⸻ then make a heroic effort to climb out of the hole he had dug for himself. Kvashnin’s indefatigable energy, his unquestionably great courage (which even his foes had to acknowledge) and, above all, his ability to present a failure as a success, secured him speedy career advancement. He started later than most of his peers, but quickly overtook them. He received an accelerated promotion to major, then to lieutenant-colonel, then to colonel. Kvashnin graduated from the Armored Academy and, subsequently, the General Staff Academy, with distinction. In August 1993, Kvashnin became deputy chief of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff, which meant he was now part of the Russian military elite.

A Vicious Circle | 57 Throughout human history, those in power have always valued people who carry out orders without asking questions. When Yeltsin decided to start military actions in Chechnya, Defense Minister Pavel Grachev first offered command of the operation to the deputy commander of the Ground Forces, Eduard Vorobiev, and then to his own deputy, Georgi Kondratiev. Both turned down the offer because they understood that the army was not prepared for this war and had practically no mobilized formations. They considered it unacceptable to send untrained youths into battle. Desperate, Grachev turned to Kvashnin, who immediately agreed. Then came the January 1994 storming of Grozny, planned by Grachev and Kvashnin. It was not incompetence alone that made the generals send four separate, uncoordinated armored columns into the city. They were convinced Chechen fighters would disperse as soon as they saw this military might. The well-organized Chechen resistance left them perplexed. Kvashnin was not held to account for the failed operation and the hundreds of casualties. He shifted the blame to two generals under his command who, supposedly, had not carried out orders and knowingly misled their superiors. The generals were transferred, but this had no effect on the quality of operations led by Kvashnin. Russian strategy during the standoff in the town of Novogroznenskii, where Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov’s headquarters were located, was unique in its ineptitude. Despite a tenfold superiority in men and overwhelming superiority in technology, Kvashnin failed to seize the town. Most rebels broke through the encirclement and escaped. In August 1996, when Chechens attacked and seized Grozny practically without resistance, Kvashnin sent in the 205th Brigade. The general, whose reconnaissance had apparently slept through the movement of enemy forces, assured the Kremlin there were no more than a few dozen rebels in the city and that they would be quickly eliminated. Once again, the operation was conducted without preparation. The 205th was decimated. That was the finale of the Chechen period of Kvashnin’s work.

58 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA While not steeped in military art, the commander of the North Caucasian Military District had mastered the art of putting together reports of victories. Each time the federals seized a town of any importance whatsoever (e.g., Vedeno, Bamut or Samashek), he announced that the war had been won. In April 1996, a few months before the ignominious withdrawal of federal forces from Chechnya, Kvashnin confidently claimed that Shamil Basaev’s rebels were about to surrender. As for why the Chechens were able to continuously attack Russian strong points, the colonel-general had a simple explanation: “They talk, for example, about 22 cases of shooting attacks, but this often means that one rebel got into a car and drove around a locality, shooting his machine gun in 22 different places.”27 It is well documented that some of Kvashnin’s subordinates lined their pockets on the Chechen tragedy. War munitions in Chechnya were written off in amounts not compatible with their actual loss. Kvashnin personally signed the reports. Later, of course, he blamed the whole thing on his “thieving” subordinates. After all, how could the commander personally take inventory of all destroyed vehicles? True, he could not. But the whole story paints a sad picture of the administrative talents of the chief of the General Staff. Any military commander would have been dismissed for what Kvashnin had done. However, the general was very skillful at blaming his subordinates for everything. He always came out clean. As long as Pavel Grachev was in charge of the Defense Ministry, Kvashnin was untouchable. It is easy to explain. Grachev, “the best of all defense ministers,” was loyal to his people—and Kvashnin was his man, if only because he supported the minister during the entire Chechen imbroglio. Igor Rodionov, who replaced Grachev, valued honesty in his subordinates most of all. Therefore, he did not particularly favor the commander of the North Caucasian Military District. But by then, Kvashnin had acquired a patron in a very high place.

27

“KVASHNIN Anatoly Vasilyevich,” Panorama.ru, accessed August 21, 2018, www.panorama.ru/info/book139.htlm.

A Vicious Circle | 59 Yeltsin noticed Kvashnin as early as February 1996, when the general presented the president with his plan for the pacification of Chechnya. It is well known that Boris Nikolaevich was often drawn to people of precisely Kvashnin’s type. Like Grachev, Kvashnin was tall and strong. He was not a good talker, and didn’t pretend to be “awfully smart,” but was instead “easy to understand.” After Yeltsin sent Rodionov and Samsonov packing in May 1997, the president requested Kvashnin’s references. The military men on the Security Council understood Kvashnin would become chief of the General Staff. They were horrified. But after some deliberation, they concluded it would be difficult to find someone willing to use a butcher knife to make the necessary cuts and reorganize the army. Rodionov and Samsonov, of course, were fired for refusing to do just that. Attempts at Rehabilitation These were the people who, rather than actually reform the army, had to serve as crisis managers of a bankrupt enterprise. They were not creating a new army—they were trying to rehabilitate what was left of the huge Soviet military super-corporation. Over six years of delayed reforms, the gigantic strategic reserves of the USSR had been almost completely spent and plundered. The army had to be shrunk quickly and decisively. During the first year of their work, Sergeev and his team unceremoniously rejected Rodionov’s approach, which had been based on the demands of the generals. The new point of departure was the country’s economic realities. The foundation of their military planning was not some hypothetical “threat” to national security, but the forecast for Russia’s economic development and that part of GDP (around three percent) that could be spent on the military. The reformers realized there was little time for discussion. “The time for evolutionary measures has passed—we need the

60 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA revolutionary ones,”28 Sergeev told the president soon after his appointment as minister. In July 1997, Yeltsin signed a decree entitled “On Priority Measures for Reforming the AFRF and Improving Their Structure.” The Defense Ministry-drafted document did not list reform as the goal, but rather the “optimization” of the Armed Forces. The aim was now to reduce the number of military personnel from 1.7 million to 1.2 million. They began to “optimize” at a rapid pace. It took only five months to merge the Strategic Missile Forces with the Military Space Forces and the Early Warning System of Missile Attack. The merger of the Air Force and Air Defense was also carried out swiftly, in less than a year and a half. In this case, 40,000 officers were discharged and 32 regiments were liquidated. The post of the commander-in-chief of the Ground Forces was abolished. Out of at least 100 divisions that had existed mostly on paper, 10–15 battle-ready formations were created. The ministry also thoroughly weeded out institutions of military education. The reformers cut their number almost by half, to 44 military schools and academies.29 Resistance to these decisive “amputations” appeared immediately, from within the army and outside it. When the Military Space Forces were turned over to the Strategic Missile Forces, a large number of commanding officers resigned in protest. The commander of the army corps based on Kamchatka, Lieutenant-General Batyrov, led a mini-revolt. The general openly refused an order to come under control of Pacific Fleet. In the end, Sergeev prevailed. Some governors also fought against reductions in military personnel, and not without success. The welfare of whole regions in the north, in Trans-Baikal, and in the Far East depended on the Armed Forces. With the military leaving, many towns would lose heating, electricity and their connection to the outside world. In other words, they would face 28

Aleksandr Akulov, “Podnozhka na starte,” Itogi, 1997, No. 30. It is important to recognize that army schools have an amazing ability to regenerate. By the time Serdyukov’s reforms began, there were more than 60 of them.

29

A Vicious Circle | 61 extinction. Local authorities had become accustomed to using the perpetually debt-stricken military as a convenient form of free labor. Why would local administrators agree to the liquidation of militaryrun schools when they had used them for so many years to educate their sons? Sergeev never failed to reiterate that his goal was not to just cut everything and everyone. “We were hoping,” he told me in the fall of 1998, “that, once we reduced secondary structures, by 2000 we would have nine battle-ready divisions and 30 regiments. We have managed to almost bring them up to strength with servicemen. And, more importantly, their military technology is 92–94 percent in working condition.”30 Sergeev was the first high-ranking military official to declare that “there is no alternative to a professional army”—and the Defense Ministry began to transition to such an army. Sergeev’s objective was to change the content of service for those 180,000 contract soldiers who were already serving. “The problem is that three-quarters of contract servicemen in the army are, so to speak, ‘in the wagon-train,’ that is, in support and logistics units,” he said in the same interview. “It is crucially important right now, while maintaining the numbers, to move most of them into combat units as junior commanders.”31 An attempt was made in 1998 to address the “discipline” situation. New rules for recording extraordinary incidents were adopted to compel unit commanders not to cover up crimes and to discourage dedovshchina (hazing). Sergeev considered it an achievement that the budget plan for 1998 featured combat training as a separate line item. Ten percent of the budget was designated for troop training. This was a matter of principle for the defense minister. “Either the army goes through combat training, in which case it continues to be the army,” he said, “or it does not go through combat training, in which case is

30 31

Aleksandr Golts, “Beg v meshke,” Itogi, 1998, № 41. Ibid.

62 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA disintegrates.”32 Amid the country’s severe economic crisis, the Defense Ministry leadership tried to provide permanent battle-ready formations with all they needed. When, after many years, the 3rd Motor-Rifle Division conducted company training exercises, it received resources that had been allocated for the entire Moscow Military District. ‘The Book of the Dove’ for the Hawks Another important military reform process occurred in 1998. As mentioned earlier, Russian generals had always insisted that reform could be carried out only after the country’s leadership had comprehensively renewed the concept of the “military organization of society and the state.” They were counting on this being no easier than writing the apocryphal “The Book of the Dovе,” a volume that fell from the sky and contained answers to all questions of the universe. By this point, Andrei Kokoshin had left the Defense Ministry and had been moved to the post of Defense Council secretary. In essence, his role was to translate into presidential decrees the ideas that he and his team had been working on for years. In May 1998, a year after the removal of Rodionov and Samsonov from their posts, Yeltsin approved “Fundamentals (Conception) of Russian State Policy on Military Development for the Period Ending in 2005.” It was the first document of its kind. The “conception,” for the first time, clearly stated that, while a large-scale aggression against Russia cannot be ruled out completely, it is highly unlikely. Only the nuclear rocket forces would be able to counter such an event. This meant that for purposes of military planning and the practical training of troops, Moscow had to stop thinking that a “major war” could be fought using general conventional forces. Accordingly, it was proposed that the Ground Forces retain only 10 battle-ready divisions, instead of the 200 of the USSR. The “conception” document proceeded from the assumption 32

Ibid.

A Vicious Circle | 63 that a general mobilization of reservists would allow Russia to handle “regional” conflicts. To deal with “local” conflicts, the document proposed that a partial mobilization would suffice. The authors also defined the part of national wealth that defense and law-enforcement agencies were entitled to. Taken together, they would receive 5.1 percent of GDP, of which 3.5 percent would go to defense. Another achievement of the “conception” could have been to establish a clear separation of the spheres of responsibility of defense and law enforcement agencies and to reduce their numbers. The Defense Ministry would be responsible for the “nation’s defense, for protecting and defending the country’s borders in the air and under water, and for land and sea borders protection by military means.” The Internal Affairs Ministry’s sphere of responsibility would be terminating internal armed conflicts. The Federal Security Service (FSB) would battle terrorism, political extremism and espionage. The Border Patrol would protect the sea and land borders. The Emergency Situations Ministry would deal with natural and manmade disasters. The Railway Troops would defend railway connections. In this respect, the “conception” merely reiterated established rules, as laws already existed regarding each agency. But that would be a superficial view. In reality, the laws were laws of indirect action. When crisis situations arose, Kokoshin told me in an interview, they caused confusion because agencies did not actually know their spheres of responsibility. Chechnya was a good example of this problem. Andrei Afanasievich was proud of the fact that, after long negotiations, he was able to find the answer to the question that has troubled every Russian administration since the time of the original “Book of the Dove”: “Who is the tsar of tsars?” The answer was simple: It all depends on the nature of the threat. In case of an external military aggression, all power structures would have to place themselves at the disposal of the Defense Ministry. In case of an internal armed conflict, the Internal Affairs Ministry would assume command. And should there be a massive terrorist attack, the FSB would be in charge. However, the Defense Ministry would be the “first

64 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA among equals.” The General Staff would do the strategic planning and coordinate the military training of other agencies’ troops. A single organ would be created within the Defense Ministry to procure military technology for all power agencies. It is not hard to notice that even here, Kokoshin, who had always looked for compromises, did not carry the idea to its logical conclusion. He did not propose the sweeping demilitarization of power structures. Instead, he limited himself to “integration of logistical support services.” But even here, he left the question of the “depth” of such integration unanswered. The document did not address the manning of the Armed Forces. Under pressure from the military establishment, the authors essentially ignored the presidential decree regarding manning the army on a contractual basis beginning in 2000. The document instead proposed to gradually reduce the number of draftees. It also mentioned “universal mobilization,” which clearly indicated no one was thinking of abolishing the draft system. Kokoshin chose quite a lengthy path. Internal troops would be transformed into an allvolunteer national guard after 2001. Junior commanders in the Ground Forces and Navy would also be volunteers. Only а few agencies would lose their military component. Emergency Situations Ministry personnel would become a “Unified Rescue Service,” while border troops would be “Border Protection.” It is not difficult to see that the plan of “Serdyukov’s reform” resembles what Kokoshin proposed as early as 1998—and what was implemented 10 years later. Kokoshin did not believe that the “conception” would make interagency issues disappear, but would simply provide a framework for resolving them. A consensus, which the Security Council secretary saw as vital for the successful implementation of the program, was eventually achieved, but at a price. The head of the Border Patrol Service, Andrei Nikolaev, and Internal Affairs Ministry chief Anatoly Kulikov, were dismissed for, among other things, fighting too vigorously for the “autonomy” of their agencies. Their dismissal served as a warning to those who might try to carry out a tooindependent policy in the area of national security.

A Vicious Circle | 65 While on the whole the “conception” represented a liberal view of military development, some army conservatives managed to squeeze through several “extraneous” provisions. For instance, the thesis that “military service implies a limitation of the constitutional rights and freedoms of the individual.” If, as Kokoshin claimed, the “conception” was indeed a document in which each line had a special significance, then the above statement looked like a license for arbitrary abuse. There was another statement on the same level regarding mobilization readiness. At a time when major industries were at a standstill, some folks wanted to waste a lot of money to maintain reservists. Most probably, by allowing such statements, taken from the dusty handbooks/regulation books of Soviet times, Kokoshin was hoping to reduce resistance from a segment of the military elite. However, despite some contradictions in details, the program was quite coherent. Its goal was not so much to institute major reform as to bring the size and the structure of the Armed Forces into line with the available resources. The generals reacted with unabashed sabotage. Sergeev once noticed, not without irony, that instead of coherent and complete reports containing sound arguments and conclusions, the ministry bureaucrats treated him to empty “tales.” It is unlikely this was simply incompetence. These people understood what eliminating almost 300 generals’ positions would do to them. The requirement that more than one candidate be considered for high posts also did not augur well for those who had spent most of their professional lives serving in the Defense Ministry’s “Arbat Military District.” The bureaucrats thus surreptitiously inserted various changes into already agreed on texts. Or they would suddenly be stricken by absent-mindedness. Kvashnin told me that on several occasions, he had to return Defense Ministry organizational charts and staff rosters to be corrected or revised. The lieutenant-general positions he had eliminated had magically reappeared in those documents. Despite sabotage, until the middle of 1998 the reformers were able to move forward. They were able to reach the Rubicon and initiate

66 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA qualitative changes. On January 1, 1999, the number of servicemen in the Russian army was 1.2 million. This meant the Armed Forces had been reduced by 300,000 men. But the reformers could not move further. The main reason for this was the unprecedented financial crisis that hit the country in late summer 1998. The financial crisis metamorphosed into a political one, and Kokoshin fell victim to it. Kokoshin had seen the Defense Council liquidated and had been named Security Council secretary. Caught in the middle of intense political crossfire, he took the risk of playing his own game. Going behind the back of “the family” (i.e., the Kremlin’s chief of staff, Valentin Iumashev, and Yeltsin’s daughter Tatiana), Kokoshin told the president that using force against the pro-communist Duma, which had refused to confirm the president’s choice for prime minister, was impossible. Kokoshin suggested that Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov instead be named prime minister. Yeltsin fired Kokoshin. The “conception” was consigned to oblivion for several years. Even the most reasonable projects survive in Russia only as long as their authors occupy high posts. Commanding a Conflict Sergeev decided to save what he believed to be his most important pet project. Unfortunately, it was not military reform. Rather, it was a new-generation intercontinental ballistic missile, the Topol-M. The marshal considered it his greatest achievement that Russia had been able, without Ukrainian participation, to set in motion the serial production of these missiles and begin the process of putting them on full battle alert. It was an immensely complex undertaking. But thanks to Igor Sergeev, Russia today possesses a strategic missile complex that gives her nuclear parity with the United States. To be fair, it was also Sergeev who made the risky decision to stop development of the “Bark” sea-launched ballistic missile and hand the government order for it to the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology engineering group that had worked on the Topol-M. Head designer Yuri Solomonov had promised that the Topol-M and Bulava would be

A Vicious Circle | 67 solid-fuel missiles that could be sea- and land-launched. Today, no one remembers why the project of developing missiles for nuclear subsurface launch platforms was handed to those who previously had never worked on them. Perhaps the Navy simply could not put into service a missile that had failed test after test. It is still not clear to what degree the Bulava is battle-ready. Some critics have claimed that Sergeev and the then commander-in-chief of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces (RSMF), Vladimir Yakovlev, had personal financial interests in completing work on Topol-M and in transferring the development of subsurface launch missiles to Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology. No evidence has been presented to support such claims. But Sergeev’s motives are actually not that important. What is important is that, having completed quantitative reductions and organizational changes, the head of the Defense Ministry proposed a new round of restructuring. On November 3, 1998, he received the president’s approval for his plans to create a unified command of Strategic Deterrence Forces. According to this plan, all Russian nuclear forces were to be placed under unified operational command. Supporters of the plan said the goal was not to deprive the General Staff of its most important functions (i.e., reconnaissance and defining objectives). Rather, they wanted to create a single system of combat command and control of nuclear forces. This was, it should be recalled, the topic of Igor Sergeev’s doctoral dissertation. Such a system had already been created for the RSMF and, in the opinion of experts, only missile men were able to expand it in a cost-effective way to all formations equipped with strategic nuclear arms. The minister’s opponents claimed that the creation of a single automated system of combat command and control was still a matter for the distant future. They believed that, under the pretext of the necessity to create such a system, Sergeev had tried to expand the RSMF’s control across the Armed Forces and, above all, over the Armed Forces’ financial lifelines. The minister’s plan negatively

68 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA influenced two powerful structures, the General Staff and the Navy Command. The General Staff was worried that, with the emergence of a new command center, its function as “the brain of the army” would be weakened. The Navy Command was concerned primarily with financial issues. Sergeev announced that for the next several years the Armed Forces would be able to financially support the development of just two major weapons systems. These would be the ground-based Topol-M and a new ballistic missile for submarines. Successful tests of Topol-M had already been conducted. However, with the new command center in place, money would flow directly to it, bypassing the Navy. Top generals were also not happy with the candidate the defense minister was pushing for the post of commander of the Strategic Deterrence Forces. The man he had in mind was Sergeev’s closest associate, RSMF commander Yakovlev. No one was particularly indignant when Sergeev publicly announced his plans in October 1998. Scandal broke out only when it became known that the future commander-in-chief of the Strategic Deterrence Forces would also be the first and the only deputy defense minister. General Staff chief Anatoly Kvashnin and Navy commander-inchief Viktor Kuroedov formed a united front and, some sources claimed, persuaded most Defense Ministry board members. The generals and admirals did not dare directly challenge the decisions of their immediate superiors. They did, however, organize a media campaign against Sergeev. In a series of articles, the minister was accused of planning measures that would not only waste millions but lead to the elimination of the military’s last combat-ready formations. When Sergeev came up with his proposal to create the Strategic Deterrence Forces, he was certain that the top generals would not dare oppose it. After all, he had been able to merge the Airspace and Missile Defense Forces and the Air Force and Air Defense, and to eliminate the office of commander-in-chief of the Ground Forces. However, he did not take into account that the situation had changed drastically. The generals remembered the president’s crackdown. But in the fall of 1998, they grew bolder. They understood that, in the midst the

A Vicious Circle | 69 severe economic crisis, neither Sergeev nor Yeltsin would risk firing them. The War of Clans The clash between the defense minister and the chief of the General Staff paralyzed the Defense Ministry for more than two years. Reform was all but dead. What was passed off as plans for further reforms were, in fact, projects proposed by the warring clans. Their main objective was to cause maximum damage to the “enemy.” It initially appeared that the “missile men” had the upper hand. Yeltsin, after all, liked Sergeev. In the spring of 1999, the defense minister told me the emergence of the unified command of the Strategic Deterrence Forces was all but certain. The correlation of forces, however, changed dramatically with the start of the NATO operation in ex-Yugoslavia. Yeltsin, who had been sure that Russia’s huge nuclear arsenal would guarantee full voting status in debates on any international issue, was shocked that the West ignored Moscow’s objections. It is said the president opened a Security Council meeting with the query: “Why are they not afraid of us?” This marked a defeat for the “missile men.” Kvashnin engineered a stunt in which 200 Russian paratroopers deployed from Bosnia, via Yugoslavia, into Kosovo to occupy the Slatina Air Field. The paratroopers were not even carrying their own water. It was provided to them by the KFOR commander, British General Mike Jackson. Thanks to the cool-headedness of Jackson, the affair did not explode into a huge crisis. The commander of NATO forces in Europe, US General Wesley Clark, had ordered Jackson to “beat the Russians back,” but Jackson replied that he was not going to start World War III over Kosovo. In the eyes of the Russian president, however, an airborne company had restored Russia’s prestige. But in August 1999, bands of Chechen rebels invaded Dagestan. And, once again, it turned out there were no battle-ready formations in Russia. The redeployment of troops from central oblasts took

70 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA weeks. As Vladimir Putin, who had recently been appointed prime minister, acknowledged, the Kremlin was “one step away from announcing a full mobilization.” The gutsy head of the General Staff (who, for the second time, was promising to pacify Chechnya), managed to convince the Kremlin that insufficient financing due to spending on space and missile programs was the main reason for the poor condition of the conventional Armed Forces. Kvashnin’s influence grew again, and he rushed to use it. In April 2000, the chief of the General Staff submitted to Putin, who was now president, his proposal to dramatically restructure the Armed Forces. He began by complaining about the dismal state of conventional forces, such as incomplete manning and a nearly total absence of modern technology. He proposed an extraordinary, indeed revolutionary, way of surmounting the crisis: He proposed that the RSMF be reduced six or sevenfold and the resulting savings applied to restoring the conventional forces. In Kvashnin’s opinion, it had to be done by 2003—four years before the life cycles of the heavy missiles expired (actually, the life of most of these weapons could be extended to 2012, and it was Kvashnin’s responsibility to know that). He proposed to take off combat-alert duty some 600 strategic ground-launched missiles; to reduce fivefold (i.e., two per year) the production of the Topol-M; and, essentially, to liquidate the RSMF. These measures, he argued, would free up sufficient funds to boost conventional forces. But the numbers were laughable. They amounted to 19 billion rubles of savings over 15 years (a little more than one billion per year, or 0.7 percent of the general military budget). Kvashnin’s approach undercut the foundation of Russia’s defense and foreign policies. It should be remembered how much effort Russian diplomats and military officials had expended to persuade the Americans to agree to extend the term for liquidating Russian missiles under the START I Treaty. Naturally, the government was shocked by Kvashnin’s proposals. After all, the New York Protocol of 1997, which had acknowledged Russia’s right to take missiles off combat alert duty only after their active life expired, was considered a true diplomatic

A Vicious Circle | 71 success. And here was the chief of the General Staff who, instead of requesting to extend the active life of missiles, demanded they be sent off for recycling as soon as possible. Kvashnin had proposed that Russia immediately reduce its nuclear arsenal to a level below that required by the treaty, and to do it unilaterally. His recommendations amounted to a radical change in Russian defense policy, which had been outlined in the recently adopted conception of national security and military doctrine. The latter proclaimed nuclear arms to be the most important means of preventing large-scale conventional aggression against Russia. Several months after his Kosovo provocation, the man who nearly caused World War III was now backing an even more breathtaking stunt. Kvashnin’s argument was that nuclear war with the United States was not possible; therefore, it made no sense to maintain a strategic balance of power. Experts in the Foreign and Defense Ministries did not agree. They pointed out that, from the perspective of deterrence theory, a Russia with a smaller number of nuclear missiles would present a greater danger to America and the world than a Russia with a surplus of such weapons. If Russia lost the ability to retaliate in case of nuclear aggression, it would have to rely on a preemptive strike. This would mean that any tension, even relatively minor, could objectively push Russia toward a first use of nuclear weapons. Reality would prove Kvashnin wrong. In 2002, after the United States pulled out of the ABM Treaty, Moscow decided to extend the service term of most of its heavy missiles. Two years were thus wasted on proposals for meaningless structural changes. Had Kvashnin anticipated the events of 2002 however, it would not have stopped him. At some point, he figured out that his career depended entirely on how significant the role of the Ground Forces would be in strategic planning. He was determined to regenerate the Ground Forces (in their Soviet form), and was prepared to sacrifice the RSMF—the only branch of the Armed Forces that still maintained combat capabilities—to achieve it. Kvashnin’s crew, somewhat

72 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA creatively exploiting Putin’s thesis on the growing danger of terrorism in Transcaucasia and Central Asia, proposed to deploy troop formations of more than 50,000 servicemen (and they apparently ultimately planned to deploy double that number) along the Central Asian and Southwestern axes. “The Russian army,” the chief of the General Staff claimed in March 2001 at a conference organized by the Academy of Military Sciences, “is like a man who has one doped-up arm (the RSMF) and the other is short, weak and shriveled (conventional troops). This is not a normal man. It is some kind of a mutant. I cannot allow that. It won’t fly! We will shrivel together!” This was the essence of the General Staff’s “Plan for the Development of the Armed Forces.” It included the Armed Forces being reduced by 365,000 servicemen, and structural changes beneficial to the General Staff chief. The most important change would be the delineation of functions and authority between the Defense Ministry and the General Staff. Administrative and political functions would be reserved for the Defense Ministry, while operational functions would be held by the General Staff. Had it been executed, this plan would have unavoidably led to the chief of the General Staff practically controlling the entire army. The issue of what was excessive and redundant in the Armed Forces was left unresolved. Personnel and career conflicts aside, this was precisely what Sergeev and Kvashnin were arguing about. The conflict was not simply Kvashnin intending to eliminate the RSMF and Sergeev trying to defend “his people.” The core of the conflict was two diametrically opposed views of defense. Sergeev and his team were convinced that, during the period of reform, nuclear deterrence could ensure the country’s defense capability. Kvashnin, on the other hand, argued it was necessary to make drastic cuts to the RSMF to maintain, and even increase, the numerical strength of conventional forces. On August 11, 2000, the Security Council adopted a proposal that was closer to Kvashnin’s view than to Sergeev’s. The council announced that, over the next several years, the number of military personnel would be reduced by 365,000 and the number of civilian

A Vicious Circle | 73 specialists by more than 100,000; that the office of the commander-inchief of the Ground Forces, which was eliminated in 1997, would be restored; that the Airspace and Missile Defense Forces would be removed from the RSMF and formed into separate forces; and the RSMF would no longer be a branch, but only a type of service. None of this, of course, had anything to do with reform. Reform was still understood strictly as reduction in the numerical strength of the Armed Forces. All funds allocated for “reform,” 3.9 billion rubles, would be applied to fulfilling obligations to discharged officers. The “Plan for the Development of the Armed Forces for the Period Ending in 2005” did nothing for reform and development. It simply confirmed that the bureaucratic clan of “conventional force generals” had defeated “the missile generals.” In my opinion, the withdrawal of the “missile men” from a leading role caused much damage to the cause of reform. If ever there would arise a general capable of drastically transforming the army, he would have to come from the RSMF. “Missile men” were the only members of the Armed Forces who, more or less, lived up to the demands of a modern army. Their service was created in the 1950s, and the mythologized experience of the Great Patriotic War, which teaches that victory comes from numbers rather than knowledge or knowhow, did not continually hang over their heads. From the beginning, they operated in a different universe. Their military planning was based not on the principle of absolute numerical superiority, but on the “imperialist” theory of deterrence (which actually teaches that absolute superiority does not guarantee security but, on the contrary, is dangerous because it may provoke a potential adversary to deliver a preventive strike). The extraordinary complexity of controlling the huge destructive power of nuclear missiles required that RSMF leaders pay attention to the education and training of each man responsible for this arsenal. The RSMF was far ahead of everyone else on the path to professionalization. More than half of all personnel in this service were officers and warrant officers.

74 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA As a Rocket Forces commander, Igor Sergeev was the first to understand that the time of unlimited funding had passed. He began the process of cutting costs and optimizing effectiveness. He not only prevented the RSMF from disintegrating, but helped it maintain combat capability. Many expected that, as defense minister, Sergeev would act with the same decisiveness and determination. Early in his tenure, Sergeev did, in fact, begin actively working on reform. However, it is one thing to work with a team of like-minded colleagues, the highly educated officers of the Rocket Forces, and quite another to overcome the resistance of generals who, from their time in military school to their time at the General Staff Academy, had it drilled into their heads that numerical superiority guarantees victory and the government should spare no resource to defend the country. Facing indirect pressure from the generals, Sergeev budged every time and was not able to move forward on reform in any meaningful way. He did not complete the planned reduction in personnel to 800,000, a number the country would have been able to support. Consequently, conventional forces were not cut to 600,000 and not transformed into permanent battle-ready formations. The reform of military education was stopped half-completed. Sergeev also yielded to pressure from the military-industrial complex and promised not to purchase new weapon systems in small installments, but to modernize old ones. Most importantly, the minister chose not to get involved in a fight with generals who argued that transitioning to contract-based Armed Forces was not possible. Had Sergeev installed modern thinkers in all key positions (and there are plenty of such men in the Rocket Forces), he might have had more freedom to act. But Igor Dmitrievich was not decisive enough. Instead of breaking the resistance of the generals and introducing progressive elements to the organization, combat training and education of the Armed Forces, Sergeev chose to withdraw into the affairs of his beloved Rocket Forces. This only weakened his position.

A Vicious Circle | 75 A Meaningless Renaissance It soon became apparent that, in the current political situation, all conflicts over reform and development no longer mattered. At the turn of the century, a new leader emerged in Russia who originally saw no need for reform. Vladimir Putin ascended to the highest post in the country believing that his historical mission was to preserve Russia’s territorial integrity, which was under threat from separatists, first and foremost the Chechens. Putin saw the Armed Forces as the ideal tool for solving the problem. Vladimir Putin’s initiatives in the sphere of state building—from creating seven federal okrugs, or drastically limiting the authority of the governors, or giving administrative functions to the Security Council, proceeded from the assumption that the ideal form of governance for Russia is a strictly hierarchical system based on a central authority and the unquestioning obedience of juniors to seniors. This system became known as the power vertical. In the middle of creating this vertical, Putin and his team had to face a direct challenge to its principles in the form of the conflict between Sergeev and Kvashnin. The General Staff chief and deputy defense minister had openly ignored his immediate superior, Defense Minister Igor Sergeev. The country was at war in Chechnya, yet the top Russian generals formed two uncompromising warring camps. Instead of firing Kvashnin for insubordination, Putin and his closest associates, including Security Council Secretary Sergey Ivanov, tried to portray the affair as something of an intellectual discussion among military specialists. Yet it is clear to anyone who knows how the Armed Forces function that, regardless of whether Kvashnin’s plan was good or bad, the chief of the General Staff had blatantly violated the principles of command and control. The president and Security Council secretary, themselves professional officers of the special forces, should have known that. However, both Putin and Ivanov served in a very specific agency where orders, in fact, are not even discussed. Therefore, they had a somewhat romantic notion of

76 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA army rules. Putin simply could not imagine that the generals would sacrifice discipline and subordination to their personal ambitions. As a result, Putin was not able to put the generals in their places. At the close of the memorable August 11 Security Council meeting, Putin acknowledged that he, the commander-in-chief, had been forced to “be tolerant of the polemics that had taken place at the Defense Ministry.”33 In reality, this was his acknowledgment of having been confused. On August 12, the pride of the Russian Navy, the Kursk submarine, sank. This was the moment when the president was able to see exactly how the vertical authority of the Armed Forces functioned in a critical situation. When news of the tragedy came, the country’s military leadership behaved detestably. The admirals recommended that Putin turn down foreign help, claiming (contrary to the fact) that they had everything necessary for a rescue operation. Subsequently, for more than a year, the top military officers made totally unsubstantiated claims that a collision with a foreign submarine had triggered the event. For whatever reason, they were sure they would be able to shift the blame for the disaster onto some “potential enemy.” In their opinion, no one would have to bear responsibility in case when “a potential enemy submarine” had penetrated the exercise site, caused the catastrophe and got away with impunity. Even then, Putin did not grasp how much the Armed Forces needed a thorough restructuring. In an interview with RTR in early September 2000, he seemed to understand that a shortage of financial support was not the single source of problems. “Our Armed Forces,” he said, “must, on the one hand, consider the needs of the country, and on the other hand, the available resources. The army must be compact, but modern, well-paid.”34 But Putin also made a contradictory statement. He said his goal was to “restore the Ground 33

Yuri Golotiuk, “Pobedila druzhba,” Vremia Novostei, August 14, 2000. Natalya Ivanova, “Piar--khod prezidenta?” Nezavisimaia Gazeta, August 25, 2000. 34

A Vicious Circle | 77 Forces and the Navy,” then launched a tirade against the miscreants who, for 10 years, had been supposedly destroying the services. It seemed the commander-in-chief did not fully understand the dilemma: Should Russia develop an Armed Forces adequate for its needs and which it could afford? Or should it reconstruct the Soviet military and Navy? Until this dilemma was resolved, it made no sense to talk about reform. In fact, Putin was in a state of confusion. Not only did the generals lie through their teeth, but the army was not combat-ready in any sense. “For an effective response to terrorists, we needed a group of forces no less than 65,000 strong,” the president told lawmakers in 2006. “Yet there were only 55,000 combat-ready servicemen in the entire Ground Forces, dispersed throughout the country. We had an army 1,400,000 strong, but none able to fight. That’s how we ended up sending into battle kids untested by fire to be butchered.”35 The most important thing Putin learned from the Kursk tragedy was that the top military leadership can mislead the commander-inchief. In April 2001, he decided to deal with this problem in a typically Soviet way. He put in charge of the Defense Ministry a man he completely trusted at that time: Sergey Ivanov. Personalities: A Teflon Shadow In 2001, when people talked about the ability of Sergey Ivanov to influence the situation in Russia, they knew that official posts do not always matter much. Ivanov had a “post” that was higher and more influential than that of a minister or even the prime minister. His position was “the closest personal friend of V.V. Putin.” The president never hesitated to show his personal regard for Sergey Ivanov. As early as in his book First Person, Putin talked about Ivanov as a person in whom he had absolute trust. “There is such a thing as knowing that 35

“Poslanie Federal’nomu sobraniyu,” Kremlin.ru, May 10, 2016, http://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/23577.

78 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA your friend has your back,” Putin said. “I feel Ivanov had my back.”36 Putin and his best friend resembled each other, and not just in outward appearance. This could, to some extent, be explained by the standards KGB recruiters were supposed to follow. But there is more to their resemblance. Both were boys from families of modest means. Both grew up in Leningrad’s communal apartments. Both were passionate about making something of themselves. And both got jobs abroad that secured good incomes. Ivanov grew up without a father. His mother, an engineer at a science research institute, continually looked for additional jobs to provide for her son. She sometimes asked his teachers to watch after Sergey. The boy’s idol was his uncle, a sea captain whose voyages included one to the Falkland Islands. The uncle’s life looked so romantic. Also, he made good money. If Putin’s road to a better life lay through successes in judo, which allowed him to enter university, Sergey Ivanov’s path was through the English language, which he studied in the only magnet school in his district. “He was a hard worker,” his teacher recalled. “Very studious, very unassuming, always prepared. He was very much interested in English. He was one of the best students in his class, but never showed off.” Sergey had an excellent memory and could recite poems by Robert Burns from memory. His teachers remember his excellent performance as Oliver Twist in a school play and how touching he looked in tattered pants. Ivanov had a special talent for languages. He also had an “unquestionably correct” social background, at least as far as the Soviets were concerned. After being active in Komsomol and earning a college degree, he was offered a job in the security services. He graduated from the KGB Higher Courses in Minsk, but almost tripped at this point. Intelligence service work requires that employees be 100 percent healthy. Ivanov, however, turned out to be a bit nearsighted. A personnel officer, whom Sergey Ivanov still talks about with gratitude, suggested a solution: “You’ll start in counterintelligence, 36

N. Gevorkian, A. Kolesnikov, N. Timakova, Ot pervogo litsa: Razgovory s Vladimirom Putinym, Vagrius, 2000.

A Vicious Circle | 79 and later you’ll be able to transfer to intelligence.” He sent Ivanov to the Leningrad KGB administration. That is where Ivanov got the biggest winning ticket of his life: in a “small department of a large organization,” he met the future president of Russia. “We worked together for two years,” he remembered. “We had the same professional interests, we were of the same age and had approximately the same attitude, at times ironic, toward party work within the organs of security… We had the typical relationship that two young fellows would. Subsequently, I left Leningrad, practically for good, but he stayed.”37 Ivanov went through the full special forces training program with the 76thAirborne Division. However, Sergey Borisovich was not enamored of the romantic nature of that service. Years later, when he had to decide which regiment of that division should be cut, Ivanov had no qualms about eliminating the regiment in which he served. As is usual in such cases, we know little about Ivanov’s career in intelligence. Even as he flaunted his secret activities, Sergey Borisovich refused to name the countries where he worked. It is, however, known that he spent 16 weeks at one of Great Britain’s colleges, perfecting his English. In the early 1980s, Ivanov worked in the KGB field office in Finland, tasked with gathering information on Finnish political parties. Finnish authorities were apparently aware of who was working under diplomatic cover and warned local politicians. Still, it appears this “business trip” was successful. Shortly after, Ivanov got a resident assignment in Kenya. Putin may talk about his career in intelligence with a touch of irony (yeah, we drank beer, yeah, we played ping-pong), but Ivanov took himself and his service quite seriously. Absolute secrecy does not, apparently, stand in the way of informing journalists that he received two medals for his secret activities. Sergey Borisovich takes pleasure in talking about the special people the KGB employed. The list of 37

Oleg Roldugin, “77 raz otmerit, no esli poedet — to bez tormozov,” Compromat.ru, February 25, 2003, http://www.compromat.ru/page_25633.htm.

80 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA requirements for applicants extended over 20 typewritten pages, he has said. And only the crème de la crème would be hired. Connections, according to Ivanov, were out of the question. And yet, in the 1980s, a popular joke was that only four types of people worked in field offices abroad under diplomatic cover: CSOs (children of senior officials), WSOs (wives of senior officials), LSOs (lovers of senior officials) and ASPs (accidentally spared personnel).38 Putin is far less enthusiastic than his friend about the service, and has acknowledged that plenty of folks were hired due to their connections. In the early 1990s, Sergey Borisovich had to live on the relatively modest salary of the deputy director of the Office for European Affairs of the Foreign Intelligence Service. Sources close to him say those years, when he suffered the loss of both status and money, left an indelible mark on Ivanov’s personality. He wound up despising democrats. Rumors have it that in the late 1980s, it was Ivanov who helped Vladimir Putin find employment in St. Petersburg after he was fired by the KGB. In 1998, the favor was returned. A month after Putin’s appointment as FSB director, Ivanov became his deputy. A year later, Putin became prime minister, and Ivanov was appointed Security Council secretary. In 2001, he became defense minister. In 2006, he added the job of deputy prime minister. On February 15, 2007, Putin made him the first deputy prime minister and removed him from his post of defense minister. The professional life of Sergey Borisovich runs contrary to the myth that the KGB and Soviet intelligence had the ability to cultivate a very special kind of person, selfless intellectuals with limitless devotion to the motherland, a “new nobility.” Ivanov has a unique view of the world. It is enough to remember his famous statement to 38

In Russian it is: ДОРы (дети ответственных работников), ЖОРы (жёны ответственных работников), ЛОРы (любовницы ответственных работников) и СУКи (случайно уцелевшие кадры). Incidentally, “суки” is a play on words. The word’s actual meaning is “bitches” (translator’s note).

A Vicious Circle | 81 the effect that “If an Israeli agent seeks assistance from a Jew, he can at least hope the guy won’t turn him in.”39 Ivanov also assured reporters that, based on his rich life experience, he knew the entire British economy was controlled by the government. Sergey Ivanov is a typical—far more typical than Putin— representative of the 1980s generation of Cheka operatives. Unlike ordinary citizens, they had the opportunity to observe firsthand how fast Western economies develop and the role that democratic institutions play in them. Yet these folks continued to insist that the Soviet system was the most progressive in the world. The government had systematically brainwashed future intelligence officers. From a tender age on, it was impressed upon them that they were the salt of the earth, the soldiers of an idea so lofty that any means justified its defense. “Today’s colonels and generals,” Evgeni Savostianov, who headed the Moscow oblast directorate of State Security, told me in the early 1990s, “came to work at the organs of state security during the period when, due to the systematic efforts of Andropov, the image of a Cheka operative in literature and cinema was romanticized to the extreme. The training system for those people was built on the idea that the security of their country depended exclusively upon them, and they had no right to blunder. That resulted in their sense that, in principle, they never made mistakes, that they were in possession of some higher knowledge.” The Cheka operatives took the fall of the Soviet Union very hard. They were tormented by a sense of powerlessness and even guilt that they had not been able to save their great country. And they suffered watching how those who just recently had been the objects of their operations were now becoming opinion shapers and tribunes of the people, and getting rich and famous to boot.

39

Sergei Ivanov, “Velika Rossiia, veliki i ee problemy,”Argumenty i Fakty, April 26, 2000.

82 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA This is how the desire was born to protect at least the sphere of defense and security from the incompetent upstarts who sold out to the West. Ivanov firmly believed that the sphere of security was so unique that it unquestionably had to be controlled by the “specialists,” namely, security chiefs. And he definitely counted himself among them. In the early 2001, Sergey Ivanov, by then already Secretary of the president’s Security Council, spoke at the seminar on the future development of the Armed Forces. Having listened to the papers presented by Andrei Kokoshin, Sergey Karaganov, Aleksei Arbatov and others, Ivanov declared he could do without the counsel of civilian so-called experts. “If the parties begin to define the numerical strength of the Armed Forces, then we are in ‘for a swim,’” he told reporters. “One party will tell us we need 20,000, another that we need 20 million, and a third that we need 100 million. We do have a commander-in-chief in our country who decides the question of the numerical strength of our Armed Forces based upon the Defense Ministry recommendation.” Like many with a service rank, FSB Reserve Colonel General Sergey Ivanov had no doubt he was competent in military issues. He tended to side with generals who managed to keep Ivanov’s illusions alive. “The problem is that he, as a professional, senses when you start simplifying your explanation of some complex issue,” a high-ranking military official told me. “He gets angry.” Yet as defense minister, Sergey Borisovich did not believe it necessary to bother with the details of any, even most important, projects and was easily confused about the most elementary things. He never bothered to learn the difference between a sub-unit and a formation; or precisely how many private and sergeant positions had to be turned into contract-based positions – in one interview he mentioned 140,000, in another 130,000; or how many military retirees Russia had. He claimed that to transform the entire army into a contract-based force would require increasing the military budget tenfold. In reality, the transition of onehalf of all enlisted personnel to contracts required 79 billion rubles over five years.

A Vicious Circle | 83 One might be tempted to disregard this intellectual sloppiness— but only if Sergey Ivanov had not also discredited the idea of civilian control over the Armed Forces. He was appointed defense minister immediately after the Kursk tragedy, when the president, to his surprise, realized his generals and admirals had no compunction about lying to him. Ivanov was supposed to be the “tsar’s eyes,” to represent the president in the Defense Ministry. Yet due to his “defense conscience,” instilled by the KGB, he soon became a representative of the generals. He was quite successful in this mission—Putin’s trust came in handy here as well. During Putin’s first term as president, Sergey Ivanov resembled the shadow that is always just a few paces behind its master. Putin pushed the army toward professionalization, while Ivanov argued it would be too costly. After September 11, 2001, Ivanov announced that establishing NATO bases on the territory of the CIS was not possible to imagine, even “in theory.” But Putin, a few days later, gave his blessing to it. During Putin’s second and third terms, the shadow merged with the master and imposed its will on him. Putin liked to repeat Ivanov’s nonsense about the successes of military development. The president enthusiastically put on the agenda of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization the demand that the US withdraw its bases from Central Asian territory. He talked increasingly often about miraculous warheads capable of cutting through the American missile defense system. He began to compare Russia to a bear whose claws and fangs (meaning its nuclear arms) the scheming West was trying to remove in order to skin him. Ivanov was rising to assume the role of a semi-official successor to Putin as president. A year before the election, in February 2007, he left the post of defense minister. In this way, Putin freed him from the necessity to continually find excuses for the fact that the army was still plagued by dedovshchina and corruption. However, it was precisely at this moment, when the door to the presidency seemed open to him, that Ivanov failed the most important test—the test of loyalty to V. V.

84 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA Putin. In the latter part of 2007, Putin started to look for a stakeholder, someone who would formally head the government but also be an obedient executor of Putin’s orders. Putin had to make the most important decision of his life, and he could not be sentimental or worry about a friend who “had his back” or had given him favors in the distant past. The candidates had to be tested thoroughly. All of a sudden, the government-controlled television channels seemed to have forgotten Dmitry Medvedev and concentrated exclusively on praising Ivanov’s virtues. A week later, however, the situation was reversed. In essence, it had been a test of the candidates’ self-respect. He who displayed even a minimum of integrity, who refused to play the role of a complete puppet, would be doomed to failure. And Ivanov did fail. In September 2007, Putin unexpectedly fired Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov. But he lingered for a couple of hours before announcing his replacement. In the meantime, it became known, based on “reliable” sources, that Sergey Borisovich would become the new prime minister. During those two hours, people close to Ivanov managed to make a few phone calls to “friends” and “enemies” of the supposed new prime minister, promising high posts to the former and punishment to the latter. At a meeting that day with important foreign experts at the Valdai Club, someone asked Ivanov a flattering question: Were Putin and he so intelligent and smart because they had gone through Soviet KGB training? In response, Ivanov angrily said he actually had achieved far more than Putin during their time in the KGB. This Putin does not forgive, not even those closest to him. Ivanov unquestionably did not pass the “bride show” for the role of successor. Without any explanation, he was demoted from first deputy prime minister to simply deputy prime minister. Ivanov was the only one Putin forgot to include when he defined the objectives and assignments of ministries. The Kremlin press secretary’s office later clarified that Ivanov was “coordinating the government’s policy for the development of those industries that serve the militaryindustrial complex, transportation and communications; as well as policy toward science, government armaments programs, defense

A Vicious Circle | 85 procurement and acquisition and the program of development of defense, nuclear and airspace industry programs, program for securing national defense, and providing necessary facilities for state borders.” People familiar with boss psychology claim that this is exactly how big bosses forget and completely efface from their mind those they are indebted to or used to be friends with. As time went by, Sergey Ivanov managed to gain back the trust of his boss and was appointed chief of staff of the president’s administration. For all intents and purposes, this made him the country’s second in command. All of the dumb things he had done and said did not seem to have affected his role. These included his awkward explanation of why he had allowed the embezzlement of funds allocated for the creation of the GLONASS global positioning system. Supposedly, he had been warned by law enforcement and kept his mouth shut in order to not scare the crooks away. In August 2016, however, Ivanov was fired without explanation. He received a position invented especially for him: assistant to the president for transportation and ecology. He did, however, retain his seat at the Security Council, Putin’s equivalent to a politburo. It cannot be excluded that the master might still need his shadow again someday. Running in Circles (for a Lot of Money) When Sergey Ivanov was appointed defense minister in 2001, the sky seemed the limit for a man who was considered something close to Putin’s alter ego. As secretary of the Security Council, Ivanov developed materials for the president’s most important decisions, such as the creation of seven federal okrugs to strengthen the vertical of administrative power. It was under his leadership that work on a new military doctrine and conception of Armed Forces development for the period ending in 2005 was completed. His appointment was supposed to not only put an end to the conflict between his predecessor, Marshal Sergeev, and chief of the General Staff Anatoly Kvashnin, but also to restore discipline and the

86 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA unity of command in the Defense Ministry. It appeared that no one, not even the daredevil General Kvashnin, would have the audacity to act over the head of a personal friend of Vladimir Putin. It was clear to everyone that, under this president, the army would be dealing with a different sort of man—and there would be very serious changes in the military sphere. One can clearly see why the president did this. The sinking of the Kursk and the “antiterrorist operation” in Chechnya that went nowhere demonstrated the scale of the degradation of the army mechanism. In addition to his wide powers, Sergey Ivanov had the financial resources that would allow him to reach his goals. The dream of the Russian military had finally materialized under Putin: The defense budget began to rise by 20 percent every year. What made it possible was the steadily rising price of oil and natural gas on the international market. The “intellectual” from the foreign intelligence service, the former chief of the analytical department of FSB, was supposed to see from a mile away the tricks the generals used to sabotage military reform. Yet Sergey Ivanov, who was supposed to be Putin’s plenipotentiary in the Defense Ministry, quickly began to represent the interests of the top brass. It would be a mistake to think the generals had somehow subjugated Ivanov. It is more likely that the views of Sergey Borisovich were quite close to those espoused by the top Russian military commanders, who preferred to think in categories of global war. An analyst close to the Kremlin notes that for the greater part of the 1990s, Putin was serving as Sobchak’s deputy and learning the fundamentals of a market economy. Sergey Borisovich, meanwhile, was angrily watching events from the headquarters of the Foreign Intelligence Service in Yasenevo. If Putin’s goal was to undertake military reform, he made an obvious personnel blunder. A particular trait of Sergey Borisovich’s personality leads him to favor those over whom he feels absolute intellectual superiority. He appointed General Nikolai Kormil’tsev deputy commander of the Ground Forces, although Kormil’tsev was of the opinion that the central issue of military reform was whether each unit did or did not have a vegetable garden. During his tenure as

A Vicious Circle | 87 Security Council secretary, Ivanov accepted Kvashnin’s “simple” idea of drastically cutting the RSMF. Because Ivanov, like them, saw the biggest threat to Russia’s security coming from the West, these “simple soldiers” and buddies easily manipulated the defense minister. Kvashnin, who lay low during the first few months of Ivanov’s appointment, soon started feeling at home and began to act behind the minister’s back. As a result, despite Ivanov’s analytical abilities, he was doomed to repeat the nonsense that the generals fed him. Eventually, in October 2003, Kvashnin managed to push through the presidential decree “On Delimitation of Functions of the Defense Ministry and the General Staff,” which handed almost complete control of the military to the General Staff. The Draft Syndrome It became apparent during the first few weeks of Ivanov’s tenure that he had no intention of going beyond the framework of the “Plan for the Development of the Armed Forces for the Period Ending in 2005.” Like previous projects, this plan was reduced to cuts in military personnel and some structural changes. It initially appeared that Kvashnin had managed to convince both the president and the new defense minister that the Armed Forces leadership would improve if the functions of the ministry and the General Staff were to be “divided.” He proposed to leave political and administrative functions to the ministry and hand over to the General Staff operational leadership of the Armed Forces. This did not make much sense. Military districts, after all, have both administrative and operational functions. The result of the proposed division would be that, at best, the Defense Ministry and the General Staff would be doomed to duplicate each other. At worst, their orders would push and pull the commands of the military districts in different directions. If these ideas had been put into practice, direct communication between the commander-in-chief and the troops would have been

88 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA broken. At the same time, the agency planning military actions for all eventualities would be given the right to get directly involved in politics. In essence, the Russian General Staff would have the same rights as the German General Staff of the early 20th century. German generals consistently chose confrontation and imposed it upon the imperial leadership. The result was World War I—and Germany’s defeat in that war. Apparently, when they started to implement the plan of dividing the functions of the General Staff and the Defense Ministry, it dawned on the Kremlin that this could be very dangerous. The plan was canceled while in progress. As a result, the decision was made to hand responsibility for all combat training to the Ground Forces commander. This made the already complicated system of command of Armed Forces even more confusing. Ivanov announced that structural changes were the most important elements of reform. Three years before his arrival, the functions of the office of the commander-in-chief of the Ground Forces had been transferred to the General Staff and the Airspace and Missile Defense Forces had been merged with the RSMF. But now, in 2001, the supposed most important element of reform had become exactly the opposite: separating the Airspace Forces from the RSMF and reestablishing the office of the commander-in-chief of the Ground Forces. It is astonishing that the same generals argued in favor of both the initial reform and its reversal. That says a lot about the lack of moral fortitude and professionalism among the officers of the General Staff. Ivanov’s explanations for why existing structures had to be broken up yet again and new ones created looked naïve at best. The defense minister informed reporters that, to begin, he intended to concentrate on creating Aerospace Forces, a new service that would be formed from military space and missile defense forces and outside the control of the RSMF. Ivanov was quite serious when he claimed that the Airspace Forces would be able to provide support for Russian small units on a tactical level. Someone must have given the minister incomplete information, or simply lied to him. Otherwise, Ivanov

A Vicious Circle | 89 would have known that the Russian Airspace Forces had half the number of satellites the Americans did. US satellites actually can provide support for tactical army units. He also would have known that more than 70 percent of Russian satellites were, at that time, beyond their expected service life. It was not certain they could satisfactorily perform their intended tasks: strategic reconnaissance, missile attack warning, and communications. Ivanov had insufficient funds to maintain the existing satellites, let alone acquire additional ones. The commander of the Aerospace Forces, General Anatoly Perminov, had earlier reported that in 2003–2005 his service needed to have 60–65 military satellites and 16 dual-purpose satellites. The general believed this number of satellites would be sufficient only to cover the “black holes” in Russia’s ballistic missile defenses. No one believed the Aerospace Forces could propel the army to a new level of battle readiness —something Ivanov specifically mentioned. It is hard to tell whether the Russian president believed the “Plan for the Development of the Armed Forces for the Period Ending in 2005” actually was a plan for reform. The events that followed demonstrated that the commander-in-chief was becoming irritated that the significant funds he had committed to the Armed Forces had brought no improvement. And he had to be aware that in the near future Russia would inevitably fall into a “demographic black hole” due to the falling birth rate of the second half of the 1980s. There would simply be not enough draft-age men. “In 2006, the percentage of those registered for military service will be falling in a nearly geometrical progression,” Vladislav Putilin, then chief of the Main Organizational-Mobilization Directorate of the General Staff told journalists in April 2002. “If we do nothing, the Armed Forces and other power structures will stand at 49 to 53 percent of full strength.”40 The General Staff proposed to abolish all draft deferments. This measure could have negatively affected Putin’s popularity. Still, the 40

“Vesennij prizyv v rossijskuyu armiyu,” Svoboda.org, April 3, 2002, http://www.svoboda.org/content/transcript/24226569.html.

90 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA generals succeeded in convincing the president that, at a time when the US administration was pulling out of the ABM Treaty and creating a ballistic missile defense system aimed at achieving absolute superiority over Russia, abandoning a mass army was not a good idea. All of this changed on September 11, 2001. The heinous act of terror that destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City forced both Russia and the West to radically reconsider their relationship. The US and its western European allies took the risk of seeing Russia as an ally, or at least a reliable partner. The Russian president made it clear that, under his leadership, the country was prepared to build a new relationship. The partnership with the West rendered absurd the arguments of those who insisted that Russia should prepare for global war and therefore needs a mass army. The more serious the talk about rapprochement was, however, the more clearly the West signaled that, with the kind of army Russia had, cooperation would be quite limited. Moscow, perforce, had to apply to itself the same requirements developed for NATO-member states. The requirements were meant to assure real political and military cooperation. Only transparent military budgets can make it possible for three dozen states to plan for long-term military programs. Only well-established democratic institutions can guarantee that the military will not influence political decisions and push the alliance into a reckless military campaign. Fulfilling these requirements guarantees a high level of mutual trust among member states. Putin’s intent to broaden cooperation with the West in the sphere of security required far more radical reforms than the Defense Ministry was ready to carry out. The fall of 2001 turned out to be a difficult time for Russian generals. On November 12, on the day of his departure for the United States to meet with George W. Bush, Putin held a forum at the Defense Ministry. In his speech, he wanted, on the one hand, to reassure the generals and, on the other, to let them know he was not satisfied with their work. As a result, each new point he made contradicted the preceding one (which was a characteristic of Putin’s leadership style

A Vicious Circle | 91 in the 2000s). According to Putin, the major success of 2001 was the production of “fundamental strategic documents,” namely a national security concept and a military doctrine. The president said that in these documents, “We correctly identified the character of new threats to Russia’s national security.”41 But his very next point was that, in view of the new situation, serious “clarifications” of defense policy were required. The president claimed that “we finally have moved from endless conversations to concrete plans for reforming the army.”42 Immediately after that, he emphasized that only about 50 percent of the goals set for 2001 had been achieved. The generals’ troubles continued after Putin returned from America. On November 26, the presidential press secretary’s office unexpectedly announced that during his meeting with Prime Minister Mikhail Kasianov Putin signed a document on a step-by-step transition to a professional army. This came as a total surprise to the defense minister and the chief of the General Staff, both of whom were away from Moscow at the time. Politicians caught on to the change in the president’s mood before the military did. The Alliance of Right Forces (SPS) and Yabloko announced that military reform was their first priority. Both parties went beyond declarations. They developed serious projects for transitioning the Armed Forces to a contract-based organization. The Defense Ministry had a hard time shrugging off these projects under the pretext of a lack of competence of the authors. The SPS, for instance, had been able to involve specialists from the Academy of Military Sciences, including its head, General Makhmut Gareev, a former deputy chief of the General Staff for military science. As full of contradictions as this project was, the generals were quite intimidated by its focus. Gareev was well-known in military 41

“Vstupitel’noe slovo na soveshchanii s rukovodyashchim sostavom Vooruzhennyh Sil Rossii,” Kremlin.ru, November 12, 2001, http://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/21395. 42 Ibid.

92 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA circles for his uncanny ability to understand which way the wind blows from the Kremlin. As early as the mid-2000s, several years before the Kremlin officially labeled colored revolutions a “new form of war,” Gareev had started talking about the necessity to respond to non-military threats with military means. At that time, the former deputy chief of the Soviet General Staff did allow, with many reservations, for the possibility of a transition to volunteer Armed Forces over a period of six years. SPS leader Boris Nemtsov was persistent in attempting to get the country’s top leadership to look at the project. The Defense Ministry bureaucrats had to yield. They could not pull the wool over Putin’s or Kasianov’s eyes the same way Sergey Ivanov did with reporters when he said it was necessary to rearm the army before transitioning to a contract-based organization. But the president and the prime minister knew that there would not be any re-arming in the near future. Rather, there would be a certain limited “modernization” of military technology and the development of weapons that could go into production over the next decade. Putilin, chief of the Organizational-Mobilization Directorate of the General Staff, acknowledged that the alternative projects had forced the military to accelerate work that had already been going on for two years. In reality, though, to beat off the liberal projects, the “defenselings” had to concoct a memorandum under the amazing title: “Materials on Carrying out Measures Related to Transitioning Part of the Military Positions by the Personnel Serving in the Military to a Contract Basis.” It is clear from the title alone that the document was written with the aim of delaying the transition to a volunteer army for as long as possible, perhaps forever. Its essence was that in 2002– 2004, the military was going to put together a federal program of transition to a contract-based army and calculate the future costs. Actual work on the transition would begin in 2005, when one division of every power structure would be manned by volunteers. In the Armed Forces, this role was reserved for the Pskov Airborne Division. Putin did not want to wait that long. He was tired of his generals’ endless promises to complete their “research” on the topic of the

A Vicious Circle | 93 transition to a professional army. Putin went beyond just signing documents based on the proposals by the experts from the SPS and the Academy of Military Sciences. Egor Gaidar and Boris Nemtsov, each of them a persona non grata as far as the military was concerned, were notably invited to a December 2001 government session devoted specifically to the transition to a contract-based army. Under unrelenting pressure from the Kremlin, the time to prepare for the transition was significantly reduced. The Defense Ministry had originally proposed to continue “research” until the end of 2003. Now, according to Deputy Defense Minister Liubov Kudrina, it was obligated to present estimates by March 2002. However, the generals were not yet ready to surrender. This was something that affected their interests, after all, and it did not take long for the General Staff to strike back. In January 2002, the deputy chief of the OrganizationalMobilization Directorate of the General Staff, Lieutenant-General Vasyli Smirnov, unexpectedly announced that the Defense Ministry had sent to the government a proposal for amending the law “On Military Obligation and Military Service.” The amendments would effectively abolish deferments for higher education students, reserving this privilege only for students at colleges that met government requirements for educating specialists in certain areas. The list of these colleges would supposedly be coordinated with the Ministry of Education. As for students who were of “no use to the government,” the General Staff proposed that they be conscripted as early as 2004. Making sure young people did not hide from fulfilling their sacred duty in lecture halls, the generals hurried to cut off their escape route. The military also decided to give a final burial to the law “On Alternative Civil Service.” As is well known, the right to such service is guaranteed by the constitution. However, due to resistance by the military, it took eight years to adapt the law that would regulate the application of this right. In the meantime, constant dripping wears away a stone. Around 2,000 potential conscripts a year declared their wish to do alternative service, and some of them successfully defended in court their right to do so. The mayors of Nizhni Novgorod, Perm

94 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA and Vladimir, citing the constitution, set up alternative service on their territories. During the winter and spring of 2001, three different versions of the law were presented to the Duma. Several major points were discussed. Should a young man prove that his convictions do not allow him to serve in the army? Should the term for the alternative service be longer than for military service? Should one be allowed to serve in proximity to one’s residence? Could one serve and go to school at the same time? The military insisted that the “alternativists” should not have it easier than conscripts. “The alternative service is meant to replace the military service, so why should we make it more appealing?” asked General Smirnov. One of the bills circulating in the Duma was put together by Generals Nikolai Bezborodov and Andrei Nikolaev, the latter who was also chair of the Duma Defense Committee. This was totally in step with the wishes of the Defense Ministry. It appeared, though, that this was not enough. General Staff chief Kvashnin proposed his own draconian bill at a government session in January 2002. According to this proposal, a draft-age young man had to present to the recruiting station documents confirming his right to enter alternative service. Alternative service would be extended to four years and would follow an extraterritorial principle. Alternativists could serve in the Armed Forces as civilian personnel and, naturally, any chance of continuing their education would be excluded. It seemed at first that the General Staff suffered a defeat. Education Minister Vladimir Filippov publicly expressed his disbelief at the military initiatives to get rid of student deferments. The Duma passed some amendments to the law on deferments that were exactly the opposite of what the military proposed: Students younger than 20 were not to be drafted at all, and students of vocational and technical schools were not only allowed to graduate but to also enter university. As far as the generals were concerned, Kvashnin was publicly humiliated when his bill was sent back for reworking. Prime Minister Mikhail Kasianov saw it fit to draw the press’ attention to this fact. However, it appeared the General Staff had not been counting on a

A Vicious Circle | 95 quick victory. The main objective of their proposals was to mount a psychological attack on society. They saw profit in the concessions of the developers of the liberal bill. In the version of the bill proposed by the SPS, the draft was not canceled altogether. The army of the future, in the opinion of Makhmut Gareev, must consist not only of volunteers, but also of draftees, who would have to go through six to eight months of basic training. It is these draftees who would then form the so-called mobilization reserve. Opponents of a contractbased army presented the loss of this reserve as a dangerous step. The generals tried to turn a slight hole into a large gap. The chief of the Organizational-Mobilizational Directorate of the General Staff, Colonel-General Putilin, argued that if the term of service was shortened, more people would have to be drafted. The General Staff’s campaign of intimidation included threatening to abolish the deferments and the draconian law on alternative service. Another measure of intimidation was the practice of grabbing young people off the Moscow streets and subway stations under the pretext of checking their documents. Within 24 hours, recruiting stations had put together papers that sent these young men to the Armed Forces. In the fall of 2001, the military made a major effort to deny that they had anything to do with those police raids, in which several thousand people were taken to recruitment stations because they could not prove they had a deferment. Defense Ministry bureaucrats put the blame on zealous law enforcement officers. In the spring of 2002, General Putilin said that “If you call ‘raids’ the law enforcement initiative to catch those subject to draft who have been evading their responsibility to show up at the recruitment stations, then these will continue, since they are within the law.”43 Thus, the draft campaign of 2002–2003 was characterized by blatant lawlessness. The objective of these escapades by the General Staff was to demonstrate to society the strength of the top brass’ position. 43

Salavat Suleimanov, “V nashei armii shtyki, chai, naidutsia,” Nezavisimaia Gazeta, April 10, 2002.

96 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA One has to acknowledge that, to a large extent, Putin yielded to them. A direct order from the Kremlin is the only way to explain the stunt of Labor Minister Aleksandr Pochinok. He unabashedly abandoned, in the middle of the Duma session, the alternative service bill already approved in committee and expressed support for the version proposed by the military. As a result, the “alternativists” had to serve twice as long as draftees. At the same time, the president continued to demand clear plans for putting the Armed Forces on a contract footing. In early March 2002, while visiting the 76thAirborne Division in Pskov, Defense Minister Ivanov announced that a decision had already been made to begin the experiment of putting that entire formation on a contract footing. “By mid-2003,” he said, “we will be able to present on paper, in concrete terms, without bluffing, how much it will cost to maintain a contract-based army.”44 Army bureaucrats directed their efforts toward making sure that the experiment with the 76th Division would fail (or would be announced to have failed). The first line of attack was carried out on the financial battlefield. In December 2001, General Putilin claimed that to switch one division to contract footing would require 500,000,000 rubles. But the generals decided that this figure might actually not scare the president. So, before a meeting that the defense minister was conducting at the Pskov Division, the general presented to reporters a different figure: One billion rubles. After the meeting, it turned into several billion. In May, Ivanov announced the final estimate of 2.6 billion rubles. This included expenses for military equipment maintenance and for refilling battle reserves (as if the divisions manned by draftees did not need to maintain military equipment or refill battle reserves). The estimate also included expenditures for returning from Chechnya the regimental tactical group of the 76th Division. In the opinion of the generals, the salaries of the volunteers (at that time no less than 5,000 44

Yuri Moiseenko, Ilya Bulavinov, “Sergey Ivanov stroit armiiu na bumage,” Kommersant, March 6, 2002.

A Vicious Circle | 97 rubles per month) were not the major expense. Rather, the costliest item was the creation of new infrastructure. They demanded that each soldier be provided with a rent-free one-bedroom apartment. It is worth noting that not a single other Russian agency, neither the prosecutor-general’s office nor the FSB, has ever required that the government provide apartments for all its employees. And no other professional army is built on the assumption that everyone who signs a contract will necessarily serve until retiring with benefits. The generals emphasized, not without malicious glee, that funds for such an “experiment” had not been allocated in the budget for 2002 and that, if the government wishes to start this initiative in the fall, it has to somehow come up with additional billions. But the president continued to pressure them, and additional funds were allocated. At that point, the military claimed it would not be able to form two regiments of volunteers because there was simply not enough volunteers to go around. A separate intrigue was connected to the 76th Division. Airborne Forces commander Georgi Shpak was convinced that the choice of the division for the project was due to it being one of the best divisions in the Armed Forces. But there were many who believed that the General Staff had purposely set up the experiment for failure and intended to blame it on Shpak, whom the distrustful Anatoly Kvashnin considered yet another rival. However, someone, perhaps SPS leader Boris Nemtsov, who at that time had access to the president, explained to Putin that the final result of the Pskov experiment will be no apartments and no professional army. In September 2002, the commander-in-chief ordered the creation of a commission that would do preparatory work for a debate at the government session on November 21. The representatives of the SPS, who were included in the commission, claimed they had won a heavy trench war with the General Staff. The media began to talk about the “historic abolition of the draft misery.” It seemed they were right because, in a letter to lawmakers, Putin

98 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA announced that military reform, along with doubling GDP and conquering poverty, was the most important goal of the state. Yet “The Federal Targeted Program for Transition to Filling Military Positions with Contracted Military Personnel” demonstrated that the Defense Ministry had managed to win once again. It is true that the ministry suffered heavy losses—the SPS reformers were able to get discarded the proposal that each volunteer be provided with a rent-free apartment. A decision was made, Ivanov announced, to house volunteers in bunk-rooms of a “seamen quarters” type. The other problem for the Defense Ministry was that the timeframe for carrying out reform had changed. The transition to the volunteer army was to take place during 2004–2007. The Defense Ministry had planned to stretch it to 2011. The military had to accept what a little while ago had been hard to imagine. Beginning in 2005, the Defense Ministry was prohibited from sending conscripts to the “hot spots” of Chechnya and Tajikistan. Beginning 2008, the term of military service for conscripts had to be reduced to one year. The Defense Ministry also agreed there was a need to create the institution of non-commissioned officers, not only for units and formations of permanent combat readiness, but also for the entire Armed Forces. It would appear that, finally, the key problems had been placed at the center of military reform. Yet the events that followed demonstrated that, once again, the Defense Ministry was able to push inane solutions to those problems. According to the reform plan, there would be two armies in the Armed Forces. The first would be a traditional one, manned by draftees. And the other one would consist of units and formations of permanent combat-readiness. The personnel serving in them would concentrate entirely on combat training and would not waste time on housekeeping. An enlisted man in such a unit would be paid around 6,000 rubles, around the same amount that a commander with 15 years of service in a “traditional” battalion (i.e., manned by draftees) was paid. Theoretically, it might have been acceptable, if it had been made clear from the beginning, that the number of “regiments of the new

A Vicious Circle | 99 type” would steadily increase while those of the “traditional type” would decrease until they disappeared altogether. This is where reform would go eight years later. But in the plan approved in 2003, no such thing was mentioned. “The compulsory military service is here to stay forever,” was the defense minister’s mantra, something he repeated again and again. In early December 2002, in his speech to Ryazan Airborne School cadets, the president confirmed that no reform would eliminate the draft system. It was here to stay. Putin made it abundantly clear why conscript soldiers are necessary. “Someone has to guard weapons depots, someone has to do other difficult army work—you cannot replace everyone with contract personnel.”45 The commander-in-chief understood that draftees are needed not for defending the homeland, but mostly for housekeeping jobs. The generals got what they had been fighting for. Proponents of a speedy transition to a contract-based army thought that, having agreed to keep a six-month service draft, they had reached an acceptable compromise. In reality, they had provided a widening hole for the generals. Keeping the draft alive and, by implication, the “mobilization reserve,” allowed them to maintain a mass army of the most worm-eaten Soviet type. It followed that there would be no critical changes to the combat training of the permanent readiness units. “During the first six months following the completion of the 100 percent manning of one airborne regiment by contract servicemen, military personnel will have to go through individual training and team building on the level of detachment, platoon, company, and battalion,” Sergey Ivanov said. “During the next six months, there will be a real-time inspection of this specific regiment’s readiness to effectively carry out a combat 45

Stenograficheskii otchet o vstreche s kursantami Ryazanskogo instituta vozdushno-desantnykh voisk imeni generala armii V.F.Margelova, Kremlin.ru, November 29, 2002, http://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/21795.

100 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA mission in a ‘flashpoint,’ in this case the Chechen Republic.”46As a result, the “contract regiment” was doomed to perform in combat only a bit better than units manned by conscripts, which was demonstrated in the Russia-Georgia war of 2008. Under the existing system of combat training, it is easier to throw into combat 18-yearold boys than grown men. Experienced NCOs could have played a decisive role here. However, after agreeing that such an institution was necessary, the Defense Ministry never cared to create a special school for NCOs. The ministry hoped that graduates of regular boot camps, after a few months of service, would be pressured into signing a contract. Naturally, without special education and experience, these so-called sergeants would not be able to make their peers, who had served in the army an equal amount of time, obey their instructions. It is clear that the new army needed a new kind of officer, a person who would devote his life to continuous self-improvement in the military profession and who had an education in the humanities, which is necessary to become a true leader. Yet the Defense Ministry was moving in the opposite direction—it proposed to reduce military education from five to four years. The goal was to keep a soldier in the military by depriving him of a “civilian” higher education diploma. The military establishment calculated the situation effectively. Nothing would prevent the generals from claiming that the units of permanent combat-readiness were not any different from draft units in terms of battle readiness or discipline. Therefore, a professional army was not needed at all. There is a reason to believe that in early fall 2003, Putin familiarized himself with reform proposals that, if carried out, could fundamentally change the Armed Forces. The way to transition to a professional army is well known. The Americans did it 40 years ago, and the French did it in the 1990s. The reform envisions a decisive reduction in the number of large formations and, as a consequence, discharging a large number of officers serving in those formations. 46

Rossiiskaia Gazeta, January 14, 2001.

A Vicious Circle | 101 The president apparently saw this as too radical. Whoever would accept responsibility for carrying out this reform would play the same role in regard to the Armed Forces as Egor Gaidar did in regard to the Russian economy. The fate of such a reformer was easy to imagine. He would be hated by a large part of the officer corps. Putin did not take the risk of going that route. Besides, for him and his close associates, it was important to preserve the universal draft (at least formally) as the harshest tax—a centuries-long tradition of every male citizen’s duty to the state. On October 2, 2003, during an enlarged meeting at the Defense Ministry attended by the president, Sergey Ivanov announced that the military reform had been completed. From this point on, the government would begin force development. He presented the participants with a 70-page document entitled “Current Objectives in the Development of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.” It was clear from this document that the military leadership understood “reform” as merely a reduction in numerical strength and some structural changes. It did not touch upon fundamental principles of the Armed Forces’ organization, such as manning, education, and terms and conditions of service. In November 2003, Ivanov confidently reported to the president that “we were able to complete the most painful period of reforming the Armed Forces and are now transitioning to their normal life and combat training.”47 In the opinion of the defense minister, there were just two more things left to do, and quite easy ones: reintegrate the Railway Troops into the Armed Forces and merge with them the Special Construction Troops. The commander-in-chief did not object. As a result, the concept of “reform” simply disappeared from the texts of official statements and reports, replaced by the word “modernization.” In the Defense Ministry, “modernization” was used in reference to the Federal Targeted Program (FTP), approved in 47

Vitali Denisov. “Gotovnost’ k otrazheniiu zavtrashnikh ugroz,” Krasnaia Zvezda, November 19, 2003.

102 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA summer 2003, aimed at partially shifting the Armed Forces to contract footing and transitioning to a one-year term of service for draftees by 2008. Secondly, it referred to the implementation of the program of rearmament. I believe that it could be beneficial to analyze the results of this modernization, in order to understand whether it did, at least partially, respond to the military challenges of the time and thus lead to the creation of that “innovative army,” of which Putin spoke in his programmatic speech before the State Council “On the Strategy of Russia’s Development during the Period Ending in 2020.”48 The Contract Pyramid The Defense Ministry began to sabotage the FTP from day one. In particular, no changes were initiated on how recruitment stations were to operate. The job of enlisting volunteers never became a priority. In fact, from the very start of the implementation process, the Defense Ministry was involved in shenanigans. In 2003, it announced that the main objective was to put the 76th Airborne Division on contract footing as an “experiment.” In 2004, the 42nd Motorized Rifle Division deployed in Chechnya was supposed to be transformed into a 100 percent volunteer-manned force. Despite the salary of 15,000 rubles, no volunteers showed up. Then the Defense Ministry resorted to manipulations. It simply transferred more than 1,000 paratroopers from the 76thAirborne Division that had been deployed in Chechnya to the 42nd Division of the Ground Forces. In this way, they counted the contract servicemen twice: first in the 76th Division and then in the 42nd. Thereafter, the FTP acquired the look of a classic Ponzi scheme. Conscripts were corralled, often with violence bordering on torture, and termed “professionals” (conscripts with no more than six months

48

Kremlin.ru, February 8, 2008, http://www.kremlin.ru/appears/2008/02/08/1542_type63374type63378type 82634_159528.shtml.

A Vicious Circle | 103 of service constituted 80 percent of so-called “contract soldiers”).49 These 18-year-old men, obviously not steeped in legal matters, were promised that after two years they could break the contract if they wanted to. Officials would then send a report to Moscow on the successful manning of another contract-based unit.50 The official plan required a minimum of three years of service. However, many soldiers left after two years. One of hundreds, if not thousands, of such cases is described in a letter below received by the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers in Orlovskaia oblast. Affidavit. I, citizen M. (the editors’ desk of Ezhednevnyi Zhurnal has the real name of the author of this affidavit) was serving in unit No. 73864 deployed in the town of Kovrovо, beginning 06.05.03. On 05.25.04, I was transferred to Khankala51to serve in unit No. 98311 deployed there. On 10.15.04, during the change of guard, the battalion commander told me that I was a contract serviceman, but I had signed no documents whatsoever and never agreed to it. On May 24, 2005, before my furlough, my commander explained to me that, if I am not back in my unit within 10 days, I would be automatically transferred into reserve, and my papers would be forwarded from Khankala tо Livny raion Recruitment Center (RRC) showing that I was transferred to the reserve. Right before I left I was told that my papers for the transfer had been processed. Upon arriving in Livny, I immediately went to Livny RRC, but I was told that I did not have my orders to be registered

49

Newtimes.ru, January 10, 2008, http://newtimes.ru/teletype/200801101199962219/. 50 Aleksandr Golts, “Profanatsiia,” Ezhednevnyi Zhurnal, April 17, 2006, http://ej.ru/?a=note&id=3569. 51 Khankala is a suburb of Grozny, in Chechnya (translator’s note).

104 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA there. After which I called my unit in Khankala a number of times. They told me over the phone that my papers had been forwarded to Livny RRC, and that the papers show I had been transferred to the reserve, so I did not need orders to register there. Lyvny RRC sent me to the Orel garrison military prosecutor’s office to get their help in figuring out this situation. At the prosecutor’s office, I was told that they could not help me at all because my case should be handled by the Khankala prosecutor’s office. Signature. 04.03.2006 It appears that “father-commanders” were solving two problems at once. They got the necessary number of “volunteers” by the date a report was due. They also generously lined their pockets. It is logical to assume that young men had been listed as contract servicemen long before they were told about it. And they remained on the rosters after they had been discharged and sent home. It is telling that, according to representatives of the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia, the author of the above deposition, like most other soldiers forcibly turned into contract servicemen, is a country boy. On the one hand, a person can live for a while without proper identification papers in a place where everyone knows him. On the other hand, to get to the recruitment station and demand his papers would require a major effort on the part of a young man like him. There is little doubt that, having failed to complete the manning of one division a year (the 76th in 2003 and the 42nd in 2004) with contract servicemen, the Defense Ministry could not possibly fill 40 units and formations with contract soldiers in 2005, as the program required. Yet on November 1, 2005, General Smirnov cheerfully reported that 70 percent of the program had been completed. This actually means that two months before the deadline, there was still one-third of the program to be completed. But the general was certain of success. That is because he knew how it would be achieved. By November-December, training in the boot

A Vicious Circle | 105 camps for the spring draftees had ended. Draftees had been pushed into contracts by hook or by crook. A bit later, when their term of service was over, officials would claim they had deserted. It is telling that in 2008 (i.e., immediately upon completion of the FTP) Chief Military Prosecutor Sergey Fridinskii reported 7,000 deserters.52 Initially, to comply with the program,53 147,600 men were supposed to be shifted to contracts by January 1, 2008. Sergey Ivanov started getting confused. In some interviews,54 he claimed that by January 1, 2008, 144,000 enlisted men and noncommissioned officers would be shifted to contracts. In other interviews, he gave a different number: 133,000. The minister’s aides explained that the 11,000-soldier gap was due to the fact that several units of Border Troops and Internal Troops were also supposed to be shifted to contracts. However, 133,000 turned out not to be manageable. According to pages 78–79 of “100 Questions—100 Answers”55 on the Defense Ministry’s official website, only 121,000 servicemen were supposed to be shifted to contracts. This means that the program had shrunk by one division. They had decided to continue manning the 104th Airborne Division with draftees. The number of units and formations that were supposed to be shifted to contract servicemen went up, from 72 to 81. Here, the military was aided by the tricky combination of words, “units and formations,” that was used in the FTP. If the transition to contracts of 52

V 2008 godu iz rossiiskoi armii dezertirovali sem' tysiach kontraktnikov, Lenta.ru, February 11, 2009, http://lenta.ru/news/2009/02/11/deserters/. 53 Postanovlenie Pravitel’stva RF ot 25 avgusta 2003 g. N 523, “O federal'noi tselevoi programme ‘Perekhod k komplektovaniiu voennosluzhashchimi, prokhodiashchimi voennuiu sluzhbu po kontraktu, riada soedinenii i voinskikh chastei na 2004–2007 gody,” Garant.ru, http://base.garant.ru/1594195/. 54 “Studenty poidut na vse, chtoby izbezhat' prizyva v armiiu,” Newsru.com, May19, 2005, https://www.newsru.com/russia/19may2005/students.html. 55 “100 otvetov – 100 voprosov”, Mil.ru, http://www.mil.ru/files/100.pdf.

106 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA one division (formation) fails, it could be implemented for one or two regiments (units) that were part of that division. As a result, when presenting their report on the successful completion of the FTP by January 1, 2008, the military was talking about only 100,000 contract servicemen. But that, too, was a lie. General Smirnov informed the government that 20 percent of NCO positions and enlisted men in units of permanent combat-readiness were vacant.56 Obviously, that meant the program was far from being implemented. Permanent combat-readiness was out of the question for formations that lacked one-fifth of their servicemen. Smirnov promised that the rest of the contract servicemen would be found during the first few months of 2008. However, by this time it was clear to everyone following the implementation of the FTP that Defense Ministry bureaucrats were shamelessly manipulating figures. When the ministry began to implement the program, it informed the government that the army had 155,000 contract servicemen. By the time they completed the process the number had jumped to 209,000.57 At no point during the years that the FTP was carried out did the ministry report a massive reduction in the number of contract servicemen in regular units. It follows that the number of contract servicemen grew not by 100,000, but merely by 50,000. This translates into, at best, two or three fully manned Airborne divisions, one or two motorized rifle divisions and, possibly several Airborne, Ground Forces and Naval infantry brigades. The unpleasant truth was revealed during the Russia-Georgia conflict. The Defense Ministry managed to redeploy to the conflict area several units and formations that, according to the ministry’s reports, were fully manned by contract servicemen. That is why all units were redeployed without restructuring. However, data suggests

56

Viktor Miasnikov, “Soldat stal obrazovannee ofitsera,” Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie, January 23, 2008. 57 Aleksey Maslov, “Armii nuzhny professionaly,” Voenno-Promyshlennyi Kur’er, No 50, December 26, 2007.

A Vicious Circle | 107 that 30 percent of the deployed personnel were draftees.58 By sending them to South Ossetia, the ministry simply ignored laws that guaranteed that draftees could not be sent to combat zones outside the country. The lack of professional soldiers was only part of the problem. The worst part was the low quality of their training. Every now and then, information about the real situation on the ground squeezed through the reports of successes. Colonel-General Aleksey Maslov, the Ground Forces commander-in-chief, acknowledged that “In terms of training, they (contract units and formations) at times are not much better than formations and units manned by draftees.”59 At the end of 2007, Chief Military Prosecutor Fridinskii reported on a precipitous rise in the number of crimes by contract servicemen: It was 25 percent higher than in 2006.60 No wonder. Hooked in to contract units by deceit and force, the draftees would desert at the first opportunity because they truly could not understand why they were made to serve an extra year against their will. By the time the program was supposed to be completed, the scheme had come down with a thud. The Defense Ministry behaved like any common fraudster: To hide the results of one scheme, it immediately went to work on another. In this case, it rolled out plans for a new program aimed at turning all NCOs of the Armed Forces, as well as Navy personnel—more than 80,000 positions altogether—into contract-based positions during 2009–2011.61 The FTP fiasco made clear that implementation of the program had nothing to do with actually reducing the term of service to one

58

Oleg Nikiforov, “Voennyi krizis obostriaetsia,” Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie, February 13, 2009. 59 Maslov, “Armii nuzhny professionaly.” 60 Vladimir Mukhin, “Voennye profi begut iz kazarm,” Nezavisimaia Gazeta, December 3, 2007. 61 Viktor Miasnikov, “Soldat stal obrazovannee ofitsera,” Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie, January 23, 2008.

108 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA year. Sergey Ivanov’s shameful contract pyramid came crashing down under his successor, Serdyukov. The FTP, whose implementation had been surrounded by a thick cloud of lies, corruption and sabotage for five years, had failed completely. And the Defense Ministry leadership had craftily changed the meaning of the term “formations of permanent readiness” to suit their purposes. Before the FTP, the term had referred to formations that were ready to carry out combat orders immediately, without additional mobilization, because they were manned by well-trained military personnel. But now it meant only that the number of soldiers and their combat equipment was in compliance with requirements. The training of soldiers was not included in the definition. The ministry realized that the timetable for compulsory military service, six months in a training center and six months in combat maneuver unit, was impossible to achieve. It meant that permanent readiness formations would have a rotation of a large number of soldiers every six months. What kind of high readiness would that be? Eventually, without even an official announcement, it was decided that most draftees would not have to go through boot camp at all. “If a draftee is assigned to a position that does not require training in a boot camp or special education (like a gunner, for instance), then he will go through the initial training (or ‘course for a novice fighter,’ as it was called in olden days), in his assigned unit or in a formation as part of a composite sub-unit,”62 brigade deputy Commander Aleksandr Mel’nikov told Krasnaia Zvezda. The Defense Ministry defined positions that were essential for combat-readiness. In a detachment, these are usually the commander, the machine-gunner and grenade-launch operator. These positions had to be occupied by contract servicemen. The rest would be draftees, and they would need no special training of any kind. It follows that the formations of this “new type” were doomed to be modern in name only—first and foremost because, in an emergency situation, contract 62

Aleksandr Tikhonov, “Geografiia sluzhby v Sukhoputnykh voiskakh,” Krasnaia Zvezda, April 1, 2009.

A Vicious Circle | 109 soldiers and practically untrained draftees would be going into battle together. This is exactly what happened in the Georgian war in August 2008, when no one bothered to separate contract soldiers from draftees. Of course, Russian military bosses had sworn many times they would not send draftees to “hot spots.” In other words, the proverbial “permanent readiness” was now supposed to be secured not by high-quality training, but by high numbers. The law prohibiting the deployment of draftees to “hot spots” was soon abolished. In March 2010, General Staff chief Nikolai Makarov and Ground Forces commander-in-chief Aleksandr Postnikov acknowledged that the program to partially shift the Armed Forces to contract-based service, which had started in 2003 and was completed in 2008, had failed entirely. “Many mistakes were made, and the goal of creating a professional army was not achieved,” 63 Makarov admitted. “The federal program of manning the units of permanent battle readiness with contract servicemen did not achieve the set goals,” 64 Postnikov acknowledged. Rearmament or a Big ‘Siphon-Off?’ The second part of what Sergey Ivanov called military reform, the program of rearming the Russian army, was no more successful. Substantial funds were earmarked: The Kremlin intended to spend five trillion rubles on government defense orders before 2015. In a speech to the Duma, Sergey Ivanov explained what the Defense Ministry wanted the Armed Forces to do with this money:

63

Vladimir Mukhin, “Genshtab predlagaet uvelichit’ srok sluzhby,” Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie, March 1, 2010. 64 “Glavkom Sukhoputnykh voisk povedal o trekh vidakh brigad i ‘Iskanderakh’ pod Peterburgom i Kaliningradom,” Newsru.com, February 25, 2010, https://www.newsru.com/russia/25feb2010/postnikov.html.

110 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA Put on full-service alert several dozen underground launching silos and command centers of the RSMF and, in addition, buy over 50 land-based mobile Topol-M missile systems. Provide the Air Force with 50 long-range strategic bombers. To initiate serial construction of the strategic ballistic-missile submarine models 955 and model 955A (Borei class). To create systems of space reconnaissance, communications, rebroadcasting, target acquisition, topographical surveying, the detection of launches of a new generation of ballistic missiles. That is, we are planning to replace all this technology I have just mentioned with new-generation technology. Without this, effective defense is out of the question. We are also planning to complete construction of the launch complexes Angara and Soiuz-2, to fully restore the closed peripheral radar field for missile attack warning—and I emphasize—on Russia’s territory. You know what I am talking about. To enhance the fighting capabilities of the Air Force and Air Defense aviation by 20 percent. In addition, 40 tank divisions, 97 motorized rifle divisions and 50 airborne battalions of the Ground Forces will be completely rearmed. Five missile brigades will be equipped with the newest operational-tactical missile systems, the Iskander-M, and two rocket artillery regiments with modernized multiple-launch rocket systems, the Uragan-1M.65 Like previous attempts, this armament program failed. “Due to the rising cost of final products put out by the Defense-Industrial Complex (DIC), it is no longer feasible to fulfill the government’s armament program either in terms of nomenclature or in terms of quantity,” said Valery Voskoboinikov, deputy head of the DIC Department of the Industry and Energy Ministry.66 Due to the nature of his intellect and world outlook, Sergey Ivanov was certain that the root of the problem was the boundless greed of defense industry leaders. He managed to convince Vladimir Putin to confront the 65

Nasledie Otechestva. http://www.csociety.ru/wind.php?ID=279216&soch=1. 66 Igor Plugatarev. “Innovatsionnaia armiia” – chto eto?” Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie. February 15, 2008.

A Vicious Circle | 111 problem with purely bureaucratic methods. First, supposedly for productivity enhancement, the decision was made to organize the enterprises of the defense industry complex into vertical structures controlled by stakeholders. What took place was something like collectivization, where production plants still breathing on their own were lumped together with those on life support into one holding. The sole purpose of creating those holdings was to give Moscow bureaucrats full control over the export income of a few relatively effective enterprises. Eventually, about a dozen corporations were created, among them the United Aircraft Corporation, the United Shipbuilding Corporation and the Tactical Missile Armaments Corporation. The process resembled a parody of the Soviet defense industry. Next, the government began to spawn agencies that were supposed to monitor the efficiency of these monstrosities. The Federal Defense Procurement Agency was created to monitor arms, military and special technology, resources and funds. The Federal Agency for Procurement of Arms, Military and Specialized Technology and the Federal Agency for Defense Orders were also established. The Federal Agency for Industry and the Office of the Deputy Defense Minister in Charge of Weapons Procurement were also added, as was the position of assistant to the president for military-technical matters. Periodically, the government proposed plans for restructuring the DIC. Speaking at a Military-Industrial Committee meeting in 2007, Sergey Ivanov said that such restructuring must be carried out in several stages. During the first stage, the enterprises, having received a defense order, “will start getting a bit fatter, so to speak, thanks to the implementation of the armament program for mass production and large-scale purchasing.”67 In two to three years, according to Ivanov, these enterprises should become profitable. This is when the second stage would begin. The plan was to launch a new FTP for 67

“Predpriiatiia OPK stanut pribyl'nymi”. Novosti VPK. March 15,2007, http://vpk.name/news/3908_pred priyatiya_opk_stanut_pribyilnyimi.html

112 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA reforming Russia’s defense complex, which by then should already be worth half-a-trillion rubles. Ivanov offered assurances that “a significant part of federal funding for this program would come not from the federal budget, but rather from the profits of those very manufacturing enterprises. The amount of this reinvested capital within the FTP will be quite significant, no less than 201 billion rubles, that is 40 percent of the cost of the entire FTP.” Ivanov clarified that “the targeted allocations from those production enterprises’ profits will form the foundation of this capital.”68 These pronouncements sounded like a combination of the Bolshevik surplus appropriation system and Baron Munchausen’s description of how he pulled himself out of a swamp by his own hair. The idea that DIC enterprises, with their long production cycles, would be able to become profitable after two to three years was nothing but a utopian dream. The problems the Russian defense industry faced, and still faces today, cannot be solved by purely administrative methods and means. I shall discuss this in more detail later. It should be emphasized that no rearmament of any sort occurred under Ivanov. Despite the minister’s loud promises and pronouncements, the Armed Forces received military technology only occasionally. What was passed off as production growth was, in fact, a steep rise in the cost of that technology. Thus, no modernization of any kind was going on in the Russian Armed Forces—not the necessary radical reform, and not even the limited positive changes that the Kremlin wanted to carry out. Essentially, high oil prices allowed the military-political leadership to maintain an exact copy of the Soviet mobilization-based army (though reduced to one-third of its previous size). Judging by the irritation Putin displayed during his speech to lawmakers in 2007, the president clearly understood that, by increasing the military budget 68

“Ivanov: oboronnye predpriiatiia mogut stat' pribyl'nymi cherez paru let,” RIA Novosti, March 14, 2007, www.rian.ru/defense_safety/20070314/61972927.html.

A Vicious Circle | 113 by 20–25 percent yearly, he was, in fact, financing the stagnation and degradation of the Armed Forces. I suspect that, at some point, he figured he was wasting money. In the later part of the first decade of the 21st century, the incongruity between threatening anti-Western pronouncements and the pitiful state of the Armed Forces was becoming more obvious. Testifying to the US Senate’s Armed Services Committee in February 2008, intelligence chief Michael McConnell noted some changes in the Russian Armed Forces that appeared aimed at overcoming the “long and deep recession that began even before the collapse of the USSR.” At the same time, the Russian army “has not reached the operational capabilities of the Soviet era.” Russia’s strategic forces remain viable, McConnell’s report continued, but “the defense industry suffers from the loss of qualified personnel, the lack of modern production facilities, rising prices for materials and labor, and a declining number of suppliers.”69 What about the remarkable launches, missions and long-range flights, the pride and joy of Russian leaders? US intelligence analysts did not forget them. “Russia has used widely publicized missile launches and increased long-range aviation (LRA) training flights to the Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic Oceans to showcase Russia’s continued global reach and military relevance,”70 said the report. Translated, this means that military activities under Ivanov were regarded by the United States as what they were: a dog-and-pony show. Just as obvious was that Ivanov did not have the necessary qualities to ensure that the funding for the army was spent efficiently. In early 2007, Putin had apparently not ruled out the possibility of Ivanov becoming his successor. Yet, even under a managed democracy, to participate in a presidential campaign with so many 69

J. Michael McConnell, Annual Threat Assessment of the Intelligence Community for the Senate Armed Services Committee, February 27, 2008, p. 27. 70 Ibid. p. 28.

114 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA failures in your work record, is somehow not appropriate. Russian society, meanwhile, reacted with increasing indignation to crimes in the army that clearly pointed to continuing degradation. The Defense Ministry responded to criticism with new efforts to make the yoke of obligatory military service heavier. Everyone Under Arms! Furiously fighting all efforts to transition to a professional army, the Defense Ministry under Ivanov’s leadership was doomed to continually search for new ways to increase the number of recruits, even as the pool of potential recruits continued to shrink due to demographic factors. Young men of conscription age saw military service as a legalized form of servitude and sought to evade it by all possible means. According to official data, around 40,000 potential draftees a year failed to appear at recruitment stations after receiving draft notices. Another 50,000 made every effort not to receive draft notices. Each spring and fall, militiamen in Moscow and other major cities would switch their focus from Caucasian-looking men to Slaviclooking young men, stopping them to check their documents. This meant a new draft had been announced and that military recruiters had, once again, turned to internal affairs agencies to carry out draft raids. In Russian cities in the 21st century, they were hunting recruits like they did in Europe three centuries earlier. Such draconian measures did not help the Defense Ministry fill all conscript positions. New recruits often did not meet even the minimal intellectual, physical and moral requirements. In 2003, in the Moscow Military District, 39.2 percent of new recruits were men who did not work or go to school; 44 percent had not managed to graduate from middle school; 32 percent had friends and/or relatives connected to the criminal world; and 340 soldiers of the elite Taman Division had criminal records. Indeed, the moral conditions in the Russian army did not differ much from those in prisons. The leadership of the Armed Forces also essentially admitted their inability to fight hazing. “As to dedovshchina, its roots go deep into the Soviet past,” said

A Vicious Circle | 115 Ivanov. “The only radical solution to this problem would be a volunteer-based system of manning. I’ll be frank: this is not going to happen any time soon.”71 Ivanov seemed unconcerned. The life of Russian soldiers is nothing but endless victimization and humiliation, beginning with physical abuse and ending with senior conscripts forcing novices to beg in the streets. It is no use to complain to officers, since, in the absence of professional sergeants, the responsibility for maintaining order in barracks resides with the senior conscripts (dedy). Quite often dedovshchina ended in tragedy. Ivanov acknowledged that, during a 10-month period of 2002, 531 servicemen died and 20,000 were crippled due to “crimes and accidents.” Data collected by the office of the chief military prosecutor indicated that in 2002, 800 people serving in the Armed Forces and other power structures were murdered by their fellow servicemen, and another 1,200 servicemen died as the result of “unpremeditated actions.” “Analysis of the State of Law and crime in the Russian Federation for the Year 2002,” published by the Office of the Prosecutor General, said that those serving in the military had committed 20,400 crimes. One out of four of these crimes were connected with violence in the barracks. Official statistics said several thousand servicemen had deserted their units. Scandals associated with the deaths of conscripts occurred in rapid succession. At the close of 2003, it was reported that 200 young new recruits were dragged for two weeks from city to city in northern Russia, from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Magadan. It seemed these recruits, who were not registered as voters anywhere, were able to vote repeatedly in parliamentary elections because voting machines in the region were not yet functioning. No one cared to supply the boys with warm clothes, or put them up in warm quarters. As a result, half of them ended up in a Magadan hospital with acute pneumonia. One young man died. The defense minister, at the time on a business trip 71

“Ministr oborony Rossii: Nashu armiiu usiliat dobrovol’tsy iz SNG,” Komsomol’skaia Pravda, April 1, 2003.

116 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA abroad, made the following statement: “There is nothing terribly serious there. Otherwise, I would have known about it for sure.”72 Sergey Ivanov spoke the truth—for him, this occurrence was not extraordinary. In June 2006, the Office of the Chief Military Prosecutor reported that, within one week, 46 servicemen had died as a “result of crimes and accidents,” 37 of them in the Armed Forces.73 Russian society was stunned in 2006 by what happened to Andrei Sychev. In the general support battalion of Army Armor School in Cheliabinsk, several senior servicemen, under the passive eyes of their officers, severely hazed their junior service mates, raping and beating them for several hours. Sychev was subjected to such violence that he developed gangrene in both legs. Military medical personnel refused him treatment and, after a while, transferred him to the civilian hospital, where doctors amputated both of his legs as well as his genitals. Sychev’s story may not have been reflected in any statistics. The Defense Ministry did not reveal the number of deaths or handicaps resulting from illnesses. The school’s commanding officers at first insisted there had been no violence at all, and that Sychev’s gangrene occurred due to an “illness.” They pressured the civilian medics to keep their mouths shut. If the medics had done so, the soldier would have been listed simply as discharged “due to illness.” The public was outraged and Ivanov soon understood that Sychev’s case would reflect badly on him. It is one thing to read the Defense Ministry’s dry annual statistics about the deaths of thousands of servicemen. It is quite another to learn the details of an atrocity in which a young man was turned into a stump. The defense minister’s subordinates received an order to “close the case.” They carried out the order in such a way that the scandal only grew bigger. Highranking bureaucrats from the Defense Ministry were sent to 72

Anton Trofimov, “Arifmetika beschelovechnosti,” Nezavisimaia Gazeta, January 27, 2006. 73 “Za nedeliu v rossiiskoi armii pogibli 46 voennosluzhashchikh, iz nikh 8 sovershili samoubiistva,” Newsru.com, June14, 2005, https://www.newsru.com/russia/14jun2005/army.html.

A Vicious Circle | 117 Cheliabinsk. They tried to gag the soldier and his family, promising them a lot of money. Simultaneously, they intimidated potential witnesses, who were draftees like Sychev himself. The commander-in-chief of the Ground Forces, Aleksei Maslov, made a statement claiming that the facts of the violence could not be confirmed. The military medics, lying through their teeth, blabbed something about a genetic blood condition and dangerous infection that Sychev had rapidly developed. Sgt. Siviakov, the initiator of the violence, was provided with lawyers who argued that Sychev had received incorrect treatment at the civilian hospital where he had been taken by the military. As is usual in such cases, promises were made to “learn lessons.” At a meeting of the top brass in fall 2006, Ivanov promised to give parents of youth serving in the military the right to inspect their sons’ units. The defense minister also demanded that parents be given the phone numbers of the unit’s commanding officer and his deputy for morale and welfare. Parents were also supposed to be allowed to attend meetings on the state of military discipline. The 2nd all-Russia officer conference, devoted to strengthening discipline and law and order in the Armed Forces, was also staged. The premise was that officers would gather for a brainstorming session—I am not being ironic, I am citing this from Krasnaia Zvezda. In the end, the conference was a sham. Ivanov read the captains and lieutenants a speech he had previously delivered to the Duma. And the lieutenants read to Ivanov “we approve, sir” speeches that had been prepared in advance. An appeal was composed in which “every serviceman” was called on to unconditionally adhere “to the requirements spelled out in the military service manual.” Servicemen were called on to “more actively use the educational potential of military collectives, as well as the best traditions of the Russian army, examples of heroism from the history of the Fatherland, examples of selfless fulfillment of one’s military duty by our contemporaries, and

118 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA the potential of the community organizations of veterans of the Armed Forces.”74 The “military community” also offered an alternative, strictly unofficial response. In early 2007, Kommersant-Vlast’ obtained and published a completely bestial informal guide for fighting dedovshchina.75 This document proposed to introduce collective punishment for senior servicemen in case of any violation of discipline in their unit. This could include training in radioactive, chemical and biological defense until soldiers were “blue in their faces,” or making them perform dirt-digging work, preferably during the night hours. To avoid complaints, the author advised commanders to demonstrate how military personnel were being trained to counter terrorist attacks. The guide recommended putting “heavy pressure” on “persons from the Caucasus.” In case of alcohol abuse, it recommended that the guilty soldier be drenched with water and that photos be taken of him in “swinish poses” and sent to his parents. It was clear the text was written by a senior army commander. And it seemed officers believed that the only effective measure to fight dedovshchina was to unleash greater cruelty. No wonder, then, that under Ivanov desertion grew to epidemic proportions. Because of unbearable conditions, whole platoons and even companies deserted. In September 2002, several dozen soldiers from the 20th Motorized Rifle Division deployed in Volgograd escaped their unit and headed to the local branch of the Mothers’ Committee organization. The soldiers were frightened by the methods their officers used to find who had started a drunken party the night before: Soldiers had been beaten with shovel handles. In December 2002, 16 servicemen of the Taman Division escaped their unit because the company commander beat

74

“Obrashchenie uchastnikov Vtorogo Vsearmeiskogo soveshchaniia ofitserov voiskovogo zvena k ofitseram Vooruzhennykh sil Rossiiskoi Federatsii,” Krasnaia Zvezda, April 6, 2006. 75 Iuliia Rybina, “Neobkhodimo vbit’ lichnomu sostavu polka v golovu mysl,’ ” Kommersant – Vlast’, No. 4, February 5, 2007.

A Vicious Circle | 119 and robbed them on regular basis. In January 2003, 24 soldiers of a Railway Troops unit in the Leningrad Military District deserted.76 After deserting, soldiers often committed terrible crimes. In 2001, deserters shot and killed in Chita a general who tried to stop them. In June 2002, two soldiers from the Ulianovsk airborne brigade shot 10 people. Two deserters from the Maikop brigade shot three policemen. On the whole, at least 24 such incidents involving armed deserters occurred in 2002.77 It would be a mistake, however, to assume that life in the Russian Armed Forces was unbearable only for conscripts. If the life of a conscript was similar to that of a slave, the life of an officer, especially a junior officer, was similar to that of a serf. He depended completely on two people: his immediate superior and his personnel management officer. These two could do whatever they pleased to him. They could promote him or not, they could send him to Moscow to study or to somewhere near the Chinese border. The deputy defense minister responsible for personnel, Nikolai Pankov, admitted that early in the first decade of the 21st century, his office had not been able to implement a competitive promotion system. He also noted that no personnel management worker was ever held responsible for mistakes made in promotions.78 It is not surprising. If the promotion system was to become transparent, both commanding officers and personnel office workers would lose half of their power and, let us be honest, one of their major sources of income: bribes. This kind of atmosphere makes it possible for officers to beat enlisted men. Even when enlisted men committed serious offences, officers did not dare report it to their superiors because they knew that, in the end, they would be held responsible. As a result, junior officers began to beat soldiers in secret. The unbearable conditions 76

Vladimir Voronov, “Dezertiriada,” Konservator, No. 1, 2003. Ibid. 78 Vladislav Pavliutkin, “My obiazany sberech’ ofitserskii korpus,” Krasnaia Zvezda, January 9, 2003. 77

120 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA and lack of transparency drove young officers to leave service as quickly as possible. In 2002, more than half of all officers discharged from the Armed Forces left early. Most of those discharged were young officers, ranking from lieutenant to captain. In the Moscow Military District, approximately 80 percent of officers who took early retirement were not even 30.79 This is why about 40 percent of platoon commanders were so-called “two-yearlings,” that is, graduates of civilian higher education institutions who had received the most primitive training in reserve-officer training departments. In the early 21st century, one out of 10 platoons was commanded by a serviceman without an officer’s rank. It should be obvious that, in circumstances where most soldiers did not want to serve, the combat-readiness of the Armed Forces was extremely low. Since the Defense Ministry leadership was incapable of halting the degradation, it concentrated on targeting those “enemies” who had exposed outrages in the army. In his testimony to the Duma, Ivanov expressed concerns about anti-army sentiments that were growing in society. He claimed this was due to those who wanted to “artificially blow out of proportion the Sychev case” (i.e., they amputated the fellow’s legs and genitalia, but it is easy to blow the case out of proportion!). The defense minister disagreed with how the media dealt with the subject. In his opinion, one can talk this way only about an enemy’s army. Ivanov was particularly incensed that “in some newspapers, there appeared calls for acts of insubordination and boycott of the spring draft campaign.” He resorted to threats: “I believe that such facts could become objects of close attention of constitutional and law enforcement agencies as incompatible with Russian law on defense and security.”80 By that point, however, Putin already understood that Ivanov was obviously not equal to the task of the military reform.

79

Viktor Baranets, “S’ezd dedov: muzhskoi razgovor,” Komsomol’skaia Pravda, March 13, 2003. 80 Nail’ Gafutulin, “S dumoi ob armii,” Krasnaia Zvezda, February 26, 2006.

Chapter 2: A Breakthrough and a Retreat Creating a Never-Before-Seen ‘Image’ Admittedly, by February 2007, it was more or less clear how the Armed Forces had to be reformed. The direction of reforms was delineated in the document drafted by the Right Wing Coalition (SPS) which I discussed above. The reports of the Council on Foreign and Internal Defense Policy “Military Reform in Russia” (1997)81 and “Military Development and Modernization of the Armed Forces of Russia” (2004) pointed in the same direction.82 It was obvious that successful military reform had to be based on abolishing a massmobilization army, the concept that had been the dominant defense strategy of Russia for almost 150 years. This would require discharging from service a huge number of officers and praporshchiki (chief warrant officers). Someone had to play the “role of Gaidar” for Russia’s military reorganization—a role that Vladimir Putin refused to play. There was thus a need for a decisive and reliable man who would not be fooled by “the glorious traditions” and “Russia’s unique way of military development.” There was a need for a hardcore cynic who would fire thousands of military personnel. This fellow would

81

“Voennaia reforma v Rossii” Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie. No. 25, 1218 July 1997. 82 “Voyennoye stroitel'stvo i modernizatsiya vooruzhennykh sil rossii,” Svop.ru, 2004, http://www.svop.ru/files/meetings/m016813378426501.pdf.

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122 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA also have to be completely loyal and not betray the top leadership when subjected to heaps of abuse. In other words, he had to be relatively close to the circle of Putin’s associates. Close, but not inside it, so that he could easily be thrown under the bus if necessary. Personalities: Not a Man, but a Function They found such a man: Anatoly Eduardovich Serdyukov. Our protagonist was so far removed from the military establishment that, when news of his appointment reached the Defense Ministry in Arbat Square, old ministry hands rushed to study the biography of the governor of Leningradskaia oblast. However, fate and Vladimir Putin had sent to the Defense Ministry not the governor, but a different Serdyukov. Anatoly’s detractors, and there is no shortage of them, will not be surprised that I compare Serdyukov to another minister, no less hated by his contemporaries. Aleksey Andreevich Arakcheev was mocked by two generations of Russian men of letters, from Pushkin to Saltykov-Shchedrin. Arakcheev is stuck in our minds as a symbol of a hard-headed, uncouth martinet. The main character feature that made Arakcheev stand out was not his rudeness or cruelty—there has never been a shortage of either among Russian bosses—but rather his extraordinary organizational skills. It was Arakcheev who singlehandedly created Russian artillery in the years of Paul I’s reign. It was Arakcheev who carried out a radical reorganization of the military establishment in 1808–1810. It was Arakcheev who carried on his shoulders the responsibility for organizing logistical support for the Russian army in 1812. He carried out this task brilliantly. Arakcheev’s other important quality was his dog-like loyalty to his sovereigns. The words that Emperor Paul ordered to be inscribed on Arakcheev’s coat of arms reflect the man perfectly: “Faithful Without Flattery.” I think the story about the military settlements, which is often cited as an evidence of Arakcheev’s senseless cruelty, is quite revealing. Here is an excerpt from an entry in the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedia: “The idea of military settlements on a large scale

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 123 had been on Aleksandr I’s mind for a while. Arakcheev was against this project. Speranskii was the one who formalized it as an ukaz with the necessary instructions, and Arakcheev was given the task to implement it. Arakcheev carried out this work in an unyielding manner, with pitiless consistency, not deflected by the discontent of the people forcibly torn from traditions and customs passed down from generation to generation and plucked out of their way of life. A whole series of military settlers’ rebellions were put down with relentless cruelty, and the settlements were brought to perfect order in their outward appearance.”83 Here is how well-known liberal historian Andrei Zubov regards Arakcheev: “Arakcheev, from childhood on, was a religious and pious Orthodox Christian whom nature endowed with special organizational and administrative talents and who, above all, labored not for personal gain or glory, but, just as the Emperor himself, to answer the call of moral duty… Aleksandr truly needed a collaborator like that. The Emperor knew very well the weaknesses and shortcomings of his friend from Gatchina, his lack of culture, his petulance, his disposition to envy and jealousy of others enjoying the tsar’s favor; yet all of this was outweighed in the tsar’s eyes by his positive qualities.”84 It is quite possible that 40 to 50 years from now, someone will write something similar about Serdyukov. Anatoly Eduardovich rose to the height of power from humble beginnings. His father was a woodcutter and his mother worked as a dairy-woman on a collective farm. Father left the family early on. Fellow villagers told reporters that the Serdyukovs lived more than modestly, in fact, they were very poor, even by Soviet standards. Anatoly did not stand out in a crowd. His classmates and teachers barely remember him. The pride and joy of Serdyukov’s elementary 83

Malyi Entsiklopedicheskii slovar,’ F. A. Brokgauza i I. A. Efrona, SpB, 1890–1907, V.I, p. 200. 84 Andrei Zubov, “Razmyshleniia nad prichinami revolutsii v Rossii,” Novyi Mir, No. 7, 2006.

124 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA school in the town of Kholmskii was its other graduate, astronaut Sergey Treshchev. As for Serdyukov, they say he did not demonstrate any special achievements. He was rather a steady C student. People remember him being very fond of his younger sister, Galia, whom he dragged along everywhere. He was never embarrassed to braid her hair in public. They also remember the un-childlike seriousness of Anatoly, who shunned teenage mischief and pranks. Serdyukov’s childhood did not last long. At 15, he and his sister became orphans. Some folks, who might have been interested in the family dwelling, proposed that the children be placed in an orphanage. But Anatoly demonstrated his strength of character by declaring that he could take care of himself and his sister. He transferred to the evening school and got a job as a driver and mechanic in the workers’ supply department of an oil refinery. It is important to mention that the director of a local club for young mechanics, where Anatoly spent a lot of time building buggies and carts, played an important role. When Serdyukov graduated from his evening high school, the man went to see the director of the workers’ supply department and suggested that Anatoly receive a referral and stipend to enter the Institute of Highway Transport. The director, who also liked Serdyukov, enthusiastically supported the idea. The story brings to mind Metropolitan Gavriil, who gave Arakcheev a silver ruble when the young man was left without the means to support himself and the Director of the Artillery and Military Engineering School, Petr Ivanovich Mellisino, who gave an order to accept the boy by bypassing bureaucratic regulations. One unfortunate, or perhaps fortunate, thing was that they could refer Serdyukov to the institute only if he were to major in trade, the subject of his workplace. This is how the boy from a godforsaken little town found himself at a highly prestigious college, the Leningrad Institute of Commerce. It was a popular school. The Leningrad soccer team Spartak studied there. Sending young people from provincial towns to institutions of higher education in major cities was a common practice in the USSR. It should be noted that Serdyukov did not forget his benefactors. Years later, when a team of kids from the

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 125 club of young mechanics came to Leningrad, Serdyukov took care of their food and accommodations. He did not, however, meet with them, saying he was too busy. At the institute, Serdyukov was a hard-working student, scrupulous and unassuming. His classmates wondered if his old and shabby clothes and southern accent embarrassed him. But he was not actually interested in looking like a “big-city guy.” He saved money, apparently to support his sister. He never came to student parties. He did not have money to chip in, and he did not want to enjoy himself at the expense of others. He did not, however, pass up the opportunity to gain a foothold in a “warm place.” After senior year at the institute, he was attached as an assistant to the accountant of a Leningrad furniture store. He made such a good impression that the store’s management decided to keep him as a full-time employee. This speaks volumes about the young man. In the first place, the management violated one of the Ministry’s regulations requiring that employersponsored graduates of institutions of higher education return to those employers upon graduation as specialists. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Soviet trade was the sphere where major corruption activities concentrated and, hence, it was not accessible to outsiders. There was simply no way to get in. Something in the young man must have earned him the trust of the furniture dealers. He was not simply hired by a furniture business, he was hired as a section manager of Furniture Store No. 3, which soon would be renamed “Dresden.” Here, they sold, or rather distributed as favors to insiders and party bosses, furniture sets from GDR—the dream of every Soviet citizen. And Serdyukov was handling the cream of that cream. He was in charge of the section that sold entertainment units. Serdyukov was among those Soviet trade workers who instantly figured out the possibilities that opened with the demise of the USSR. In 1991, he and coworkers from the Leningrad Furniture Trade Organization (LFTO) founded a limited liability partnership called Mebius. He remained the assistant director of LFTO, which

126 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA later was renamed Furniture Mart. In 1995, he became CEO of Furniture Mart and remained in this position through 2000. He was also a founding shareholder of two firms, Svit and Dialog. But he did not concentrate solely on making money. By the end of the 1990s, he had entered the evening program in the law department at Leningrad State University. In 2000, he wrote a dissertation entitled “Conception and Systemic Organization of the Process of Forming Business Structures Focusing on the Consumer.” People who have read it claim the dissertation represents a coherent narrative on how to transform Soviet trade organizations into normal stores. It is during this time that an event took place which transformed a successful furniture dealer into perhaps the leading positive character of a book on military reform in Russia. Serdyukov met Yuliya, a divorced woman, the daughter of Viktor Zubkov, the head of the St. Petersburg Tax Revenue Inspection, subsequently called the Department of the Ministry of Tax Revenue and Tax Collection. Before becoming a taxman, Zubkov worked in the early 1990s as deputy chairman of the External Relations Committee of Vladimir Putin’s St. Petersburg Mayor’s Office. Serdyukov and Yuliya married. Zubkov liked his son-in-law and secured him a meteor-like career. In October 2000, Serdyukov made the transition from a businessman to а tax official—not just any tax official, but deputy chief of the Inter-District Inspectorate working with the largest taxpayers. Eight months later, he was already deputy chief of the St. Petersburg tax revenue department. And another half year later, when Viktor Zubkov set out for Moscow where a high-level post was awaiting him—at the time, the capital city was overrun by “Peterburgians,” or rather “Putinista”—Anatoly Eduardovich moved up to become the head taxman of the northern capital. Those who believed that the former entrepreneur would be easy on businesses’ attempts to evade paying taxes soon found they were sorely mistaken. Under Serdyukov’s leadership, the tax revenue service developed an effective technology for value-added tax refunds, which its author called “preventive inspection of false export at an early stage.” It meant that Serdyukov’s employees and the tax police carried out inspections

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 127 of firms before transactions were completed. Some business owners preferred to play it safe and furnished the necessary documentation in advance of an upcoming inspection. Serdyukov did not hesitate to take legal action, which often ended up with the defendant’s bankruptcy. As a result, the aggregate indebtedness of businesses to the budget was reduced by half. Further advancement in Anatoly Eduardovich’s meteor-like career, however, was not due to his outstanding performance as a taxman. Viktor Zubkov had a long-standing friendship with Viktor Ivanov, Putin’s personnel manager at the time. Serdyukov was a protégé worthy of a good word. By 2004, Serdyukov was head of the Federal Tax Service, which he himself created. And it is in this capacity that Serdyukov showed what he was really made of. He made tax agencies totally opaque. He banned contacts with the press. Inquiries had to be submitted in written form. Replies had to be formal, on letterhead, signed and stamped. Serdyukov carried out serious personnel shakeups. To get rid of “a clan mentality,” as he put it, he initiated the rotation of highranking bureaucrats: heads of regional inspection offices were transferred to Moscow, and Moscow bureaucrats were sent to regional offices. He is also remembered for Arakcheev-style changes. He abolished lunch breaks in agencies and organizations under his jurisdiction. At the same time, he was concerned about the financial wellbeing of his subordinates and regularly approached the government with requests to raise their salaries. The high point of Serdyukov’s career was the case of Yukos, the energy company that had fallen from grace. Serdyukov’s tax authority presented the company with a 98 billion-ruble tax claim, supposedly for a tax evasion in 2001. It was a fascinating situation, because, precisely at that moment, a 700-page textbook entitled Taxes and Taxation came out, authored by Anatoly Serdyukov and two University of Economics and Finance professors, Elena Vylkova and Aleksey Tarasevich. The authors offered a comprehensive analysis of

128 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA various mechanisms for maximizing tax exemptions allowed by law. Yukos was retroactively punished for using just such mechanisms. This fact did not bother Serdyukov. On the contrary, he apparently saw the case as his great achievement. In 2005, at his first official meeting with Putin, the head of the Tax Revenue Service reported that, during the first half of the year, his agency had collected 238 billion rubles more than expected. Serdyukov attributed this to the “Yukos factor.” According to him, most oil companies chose to “revise” tax data. Tax collections grew by 250 percent. Under Serdyukov, the number of countersuits by taxpayers resolved by courts in their favor fell from 64 percent to 17 percent. Obviously, it was not just Serdyukov’s talent that accounts for that. Courts received clear guidance from Putin: Entrepreneurs who put up resistance should “eat dirt.” Serdyukov is widely recognized for “cleaning up the house,” at least as concerns tax collection in Russia. “Serdyukov created a system similar to that used in Centrobank, that is, it was now possible to follow online all transactions resulting from inspections and click ‘delete’ at any moment,” said a former taxman. “Systematization and centralization at least give you control and a clear picture of what’s going on,” a former high-ranking bureaucrat believes. “In the past, there was no way to figure out anything in the chaos of returns, but now it is an orderly flow. This is Serdyukov’s achievement.”85 Serdyukov’s predecessor was Gennadii Bukaev. “Yes, he, too, carried out orders, but you could talk things over with him,” says Aleksandr Temerko, former vice chairman of the Yukos board of directors. “Then came Serdyukov and, literally, within three to four weeks, came a crackdown. The man is definitely determined: ‘They have set a mission for me, and I am going to accomplish it, no matter what’ […] Serdyukov acted without emotions, deliberately, consistently. He is not a man, he is a machine. We tried to talk to him about getting an extension. We asked him why he insisted on blocking 85

Roman Shleinov, Dmitry Kaz’min, Filipp Sterkin, Aleksei Nikol’skii, “Eto ne chelovek, eto funktsiia,” Vedomosti, April 23, 2012.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 129 all our accounts. Because of the holds, we were not able to pay our bills. I think Serdyukov participated in creating the situation that led to the company’s bankruptcy.” 86 In 2006, Serdyukov announced that, on the initiative of the Federal Tax Service, interagency committees had been created to put a stop to off-the-books payments. Conservative estimates show that these measures resulted in employee compensation in some companies rising by a factor of eight or 10. Admittedly, the methods Serdyukov’s subordinates used, such as blocking the accounts of various companies in alphabetic order to force the owners to follow instructions from inspectors, did not please Serdyukov’s immediate superior, Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin. A special commission was created to mediate conflicts between the Finance Ministry and the Federal Tax Service. Serdyukov was able to ignore it because he was enjoying the support of a political “heavyweight,” Viktor Ivanov. When Putin needed a man to carry out military reform, Serdyukov was his choice. An Attempt to Understand It initially appeared (and perhaps was true) that Serdyukov’s appointment was no more than a result of the frustration of the conscientious steward of the country. Despite a steady, almost 20 percent, annual rise in military expenditures (in 1999, the government spent 109 billion rubles on the Armed Forces, and in 2007 the amount was 338 billion), the situation in the army had not improved. Gradually, the Kremlin began to understand the major financial characteristic of the Soviet-model army: It consumes unlimited amounts of money and resources without achieving any positive results. This “black hole” in the federal finances started to irritate Putin. Indeed, he cited it as the basis for Serdyukov’s appointment: “In a situation where huge budgetary funds have to be handled, we need 86

Ibid.

130 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA a man with experience in the economic sphere.”87 The president’s personnel manager, Viktor Ivanov, who most probably suggested Serdyukov’s candidacy, provided a more detailed explanation: “Anatoly Serdyukov’s appointment is due to the fact that the army needs to rearm and to improve. We have reduced the size of the Armed Forces, we have a dominating military doctrine, but the army needs new, more advanced, technology. The spending and the interaction with the industries have to be tied closer together.”88 However, none of this fooled experienced observers. Here is what US Ambassador William J. Burns had to say: “Serdyukov has his work cut out for him in bringing order to a ministry badly in need of reform. While he lacks military credentials, Serdyukov has proven capable of making tough decisions—and serving as a hatchet man when called upon. We anticipate he will take the same approach as defense minister, while continuing to shy away from publicity. The next year could be a difficult one for senior ministry officials.”89 It was like the ambassador had a crystal ball. Initially, Serdyukov did not attempt to go beyond his mandate and worked on getting the army’s economy and financial accounting system under control. The minister claimed he intended to create “a more transparent system of rational and targeted spending of budget appropriations,” which would require carrying out an inventory in the army and the navy. That is the only explanation he offered for “a certain correction in how the existing organs of military administration functioned,” as well as for personnel changes. 87

Ivan Safronov, “Komandir udarnoi divizii,” Kommersant, November 6, 2013. 88 “Pomoshchnik prezidenta RF ob’iasniaet naznachenie Ivanova pervym vitse-prem’erom neobkhodimost’iu usileniia raboty v sfere innovatsionnykh tekhnologii,” Interfaks-AVN, February 20, 2007, http://vpk.name/news/3324_pomoshnik_prezidenta_rf_obyasnyaet_naznac henie_ivanova_pervyim_vicepremerom_neobhodimostyu_usileniya_rabot yi_v_sfere_innovacionnyih_tehnologii.html. 89 “Nachinaet pokazyvat'sia iz teni,” Russkii Reporter, February 4, 2011, http://www.rusrep.ru/article/2011/02/04/serdyukov.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 131 According to Serdyukov, the whole point of the above correction was to “liquidate any, even the most minimal, overlapping and duplication in the work of organs of military administration, and relieving them of functions that are extrinsic to them.”90 Serdyukov also created a separate inter-regional tax inspection office for the defense industry. Experts immediately suggested the minister was using his old, trusted personnel to do an audit of the “estate” he had just inherited. Anatolyi Eduardovich demonstrated he was ready to be a diligent student of the generals subordinate to him. Before his appointment, his only military experience was a year-and-a-half compulsory service. Serdyukov decided to start with an accelerated program, developed for him by the Academy of Military Sciences, to learn about strategy, operational art, theaters of military action, organization and command and control of the Armed Forces. He began to visit major military commands. He stayed away from long speeches, preferring to ask questions and listen. As opposed to his predecessor, he was not embarrassed to acknowledge his ignorance in military affairs. Stories circulated at the ministry that, while visiting the Navy’s General Staff, the boss, not worrying about his prestige, asked the admirals, “Why don’t you talk in plain language? After all, I don’t know much about these things.” Yet even at that time, the top brass was not able to pull the wool over the minister’s eyes. They say Serdyukov was unhappy when, at the Air Force command, he did not get clear answers to what he thought were simple questions: How many aircraft are in good condition? How many have been grounded? How are the engines on the planes that have been grounded? He gave them three weeks to perform an inventory. Then he had another meeting. One of the generals who attended this “closed” meeting reported that the minister asked angrily, “I don’t understand why we spend more on weapons than India and the results are half of theirs?” 90

Vladimir Mukhin, “Serdyukov optimiziruet oboronu,” Nezavisimaia Gazeta, April 12, 2007.

132 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA The unanswered questions soon turned into personnel decisions. One of the first to go was Air Force Commander Vladimir Mikhailov. The head of the Defense Ministry’s Main Directorate for International Military Cooperation, Anatolyi Mazurkevich, and General Aleksei Moskovskii, deputy defense minister and chief of armaments of the Armed Forces, soon lost their posts as well. It is not hard to notice that all of the above were people whose posts could be characterized as “large financial capacity” ones. They controlled huge flows of money. In essence, every fifth ruble of the federal budget went through departments under their jurisdiction before being swallowed by some black hole. They say that, when he transferred several of his former tax auditor colleagues to the Defense Ministry, Serdyukov tasked them not with inspecting the ministry’s departments but with reviewing accounting procedures for concrete programs overseen by concrete leaders. Billions of rubles of deficiencies were discovered. In August 2007 came the first serious decision. Vladimir Putin signed a decree to discontinue active duty recalls for reserve officers as of January 1, 2008. The institution of officer-draftee, unique for peacetime, was thus liquidated. Everyone knew that such servicemen were of little use. They could not teach their subordinates anything meaningful and, like them, were simply counting days to discharge. At the same time, in the middle of 2007, no one could figure out how the army would get by without them. They constituted more than 20 percent of all junior officers, after all. In the Ground Forces, more than 30 percent of platoon commanders were recall-reservists. Annually, 7,500 reserve officers were recalled to the Armed Forces. As a result, 15,000 recalled reserve officers were in service. If this type of “draft” was to be eliminated at the end of 2007, then as early as 2009 there would be, unavoidably, a deficit of junior officers. Who could have imagined that in 2009, the Defense Ministry would be worried about an excessive number of junior officers? In November came a new proposal vigorously opposed by both the military bureaucracy and the general public. It concerned the first attempt to reorganize the management system of repair and maintenance plants for armored vehicles, aircraft, naval equipment

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 133 and military farms. It was proposed to create “sub-holdings” for managing the real estate owned by the Defense Ministry. All of these sub-holdings were supposed to be merged into a joint-stock company, with the government being the sole proprietor of the shares. It was not difficult to predict the reaction of the general public to the very word “stock company.” Everyone was convinced that the new bosses had decided to steal what the previous administration did not have time to steal. In reality, the whole thing was about a more rational organization of managing Defense Ministry properties. Previously, all these maintenance plants and military farms were federal government unitary enterprises. Each of them belonged to its respective armed services branch—the Navy, the Air Force, or the Ground Forces. Yet the director of any of these plants or farms could do as he pleased. All he needed was to have the “correct” and, one would assume, quite “material” relationship with the bosses in his command. No wonder that by the time the inventory was ordered, more than half of the Air Force maintenance plants turned out to be sold. On the other hand, a stock company had to have transparent bookkeeping and be audited by the Tax Revenue Service. Serdyukov’s approach to the Armed Services issues was significantly different from all previous approaches to military reform. And this became patently obvious during the November 2007 meetings of the High Command in which Putin, who by then had already announced his intent to step down from the presidency, also participated. Putin’s goal was to demonstrate that the Armed Forces would still answer to him, and that he would never be a lame duck. He publicly chastised the acting head of medical services of the Defense Ministry, to whom he referred only as a “so-called head doctor.” The general was blamed for the fact that the hospital in Viliuchinsk was not completed on time. The military housing developers were also in trouble because officers were still living in “stinking Khrushchevki” (Khrushchev-era apartments). The commander-in-chief acted as if he had just found out about the “stinking Khrushchevki” and that those evil generals had been

134 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA hiding from him the truth about the social problems of military servicemen for the entire eight years of his presidency. At the same time, Putin’s bubbly speech contrasted with the report of the defense minister, who tried, at a minimum, not to lie or dissemble (at least to the extent circumstances allowed). When speaking of the most serious army problems, he avoided mentioning absolute numbers, citing instead convenient percentages. Thus, it turned out that as a result of the implementation of the partial shift of the army to contract service “it is expected that we will have about 44 percent contract servicemen.” This allowed him to avoid focusing on the fact that the number of contract-based servicemen had fallen by 20,000 during the implementation of the program. Reductions in mortality, criminality and dedovshchina were similarly described. Serdyukov said nothing about the external threats that Putin was focusing on. According to Kommersant, the defense minister left out a paragraph about the allegedly dangerous “reconfiguration of the United States Armed Forces.”91 The objectives that Serdyukov set for himself for the year 2008 are telling. He did not say a word about military build-up or new grandiose armament procurements. Instead, he said it had been proposed “to develop a theoretical, methodological and legal foundation for introducing into the practice of the Armed Forces budget process elements of a system of program-targeted management,” to “develop integrated methodologies and criteria for audits of financial and economic activities of organs of military control and command, military units, formations and organizations,” and to put in place “a system of planning for and distribution of military expenditures on the basis of approved budget.” He also backed improved logistics support to introduce new ration norms (meaning to feed servicemen better). Obviously, there was nothing heroic in this presentation. Serdyukov simply tried to introduce some order to army management.

91

Andrei Kolesnikov, “Vladimir pokazal vooruzhennym silu,” Kommersant, November 21, 2007.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 135 The year 2008 turned out to be quite different than what the minister hoped for. As early as spring, Serdyukov ran into a full-scale ambush. One leak to the press followed another. Allegedly, General Staff generals, indignant over the lack of competence of the civilian defense minister, were lining up in platoon formations to hand in their resignations. This movement was supposedly headed by General Staff chief Yuri Baluevskii. As an example of the minister’s incompetence, they cited decisions to transfer to St. Petersburg certain offices of the General Staff of the Navy. Serdyukov had nothing to do with these decisions—it was the decision of the country’s highest leadership to grant the northern capital more authority. Serdyukov was also blamed for trying to move the Peter the Great Academy and the Mozhaiskii Academy to a Moscow suburb. Critics accused him of seeking to turn Defense Ministry properties into stock companies and to sell the land that belonged to the ministry, naturally for personal gain. The campaign reached its apotheosis when rumors began to circulate that the defense minister had issued a directive to take away the right to wear insignia from military lawyers, medics, journalists and even logistics officers. The goal of such leaks was, obviously, to get the support of the rank and file. It took a week for the Defense Ministry’s Information and Public Relations Department to issue a statement saying there had been no mass resignations and that the directive issued by the ministry was for a study of which categories of military positions could be staffed by civilian personnel. According to the chief of the Directorate of Combat Training, Vladimir Shamanov, “it is about a possible replacement of a number of military positions, not directly relevant to the troops’ combat-readiness, by civilian specialists… It is one thing to have a military medic who is either embedded with a combat unit or is a member of an on-duty combat service, or else is a member of a

136 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA submarine crew, and quite another thing—medics that work at military hospitals, clinics and sanatoria.”92 The conflict continued to intensify before culminating in a dismissal. On the surface, it was quite civilized, as it has become a pattern in the Putin era. President Medvedev announced he had decided to transfer General Staff chief Yuri Baluevskii to another high post, that of deputy secretary of the Security Council. The post of General Staff chief, following the recommendation of the defense minister, as the commander-in-chief stressed, would go to General Nikolai Makarov, who was previously the deputy defense minister for armaments. The dismissal of Baluevskii pointed, first and foremost, to the scope of the conflict and, by implication, to the scale of the protest potential within the “Arbat military district.” A few months earlier, Putin had renewed Baluevskii’s service term for three more years. Had he planned in advance to transfer the general to the Security Council, there would not have been any need to give him that extension. It is hard to believe that Baluevskii would have taken the risk of entering into a conflict with Putin’s appointee because he did not agree with transferring some departments of the Navy Command to St. Petersburg and moving a couple of academies out of Moscow. During his many years of service, Baluevskii had justified things much worse than that. Other innovations introduced by Serdyukov were by far more serious and directly affected the generals’ interests. They included the above-mentioned directive to, wherever possible, replace officer positions with civilian specialists (e.g., medics, lawyers, logistics officers, and journalists). At the time, there were 355,000 officers in the Russian army out of 1.1 million servicemen in the entire Armed Forces. This meant there was one officer for every two enlisted men. In any normal army, officers constitute no more than 16 percent of the overall number of servicemen. The structure of the Russian officer corps looked much like a reverse pyramid (i.e., a slightly lower 92

Konstantin Lantratov, “Generaly nedovol’ny svoim ministrom,”Kommersant, March 27, 2008.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 137 number of colonels than lieutenants). A fully rational measure for reducing the number of officers’ positions would include reducing the number of generals as well. Another decision severely undercut the top military leadership’s options. Beginning in 2008, there was an attempt to introduce a new system of allocated government funds distribution. According to Liubov Kudrina, deputy defense minister for financial matters, six levels of distribution were reduced to three. In practical terms, this meant an army commander could still make decisions on whether to conduct training exercises if he had sufficient funds allocated for that. These funds, however, were not transferred to the army staff, but rather sent directly to the brigade or regiment that was supposed to conduct the training. It was not the money that the top military leaders lost, but the ability to control the funds and to freely move them from one account to another however they saw fit. Serdyukov maintained that “There is no reform. We simply are trying to establish some normal logical order. That’s it, there is no reform.”93 In one of his speeches, the defense minister went as far as recommending to not use the word “reform” at all. “We have no intention of breaking up things, restructuring. We are simply bringing order to the Armed Forces,”94 he insisted. As time went by, Serdyukov was slowly beginning to understand that attempts to make rational separate elements of a fundamentally irrational system would unavoidably run into the root problems. He and his closest aides began to develop a plan for cardinal reforms across the entire military sphere. In early June 2008, General Vladimir Shamanov, chief of the Main Directorate for Combat Training,

93

Anatoly Serdyukov, “Minoborony provodit ne reformu Vooruzhennykh Sil, a navodit v nikh poriadok,” Vedomosti, April 16, 2008, http://www.vedomosti.ru/library/news/2008/04/16/aserdyukovminoborony-provodit-ne-reformu-vooruzhennyh-sil-a-navodit-v-nihporyadok. 94 Ibid.

138 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA casually mentioned to reporters that by July 1, 2008, the defense minister expected to receive a document laying out a prospective design for the Armed Forces for the next decade. The Defense Ministry pretended not to have noticed the general’s remark. If one were to believe the official version, on July 1 the top leaders discussed only a program for the army’s social development. General Vasily Smirnov, head of the Main Organizational-Mobilizational Directorate of the General Staff, claimed to know nothing about anyone working on such a document. But everything that came out of the ministry suggested that such a document (probably of a radical nature) was, in fact, in the making. The first deputy defense minister, General Aleksandr Kolmakov, made a sensationally frank statement: “The training of our troops has remained on the level of the 1960s and 1970s. Servicemen were repeatedly ‘coached’ to get high marks in training. The main thing was to hit the target on the dot, and that despite the fact that the range facilities have not been updated for seven years as a minimum and had been originally designed for training within the limits of a company. The level of officer training could be considered no more than satisfactory. For instance, the graduates of military schools were not able to complete a number of tasks necessary for increasing combat preparedness of their units. The physical training of servicemen is also insufficient.”95 This was the harshest criticism of the Russian army in a long time. To call a spade a spade, what Serdyukov’s first deputy admitted was that the 300 training exercises conducted in the winter of 2007–2008, the pride of Defense Ministry bosses, was, to put it mildly, not very effective. In the opinion of the general, “The Defense Ministry initiated the development of a new system of combat training, according to which, their objective is to be ready for deployment in any tactical situation, on any territory, and in any climate 95

“Minoborony RF razrabatyvaet novuiu sistemu boevoi podgotovki,” Memorial, June 27, 2008, http://www.memo.ru/hr/hotpoints/caucas1/msg/2008/06/m141289m.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 139 environment.”96 He also talked about introducing information technology, even at the battalion level. The project, called “Conception of Development of the Armed Forces of the RF for the Period Ending in 2030,” became the focus of ferocious struggle in the Defense Ministry. My sources told me that the defense minister insisted he would not approve a single application for a promotion until he got from his staffers an acceptable “conception.” Who knows where this bureaucratic trench war would have ended if а real war had not broken out. The Victory That Resulted in Doubts On August 8, the five-day war with Georgia broke out. Russia ended up winning. But victory did not come easy, and it brought unacceptably high losses. To the Russian leadership’s credit, they did not crow about victory with the usual euphoria. The government came to the sad conclusion that, had Georgia doubled its 30,000strong army, and had the Georgians been better equipped and trained, the outcome could have been different. This small-scale war brought to light major weaknesses of the Russian army. It turned out that army units that were believed to have been switched to all volunteers long ago were in reality still partially manned by draft recruits. According to German analysts, draftees constituted 30 percent of the Russian force in the Georgian war.97 When the Defense Ministry sent these recruits to the hot spot, it violated several laws. However, the situation called for forces to be redeployed immediately. The condition of recommissioned equipment was such that, according to General Shamanov, half of

96

Ibid. Oleg Nikiforov, “Voennyi krizis obostriaetsia,” Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie, February 13, 2008, http://nvo.ng.ru/wars/2009-0213/5_crisis.html. 97

140 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA tanks and armored vehicles of the 19th Motorized Rifle Division never reached Tskhinvali because they broke down.98 It also came to light that a significant number of officers, first and foremost those in the rank of major-colonels, did not satisfy even minimal requirements in terms of combat training and could not adequately command troops. In the 1990s, due to a lack of funds, combat training had virtually stopped (unless one were to consider the Chechen wars combat training). Ships were parked at naval bases. In the Air Force, flying hours were reduced to 20 per year (the Soviet norm had been 160) and exercises were not conducted at all. Officers got promoted on the basis of length of service rather than a high level of training. These commanders turned out to be unable to fight. Speaking at the Academy of Military Sciences, the General Staff chief Nikolai Makarov warned that “pilots are on the path of degradation. In the course of the conflict with Georgia, we could count all pilots capable of carrying out missions literally on the fingers of one hand.”99 He had an even darker view of the situation with the Ground Forces: “We had to search the entire Armed Forces to find lieutenantcolonels, colonels, and generals, one by one, so that they would take part in combat. That’s because permanent commanders of the ‘paper’ divisions and regiments were simply not capable of making combat decisions. When these commanders were given people and equipment, they were simply at a loss, and some of them even refused to carry out orders.”100 The war with Georgia revealed another problem: The shift to contracts turned out to be a myth, just as much as the rearming of the army. Units that fought in Georgia were equipped with military

98

Vladimir Shamanov, “Neobkhodimost’ reform podtverdila voina,” Krasnaia Zvezda, February 11, 2009. 99 Vladimir Voronov, “S neba upala shal'naya Zvezda,” Sovershenno Sekretno, June 1, 2009, http://www.sovsekretno.ru/articles/id/2214. 100 “Voennye novosti-2008: goriachii avgust, reforma armii i dal'nie pokhody,” Interfax, December 30, 2008, http://www.interfax.ru/politics/txt.asp?id=54787.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 141 technology of the 1970s and 1980s. They had neither modern communication equipment nor means of instrumental reconnaissance. As mentioned earlier, the commander of the 58th Army, General Khrulev, who found himself in a tank trap, had to borrow a mobile phone from a journalist to organize combat. The situation with air support was no better. The fact that a strategic Tu22M bomber, with a crew from the Strategic Warfare Center, which is trained for nuclear strikes and not for participation in local conflicts, was brought in indicated that the army was critically short of aircraft and trained pilots capable of carrying out combat missions. It was also obvious that, under the existing military organization, the practical application of the principles of a “joint operation,” where all forces and means are under a single command, was still not possible. There was no coordination between different branches of the Armed Forces. The war demonstrated that, thanks to huge oil revenues, Vladimir Putin was able to fulfill his promise to “restore” the army and navy. What he did restore, however, was the Soviet model of the army— which was totally ineffective in modern conditions. At first, it appeared the ruling elite was ecstatic about the victory. Servicemen and generals who had taken part in the military action received high decorations. Official statements were filled with praise of the high combat-readiness that had been demonstrated by the troops. Meanwhile, Serdyukov and his acolytes, in total secrecy, were preparing a surprise that would blindside the high-ranking military far more than a war with Georgia. The blow came on October 14, 2008. Right after a meeting in the Defense Ministry, Serdyukov met with reporters from information agencies who had been invited especially for this event (and told they should not ask any questions). The minister announced a document with an unusual title: “The Future Image of the Armed Forces of the RF and Urgent Steps toward Its Realization between 2009–2020.” In the manner characteristic of Serdyukov, he presented the public and the Armed Forces with а fait accompli: The document had already been approved by the commander-in-chief. It essentially amounted to a presidential order,

142 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA not intended for discussion but for unconditional compliance. The measures outlined in the document would radically change the army. The document proposed that an unprecedented number of officers be discharged from service. According to the plan, only 150,000 out of 355,000 officer positions would be retained. The number of generals would be reduced from 1,107 to 886, colonels from 25,665 to 9,114, majors from 99,550 to 25,000, captains from 90,000 to 40,000. On the other hand, the number of lieutenants would increase from 50,000 to 60,000. It was also proposed to eliminate the institute of warrant officers and midshipmen altogether, another 140,000 servicemen. But even these reductions paled in comparison to the planned “orgmeasures.” The reformers intended to reduce the number of units and formations in the Ground Forces by a factor of 11 (!), from 1,890 to 172. For the Air Force, the cut would be from 240 to 120, and for the Navy from 240 to 123. The reformers also envisioned a transition from the four-level organization of the Armed Forces (military district—army—division—regiment) to a three-level organizational structure. Military districts would be preserved, but operational commands would be created. Regiments and divisions would be replaced by brigades. The reorganization of the Ground Forces would result in 23 motorized rifle and tank divisions. Rocket and artillery regiments, units of engineering troops, air defense, and communications and electronic warfare would be transformed into 39 combined-arms brigades, 21 rocket and artillery brigades, seven brigades of army air defense troops, 12 communication brigades and two electronic warfare brigades. Only one machine-gun artillery division (in the Far East) and 17 separate regiments would be retained. Divisional organizations were, however, preserved in the Navy, Airborne Troops and Strategic Rocket Forces. The major operational unit in the Air Force would be the airbase. There would be 55 of them, with one squadron deployed at each. The reformers proposed a merciless reorganization of the military educational system. According to their plan, 65 military higher

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 143 education institutions would be transformed into 10 “scientific centers.” The so-called “Arbat Military District,” the Defense Ministry, would itself experience a heavy blow. At the time, there were 10,523 people working in the central administrative apparatus. There were more than 11,000 officers who served in other organs of military administration, including the head commands of branches of the Armed Forces and services chiefs of staff. After the reform in the central apparatus of the Defense Ministry, only 8,500 of 22,000 officers would continue to serve. Other decisions dealt with the qualitative characteristics of the Armed Forces. Massive discharges would affect officers whose formative years fell to the 1990s. The education of many colonels and lieutenant-colonels did not measure up even to what was required of captains. It was too late to educate these people, who were in their mid-30s and 40s. The only way to get rid of them was to discharge them from service. The document proposed to create a corps of professional sergeants. This did not translate into simply slapping stripes on the uniform of a conscript after six months of boot camp training and having him sign a contract, as had been the practice “before the reform.” Rather, the intention was for sergeants to be trained for two-and-a-half years at the same centers where future officers got their educations. It was proposed that a special organ be created to oversee all sergeants. It appeared to be an attempt to follow the example of practically all contemporary armies, in which a sergeant is not a senior enlisted man and not a specialist responsible for the proper functioning of some system of weapons or military technology, but rather a junior commander in his own right. The presence in the army’s small units of such professional junior commanders, whose objectives would include maintaining discipline and instilling a sense of military honor, was the only thing that could put an end to the ugly phenomenon of dedovshchina that was corroding the Russian army.

144 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA The System Loses Meaning Even as the Defense Ministry was launching a large-scale offensive, it also carefully hid its overall strategic goal. Serdyukov and his subordinates continued to evade explanations of the substantive part of their reform. They continued to insist that this was not about reform at all, but only about fixing things that had occurred in the 1990s. Serdyukov claimed he intended to leave in the Armed Forces only units of permanent readiness, or those that were completely manned and equipped with the necessary technology and weapons and ready to carry out combat orders without additional mobilization and reorganization. As for the so-called “cadre” units with no more than a couple of hundred officers attached to depots, and which comprised 70 percent of all military units, they would have to be eliminated. The minister insisted that, by decisively reducing the officer cadre, he intended to rectify the odd situation where “from the point of view of military positions, our army of today looks like an egg, puffed up in the middle. There are more colonels and lieutenantcolonels than junior officers.”101 This attempt to implement “The Future Image” plan was tantamount to a complete break with the concept of a massmobilization army that, for the past 140 years, had formed the foundation of strategy of Russia’s defense. Mass mobilization meant that, during “periods of threat,” four to eight million reservists could find themselves under arms102 since practically most of the country’s male population were considered reservists. Everything that the civilian manager Serdyukov found absurd—that the overwhelming majority of military units in the Ground Forces were comprised of cadre servicemen, and that the army had an excess of officers —was

101

“Minoborony likvidiruet disbalans mezhdu starshimi i mladshimi ofitserami,” RIA Novosti, October15, 2008, https://ria.ru/defense_safety/20081015/153214162.html. 102 Istoriia voennoi strategii Rossii, М. 2000, p. 528.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 145 to be explained by the mobilizational character of the Russian Armed Forces. It had been expected that the “surplus” officers of peacetime would assume command of regiments and divisions of reservists, who would get the equipment and weapons from the depots of the cadre units. It is no coincidence that, in the course of exercises, including “Stabil’nost’—2008,” where the president’s approval of “The Future Image” was announced, the potential for mass mobilization was demonstrated. Supposedly, during 2007 training exercises, a whole division was formed of reservists. But these mobilization events were nothing but dog-and-pony shows. Experts had long understood that mass mobilization was no longer possible in Russia, whether in terms of human resources or industrial capacity.103 Nevertheless, those who had planned the defense of the country made every effort not to see the objective reality. Therefore, in any government guidelines, whether the military doctrine of 2000 or “Current Objectives for the Development of the Armed Forces” (2003), every other line was about mobilizational deployment of the army and industry during a socalled “period of threat.” The cuts and reorganizations that the Defense Ministry was carrying out were pulling the plug on the concept of mass mobilization. A sensational piece of statistics discussed at the “closed” meeting of the chief of the General Staff, Nikolai Makarov, and several members of the Duma was leaked. According to Serdyukov’s plan, if in peacetime the numerical strength of the Armed Forces stood at 1,000,000, in time of war, it would grow only to 1,700,000.104 This magical, totally arbitrary, number came from previous plans for military development. What it meant was that even in case of war, not millions but merely 700,000 reservists would be mobilized. The 103

V. Shlykov, “Chto pogubilo Sovetskii Soiuz? Genshtab i ekonomika,” Voennyi Vestnik MFIT, 2002, № 8. 104 D. Tel’manov, “V sleduiushchem godu zarplata leitenantov sostavit 50 tysiach rublei,” Gazeta, November 14, 2008, № 217.

146 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA Defense Ministry was setting itself up for the most radical reexamination of the entire structure of the country’s defense. At the end of 2008, it was announced that, for the first time in Russia’s history, the General Staff intended to introduce voluntary contract service for those who wanted to serve in the reserve.105 These personnel would be attached to separate special reserve units that would be manned in their respective military districts. Reservists would no longer be under the control of recruitment offices which, in theory, could send them wherever they saw fit to “bring up to full strength” formations already in existence. The ministry’s plan was to organize a mobilization reserve based on entirely different principles than those that had applied to the Russian regular army for 300 years, when the entire able-bodied male population was considered to be reserve. Despite the revolutionary character of the proposed reform, its weaknesses were apparent from the beginning. The reformers carefully tiptoed around the question of some important consequences of their actions. The authors of “The Future Image” insisted that the draft had to be preserved. They pretended they did not see the logical connection between the military draft and the concept of a mass-mobilization army. They pretended they did not understand that, if you give up the gigantic mobilization reserve, it makes no sense whatsoever, from a military point of view, to preserve the draft. It was totally unnecessary to “funnel through” the Armed Forces 550,000–600,000 conscripts annually and to maintain the cumbersome system of reservists’ records and draft offices, in order to train a few hundred thousand volunteer reservists. Reform, of course, was to a large extent the product of Russia’s changing demographic situation that the government could no longer ignore. As early as 2012, the number of 18-year-old men was declining to 660,000. During the next four years, it would continue to decrease, reaching 600,000 by 2016. If one takes into account that about two105

Iu. Semenychev, “V otvete za mobreserv,” Krasnaia Zvezda, October 23, 2008.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 147 thirds of the “conscript contingent” got deferments due to illness or to complete their education, it is clear it is simply not possible to draft 550,000–600,000 men annually.106 In an interview General Makarov gave to Russian television immediately after the defense minister had announced the reform, he alluded to the possibility of a radical reduction in conscription. “So far, the draft has been proceeding as scheduled,” Makarov said. “The only thing of concern is that we may have a demographic gap in 2012, 2013, [and] 2014. We had a low birthrate during this time, 18 to 20 years ago. So the conscript resource is half of what it was in 2001. But we are hoping to double or triple the contract servicemen’s pay by then, to draw contract volunteers by such favorable conditions and be done with this issue.”107 The president’s directive, based on the “The Future Image,” stipulated that the number of military personnel must reach one million only by 2016, but the Defense Ministry insisted that all organizational measures, including planned personnel cuts, be completed by 2012. This meant the planned numerical strength of the Armed Forces for 2012 was below the coveted one million. The draft also made no sense from the point of view of the new structure of the Armed Forces. The president and the defense minister insisted that all units and formations should achieve permanent readiness. This means they must be ready to carry out a combat order immediately upon receiving it, without additional mobilization and regrouping. However, should those units and formations continue to be manned by conscripts, the army might as well forget about combatreadiness. Conscripts receive six months of training at training centers and serve for merely six months in units of permanent readiness. Units where half of the contingent changes every six months clearly

106

Problemy i praktika perekhoda voennoi organizatsii Rossii na novuiu sistemu komplektovaniia/ Nauchnye Trudy #75. M. : Institut ekonomiki perekhodnogo perioda, 2004, p. 238. 107 Vadim Davydov, “Prizyvnoi kontingent v tsifrakh,” Kasnaia Zvezda, February 17, 2009.

148 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA demonstrated they were not ready for combat during the war with Georgia. It was obvious to everyone, including the General Staff, that soldiers who serve for one year were absolutely unfit for combat. There were around 80 formations of permanent readiness at best, and the plan was to employ precisely these formations in case of a military conflict. General Vladimir Shamanov, head of the Defense Ministry’s Combat Training Department, addressed this issue directly: “The forms and methods of armed conflict have radically changed since the Second World War, and they allow us to give up the armada of cadre units and formations, without detriment to the country’s defense capabilities. Let’s call things what they are: These regiments and divisions intended for receiving mobilization resources and deployment during the time of threat have long since become a wasteful anachronism. Because, with the advent of nuclear arms, wars where multimillion armies of superpowers find themselves in a positional confrontation have passed into oblivion. Moreover, because of the burden the military budget has to carry to maintain useless cadre units and formations, we are not able to solve a whole range of problems crucial to the Armed Forces. As far as conventional armed forces are concerned, by which we refer to troops that fight on land, namely the Ground Forces, Airborne troops, and Naval Infantry, we need to create a main body of a rapid reaction groupings, relatively compact, no more than 200,000 strong, but with high combat potential. That is, troops that are mobile, excellently trained and permanently combat-ready in any theater.”108 The logic of the shift from divisions and regiments to brigades was clear. In local conflicts, a brigade with appropriate means of reinforcement is more effective than a division and its cumbersome organizational structure. The creation of operational commands makes sense only if each of them includes troops of several branches and types. This would allow them to carry out, without any additional 108

Vladimir Shamanov, “Neobkhodimost’ reform podtverdila voina,” Krasnaia Zvezda, February 11, 2009.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 149 reinforcement, so-called “unified operations” in which all forces are under unified command. According to the then current organization, “coordination of action” was only possible among different branches of service and types of troops that each had its own command. The level of effectiveness of such “coordination” was demonstrated in the Georgian war, where ground troops had practically no air support. At the time, units and formations of separate branches of the Armed Forces were somehow coordinated on the level of military districts. If operational commands were to receive the authority described above and, at the same time, the system of military districts were to be preserved, the duplication of functions would be unavoidable. On the other hand, if no integration on the level of command were to occur, the very existence of commands would make no sense. If one were to follow the logic of the reforms, both commands and military districts had to deal with units and formations that had been reduced by a factor of ten. There was one more reason why the Defense Ministry preferred to keep silent. The reform plan was based on the assumption that the government would have at its disposal huge uncommitted financial resources. However, by the time of its implementation, the country was in the middle of a full-scale economic crisis. The administration insisted that the crisis would have no impact on plans for military reform. President Medvedev emphasized that “There are most vital positions with regard to which we cannot make decisions to reduce financial commitments. This is, on the one hand, the new image of the Armed Forces that takes into account the modernization that has been taking place. On the other hand, there are social issues, such as salaries, housing, and everything that has to do with the social safety net. These have to be financed. The rest, of course, could be somewhat corrected.”109 The chief of the General Staff, Nikolai Makarov, claimed that the implementation of reforms would not require any increase in 109

Vitalii Denisov, “Uderzhanie pozitsii,” Krasnaia Zvezda, February 20, 2009.

150 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA budget and that all necessary financial means for redeployment, eliminating units and formations, retiring hundreds of thousands of officers and warrant officers would be found in the already existing budget. Lawmakers seemed to know nothing about these matters either. During a meeting with foreign military attachés, the chair of the Duma Defense Committee admitted that no one knew where the severance pay for thousands of officers would come from. Some 205,000 officers had to be discharged. If one were to subtract from that number those with a two-year term of service, as well as those who had already served 20–25 years and had to be discharged with the appropriate benefits, there would still be 57,000 majors and lieutenant-colonels who had served for 10–15 years. The law requires that they be discharged under “restructuring.” But the law also required that each of them be provided with substantial severance pay and, above all, with housing. The Defense Ministry claimed everyone would get housing. When the plan for reforms was announced, there were already 122,000 officers in need of housing. Now there were tens of thousands more officers forced to take an early retirement. It was highly unlikely that any of them had been able to secure housing. It was well known that the Defense Ministry was not able to provide more than 20,000 apartments annually. And no one mentioned financial compensation for those who would be forced to retire before completing their term of 20 years—that is, without a pension. Serdyukov said that in cases where officers were forced to retire from the military service and be replaced by civilian specialists, those same officers, now civilians, could apply for their former positions. However, not long before, the minister had issued an order setting salaries for civil servants. The salary of the head of a recruiting office (and these were now staffed with civilians) was set at 11,000 rubles; a medic of high qualifications would receive 10,000–12,000 rubles. It was unlikely such salaries would appeal to people who just recently were making two or three times as much doing the same work. In the end, a liberal reform of the Russian Armed Forces was carried out using purely Soviet methods. The decision to initiate

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 151 reform was taken in private, and its implementation was like a secret military operation, hidden from those who were its object. The reform was also not backed by law. Had it become necessary to stop it because it was not politically or economically viable, no formal approval by the Duma would be required. Appearing on national television on December 4, 2008, Putin pointedly promised to intervene and correct the reformers if necessary: “Should some instances of overreach in this sense appear, some things surface up that had not been planned but do occur, we shall react, I don’t doubt it for a second.”110 A Secret Reform This is how the unprecedented reform of the Armed Forces began at the end of 2008. Serdyukov had promised to have the “orgmeasures” completed by December 1, 2009. Within one year, hundreds of military units and formations had to be discontinued, garrison towns closed, personnel redeployed, tens of thousands of servicemen relieved. The reformers did not have a detailed plan of action, only a basic outline. This is not surprising: How could they have come up with a detailed plan when everything they intended to do looked like dangerous heresy, if not treason, from the point of view of Soviet military science? In March 2011, during the final stage of reforms, General Staff chief Nikolai Makarov, speaking at the Academy of Military Science, acknowledged with sadness that “military science is detached from war” and that Russian experts in military science have slept through the revolution in military affairs. He continued: “Without a systemic scientific approach, the General Staff had to walk the path of trial and error.”111 Admittedly, some of

110

“Razgovor s Vladimirom Putinym,” Komsomol’skaya Pravda, December 4, 2008, http://www.saratov.kp.ru/daily/24209.4/412952/. 111 Nikolai Makarov, “Put’ prob i oshibok,” Voenno-Promyshlennyi Kur’er, №12, March 30, 2011.

152 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA these errors had serious consequences for both the reforms and the lives of the reformers themselves. The reformers refused to enter any dialogue with society and the army. The reform’s authors strove to get it done as quickly as possible, without discussing anything, without explaining anything to anyone, to prevent conservative military bureaucrats from sabotaging modernization. On a whole, they succeeded. As a result, however, Serdyukov and Makarov lost all of their allies except for the president. Weeks passed, but the only new entries on the Defense Ministry’s official website included such important items as “Khabarovsk Announces Competition for the Best Organization of Patriotic Youth Education” and “Stockpiling of Vegetables for Winter Almost Completed in Leningrad Military District.” In fairness, the site linked to a separate web page entitled “A New Image of the Armed Forces.” Here, the news section offered multiple summaries of a Serdyukov speech. The articles section featured a transcript of an interview the General Staff chief had given to the “Vesti” program and two newspaper articles that once again summarized the defense minister’s speech. The army’s information services, as well as Krasnaia zvezda and the Zvezda TV channel, were mum on the subject of reform. A session of the expanded college of the Defense Ministry that took place in November 2009 included “the invited leadership of the Armed Forces, representatives of the president’s Administration, and Federal lawmakers,” but did not bring much clarity to the subject. Rumors had circulated that President Medvedev would attend the session and that he and Serdyukov would shed light on the reforms. But the president did not attend and, instead of even a minimally informative description of the upcoming reforms, a brief statement was issued: “The head of the Russian Defense Ministry emphasized that the result of the college session must be a full understanding of the challenges the Armed Forces face in the nearest future. Consequently, it is imperative that unified approaches to meeting these challenges are developed, with the focus on the optimization of the army and the navy.” It was obvious that not even the top brass had

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 153 either “unified approaches” or a complete understanding of the challenges. In keeping with Serdyukov’s approach, the Defense Ministry cut itself off from society. The Kommersant newspaper reported that on November 11, the General Staff chief had allegedly signed a directive “On Prevention of Leaks Regarding Reforms in the Armed Forces of the RF.” If one were to believe the article, the leadership of the Defense Ministry, having encountered a mass protests on the part of the top brass who disagreed with the reductions in the army, decided to classify all information concerning military reforms as top secret. Supposedly, those who violated this directive could lose their employment, or even be subject to criminal prosecution. Whether such a secret directive did, in fact, exist, no one knows. There was an official denial of it. However, all agencies of the Defense Ministry, including the information agency, acted as if they were following the directive. The Defense Ministry chose a somewhat unusual way to inform the Armed Forces about the impending changes. The minister’s deputies were sent to visit troops and explain to officers the essence of the reforms. One would assume that each of those “emissaries” met at best with perhaps a couple hundred senior officers in each military district or fleet. At least half of those who had to listen to the Moscow bosses were about to be discharged. Only an absolute optimist would believe that these folks would adequately inform their subordinates of the meaning of the planned reforms and the order in which they would be implemented. Finally, in March 2009, Dmitry Medvedev met with the top commanders of the Armed Forces at another expanded session of the Ministry of Defense college. On the eve of the event, all kinds of rumors circulated about the message the Russian generals would receive from the President. Some claimed that Medvedev would announce the slow-down or even temporary halt of the reforms. Others insisted that, on the contrary, this would be a public display of punishment of those who disagreed with the reform.

154 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA Neither one nor the other occurred. But it was critically important that people who had initiated unprecedented in a half-a-century changes in the Armed Forces were not only not retreating, but were intent on meeting the very tight time table for implementing restructuring measures that they had set for themselves. “Despite the financial difficulties, in the entire modern history of Russia, the conditions have never been more favorable for creating contemporary and highly effective Armed Forces,” Medvedev said.112 He further emphasized that what we have “on our agenda is the shifting of all combat units and formations to the category of permanent readiness,” which, in his opinion, was the key component of the new model, new image of the Armed Forces. In his turn, Serdyukov announced that the reorganizational measures related to the creation of the new image of units and formations, including those that required redeployment had to be completed before 1 December 2009. Getting Rid of the Ballast The president and the defense minister were aware of the complexity of the task. Serdyukov confirmed he intended to cut the number of officer positions to 15 percent of the total numerical strength of the Armed Forces. The Defense Ministry planned to build or buy nearly 45,000 apartments in 2009, with many of these going to those who would be leaving the army and entering civilian life. If anyone needed a clear signal that reform would remain a priority, here it was. It is telling that the massive rearmament, which was just recently supposed to begin simultaneously with organizational measures, was now scheduled to start in 2011. Which meant that all currently available funds were being devoted to reorganization. Russian officers who were told that two-thirds of them would soon be retiring were not satisfied with promises that everything 112

“Medvedev: U Rossii est’ vse usloviia dlia sozdaniia sovremennykh Vooruzhennykh sil,” Rosbalt, March 17, 2009, http://m.rosbalt.ru/main/2009/03/17/626468.html.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 155 would be done in conformity with the law and with their interests in mind. Instead of clear, specific guarantees from the government, they received signals that were hardly positive. In April 2009, an anonymous source announced via Interfax that the Ministry of Defense had given an order to discharge officers “on a voluntary basis, on the basis of reports.” According to the source, officers who did not want to serve in a lower rank or be redeployed could be among those reported. The source claimed this was necessary because money allocated for discharging military personnel as part of the staff reorganization had run out. Originally, an officer who had served for more than 10 years was supposed to get severance pay of 185,000 rubles plus an apartment. Optimization had to be achieved somehow. When the Defense Ministry leadership announced its reformist agenda, many were struck by the claim that all measures would be implemented within the existing budget. It was obvious that forcing more than 100,000 officers into early retirement would require large compensations and huge expenditures. Deactivating nearly 2,000 units and formations would require even higher expenditures. The reformers never explained what optimization would cost. It looked like they were expecting miracles. But no miracle occurred. Army administrators received carte blanche from the minister to act “as usual.” This was something they knew how to do—force officers into voluntary-compulsory discharge by plaguing them with endless reprimands and creating unbearable conditions. The correct objectives of the reform were thus discredited. Officers whose comrades were handled in such a brutish way acquired a moral right to a quiet sabotage. And they used this right. As far as I understand, the threat of “reports” was not initially intended to be applied to all officers. Information leaked by anonymous sources to several media outlets cited 100 colonels and 50 generals from the Defense Ministry’s central apparatus who refused to serve in lower positions or to exchange the “Arbat Military District” for other, less comfortable parts of the vast motherland. At the time,

156 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA the salary of officers in the central military administration was three times higher than that of their colleagues on active duty. The conflict, one would assume, arose when attempts were made to implement Serdyukov’s order to cut the number of officers serving in the Defense Ministry, the General Staff and other command headquarters from 22,000 to 8,000. Obviously, no one had a right to demote an officer who had no disciplinary record. But every officer’s duty is to serve wherever his country and superiors send him. No questions asked. From this point of view, the minister’s decision did not appear to be cruel. However, the clever “sources” presented the whole thing as if demotion was in store for nearly every officer. Reportedly, 160 generals and colonels who were commanders of divisions and brigades were subject to serious tests: physical fitness, military vehicle driving skills and handling of their personal weapons. Their knowledge and skills in the sphere of “command and control of subunits of a brigade” were also tested. Ten percent of commanders received unsatisfactory grades (i.e., they had demonstrated they were not prepared to carry out their job responsibilities). Vladimir Shamanov, head of the Directorate for Combat Readiness, said the test results had to be entered into the officers’ files and would be viewed as important criteria during consideration of promotion. The central assessment commission was ordered to consider the “fitness for office” of those generals and other senior officers who had not passed the tests. This was truly revolutionary. In the Soviet and post-Soviet Russian army, the process of appointment to high posts was shrouded in mystery. During Soviet times, the fate of a formation commander was in the hands of the all-powerful Department of the Administrative Organs of the Central Committee of the CPSU, which did not have to answer to anyone over personnel decisions. I remember Marshall Yazov’s wrath over a seemingly innocent article in Krasnaia Zvezda that revealed the horrifying secret that, in the USA, generals are promoted by competition. US officers who do not meet clearly formulated requirements, have not received the required education

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 157 and have not served in the required positions have no chance of winning. This was the first Russian attempt to make the promotion process more transparent. It did not go anywhere, unfortunately. For “desk generals” who had spent their lives serving on staffs, this did not bode well—and they were prepared to fight for all they were worth. The Defense Ministry’s secrecy made their fight easier. Leaks to the press suggested that the problems of the generals extended to all officers. The rumors were soon confirmed. In May 2009, Serdyukov issued an order to carry out an unannounced performance review of the Armed Forces. The results of the performance ratings for the top commanders were made public. Fifty of 250 generals and colonels in generals’ positions were found not fit for office and were recommended for discharge. We can assume that no less than 20 percent of lower-ranking officers failed to meet requirements. To be fair, army bosses showed a degree of tolerance in their assessments of the professional competence of officers. It is understandable that the performance review led to the discharge of those who did not want to study or those who were corrupted by idleness. All of this would have been wonderful, except there was a catch: Were they to do everything according to the law, the cost of relieving so many officers would have been astronomical. Elena Prieszheva, an adviser to the defense minister, pointed out that the cost of the ministry’s targeted program of guaranteed benefits for those discharged in 2009–2011 would be as high as 113 billion rubles. This was about 10 percent of the entire military budget for 2009. With the country in an economic crisis, there was not enough money to implement this program. Another problem was that, due to financial issues, officers could not get enough hours of swimming, flying and other training to help them pass competence tests. They thus had to be relieved without receiving an apartment and severance pay. Faced with such prospects, an officer would agree, for example, to retire “voluntarily” and, having lost financial compensation, to stay on the waiting list for housing, holding on to the hope, quite illusory,

158 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA that he would eventually be issued an apartment. In this situation, a performance review, which is a legitimate method for an employer (in this case the government) to establish employee fitness, turned into its opposite: a clever ploy on the part of the employer to get rid of employees they did not want to pay. The government was acting very much like the owners of mansions in Moscow suburbia. These “smooth operators” would hire illegal immigrants to work for them, and when payday came, would call the fat cats from the immigration service. The police would come and pick up the immigrants, and there was no need to pay anyone. Formally, the home owners acted according to the law when they turned in the illegals. But in reality, it was an abomination. It took more than a year for the Defense Ministry bosses to explain the rationale for their actions. A meeting was arranged at the military training center in Mulino, Nizhegorodskaia oblast, between Dmitri Medvedev and commanders of already restructured formations. These officers, the elite of the Armed Forces, were urged to talk about the importance of getting rid of the ballast. Colonel Rumiantsev, who had fired 415 out of 611 officers of his brigade, reported to the commander-in-chief: “The restructuring [and] the growing intensity of combat training have brought to the fore the problem which consists of an insufficient, and often plainly low, level of individual professional and position-related education of officers. Today, it is an open secret that officers of the undermanned units had been preoccupied primarily with solving their everyday life problems for a very long time.”113 Now Hiring: A New Type of Officer The Defense Ministry decided to carry out another, quite painful, reform. It attempted to encroach upon another “holy of holies”: the 113

“Stenograficheskii otchet o vstreche s uchastnikami sbora komandirov soedinenii Vooruzhennykh Sil,” Kremlin.ru, November 25, 2010, http://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/9609.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 159 system of military education. It announced that military institutions of higher education would not accept prospective student applications in either 2010 or 2011. Additionally, around 25 percent of those who graduated from military schools in 2009 were offered sergeant positions, not officer posts. In 2010, as many as half of 15,000 graduating cadets got the same kind of offers. The reformers had finally arrived at one of the most important, if not the most important, issue: modernization. None of what had been done to that point— eliminating undermanned units, cutting more than 50 percent of officer positions—made sense without radical changes in the system of officer education. It is unlikely that the halt in accepting new students was due exclusively to the fact that no positions were open to young officers because the number of units and formations had been cut. When the Russian military leadership finally came to realize the necessity of creating a professional NCO corps and began training qualified junior commanders, it was confronted with a dilemma: If the army acquired professional sergeants, junior officers would risk finding themselves redundant. Military higher education institutions graduated not professional officers, but military hacks who could feel competent only in a mass conscript army and in the absence of real sergeants. Therefore, the most important direction military reform could take was to radically change the system of military education and the terms and conditions of service. Education in most military higher education institutions was structured so that a future officer acquired knowledge exclusively in his “specific area” (i.e., he got only the education necessary to handle one or two concrete pieces of military technology). I remember the amazement (and disdain) that Soviet generals displayed when they learned about the programs at US military academies. It turned out that neither at the army’s West Point, nor at the Annapolis Naval Academy, nor the Colorado Springs Air Force Academy did they spend much time on training a student as a specialist in one particular type of weapon. “Where is the study of

160 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA equipment?” Russian commanders would ask their American colleagues. The programs of the military academies of Western countries is divided approximately 50–50 between arts and sciences. Math, physics and chemistry teach students how to study. Humanities and social sciences provide officers with an understanding of their place within our complex world and information about how to command people without resorting to physical abuse. Thanks to this background, graduates of the US military academies easily master concrete military jobs: pilot, ship master, platoon commander. The graduates of these military academies, like the graduates of civilian universities who choose to become officers, learn military jobs in special training centers after graduation. The reformers from the Russian Defense Ministry probably had in mind this kind of system of education. If so, then a two-year pause in accepting new students would appear to be necessary to radically rebuild curriculums. But the reformers never figured out who would teach the teachers. The dilemma has still not been solved. Twenty-five years ago, former departments of Marxism-Leninism quickly changed their name to political science departments. The name changed, but the mentality and the educational background of teachers remained unchanged. I have run in to a few textbooks cooked up by these, I beg your pardon, political scientists. Their writings represent a wild mixture of primitive nationalism and Marxism. Optimists were hoping that the transformation of military education would be brought about by curriculums that gave prominence to foreign languages, which would give young officers an opportunity for selfimprovement. Alas, this has not happened. Having carried out the “quantitative” part of the reform, the Defense Ministry was focusing on building a system where only a person who made a conscious choice to enter the military profession would apply to a military academy (i.e., a person whom no one had to force to study). This is why the military reformers allowed each future officer to put together his own study program. Students were given the freedom to leave campus whenever they wished. On the other

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 161 hand, they were not allowed to make up for a failing grade. Once a student failed an exam, he was expelled. However, all appeals to officers to pursue intellectual growth and self-improvement were hypocritical if it remained the case that the career of a Russian military man was defined entirely by his personnel manager and immediate superior. No officer, even if he were an absolute genius, could be promoted if his personnel manager or boss was against it. What needed to be done to change this situation was to transform the promotion process into an open and public competition. But that was pushed into a distant future. In the meantime, new lieutenants faced the prospect of finding themselves in sergeants’ positions. Those who already had served for a while, captains and majors, were facing the reality of an assessment that could lead to them being discharged from the army without housing and severance pay. This explains why the relationship between Serdyukov and the officer corps was ruined to the point of no return. Nothing could remedy that, not even the fact that it was Serdyukov who doubled and tripled Russian officers’ salaries. From January 1, 2012, each lieutenant received 50,000 rubles, which made his pay more or less comparable to that of junior officers in the West. Despite that, these officers continued to passionately hate “this furniture dealer.” An Atmosphere of Hatred With the painful restructuring under way, Serdyukov and Makarov attempted another revolution. They made a decision to relieve officers, including the very top-ranking ones, of the grave responsibility of handling the budget. Neither the commander of a unit, nor the commander of a military district, were to be responsible for the work of a boiler room or a mess hall. Nor did they have to worry about energy supplies. The task of supplying the troops with everything from ammunition to the most complex armaments, was now placed with the civilian organizations created by and affiliated

162 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA with the Defense Ministry. The reformers set for themselves a goal to end the institution of commanders as “strong managers.” For decades, a commander was evaluated not on how well he prepared his unit for military action, but on whether he had been able to get a cafeteria or a bathhouse built by being “resourceful,” (i.e., without having the necessary funding). This state of affairs entangled commanders in nets of corrupt relationships. A commander might pay for bricks and wood with free labor, the only resource he had at his disposal. If during the Soviet time this system was controlled, at least to some extent, by the party, in the 1990s, when the government had no money at all to maintain the gigantic military machine, the troops were practically forced to provide for themselves. Consequently, the positions of brigade and deputy commanders were occupied by officers who knew how to wheel and deal but not how to command. Not all military commanders were inspired by the prospect of working 24 hours a day to perfect their skills in command and control of troops while receiving only their regular salary. Many got used to incidental earnings, which would eventually become their main source of income. They perceived the ministry’s innovations as a major threat to their interests. An additional source of irritation was Serdyukov’s idea of a regular rotation of commanders, aimed at alternating them between staff and army duties. What had worked well with tax service bureaucrats, however, went nowhere with Russian generals who had no desire to leave “the Arbat military district.” In July 2011, three promising young generals—Andrei Tret’iak, head of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff; the chief of the Ground Forces staff, Sergey Skokov; and the chief of the Directorate for Radio Electronic Warfare of the General Staff, Oleg Ivanov—tendered their resignation letters at the same time. It was leaked to the press as a protest action. These brilliant generals were allegedly sick and tired of living in the environment of permanent chaos that had been created by the General Staff chief Nikolai Makarov. A high-ranking source who related this heart-wrenching story to a reporter from Nezavisimaia Gazeta insisted that “During the entire

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 163 time that Makarov has been chief of the General Staff, the Armed Forces have been in some sort of a temporary, experimental state, they have lived according to some projects in progress, some unapproved guideline documents.”114 The basic instructions and field manuals that are supposed to provide guidance for troops were in the works for more than two years because the General Staff chief was not able to come up with final versions. Supposedly, the order-loving generals could not deal with this chaos. The Information Directorate of the Defense Ministry reacted swiftly. It immediately reported that these top generals had resigned for health reasons—somehow their health had deteriorated dramatically between April and June. However, a critic of the General Staff chief, and there were many of them in the Arbat military district, decided to present the personal decisions of the three military leaders as an organized protest. Serdyukov, however, continued to hold the line, mercilessly firing dissenters and carrying out a large-scale reshuffling of the top military leadership. Nearly all the defense minister’s deputies were ousted. So were commanders of branches of the Armed Forces, services commanders, and commanders of military districts and fleets. The most momentous of all was the ousting of the chief of the General Staff of Russia’s Armed Forces, General Yuri Baluevskii; Deputy Finance minister Liubov Kudelina; the deputy defense minister for logistics systems, General Vladimir Isakov; the commander of the Navy, Admiral Vladimir Masorin; General Valentin Korabel’nikov, chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff; the commander of the Ground Forces, General Vladimir Boldyrev; and the chief of the Main Directorate for Morale and Welfare of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant-General Anatoly Bashlakov. By the first half of 2008, more than 70 percent of the cadre of deputies and chiefs of services in the Defense Ministry were new people. Naturally, Serdyukov gained many enemies.

114

“General’skii demarsh,” Nezavisimaia Gazeta, July 5, 2011.

164 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA These and other steps made the reformers vulnerable to provocations. And provocations were not long in coming. Leaks to the press about the forthcoming firing of Serdyukov began to appear with regularity. At times, the retired “army community” called for mutiny. The most serious of the unsuccessful attacks on Serdyukov occurred in October 2010, when the International Union of Paratroopers appealed to the president and the Patriarch of All Russia to “evaluate” bullying by the defense minister. According to a few retired, but quite distinguished, paratroopers, when Serdyukov visited the Sel’tsy training center of the Ryazan Airborne Command College, he “rudely insulted Hero of Russia, Colonel of the Guards Andrei Krasov, cursing him and humiliating him personally and professionally in front of his subordinates.”115 The defense minister also ordered the destruction of the church located on training center territory. The version of events offered by Vladimir Shamanov, then commander of the Airborne Force, was somewhat different. “The defense minister did, in fact, express doubt as to the expediency of having a church built right across from the training building,” he said. “The point is that the church is too far away from town and the students spend very little time on campus.”116 This version was further clarified by Grigorii Naginskii, the deputy defense minister responsible for installation and billeting. In his account, the cause of the conflict was not the church itself, but that several unauthorized buildings were discovered on training center grounds: “We looked at all the buildings that they began building in 2008–2009 and have never completed… The commander’s predecessor violated every rule in the book, since not a kopek of funds had been allocated for construction projects in Sel’tsy for 2009 and 2010. Therefore, the fact that he brought in construction

115

“Ministr oborony RF atakoval tscerkov’ matom: na nego pozhalovalis’ prezidentu RF i Patriarkhu,” Newsru.com, October18, 2010, https://www.newsru.com/religy/18oct2010/serditiy_serdjukov.html. 116 Vladislav Shurygin, “Serdyukov, ukhodi!” Zavtra, October 27, 2010.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 165 workers who did 180 million rubles worth of work is, in my book, unlawful, however you look at it.”117 One also could not but admire the sensitive nature of retired Airborne General Vladislav Achalov and the former chief of Airborne Forces Intelligence, Colonel Pavel Popovskikh. These gentle souls, after decades of service, had preserved the ability to be wounded by profanity from the bosses. It is easy to imagine the minister’s emotions upon learning that unauthorized construction projects have been carried out in a military unit at the expense of the ministry. It is also curious that the incident that occurred September 30 was made public on social media as late as October 14. Sounds like the insulted individuals suffered for a whole two weeks! Anatoly Serdyukov’s ill-wishers could not let this opportunity pass. It was not enough that the object of his wrath was a “Hero of Russia.” What sparked his rage was an Orthodox church. The narrative was perfection itself: He who had been destroying the glorious Armed Forces does not respect distinguished officers, and nothing is sacred to him—after all, he ordered a church to be removed from the territory of a military unit. In the end, Serdyukov’s conflict with the retired paratroopers had to be investigated by the Duma Defense Committee. Reports appeared in the media that the prime minister ordered the defense minister to write a letter of resignation. Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov denounced the reports as “absolute rubbish.” It is true that, however much the reformers tried to ignore protests, they eventually had to back away from one of their most important positions. They had originally proposed to reduce the number of officers to no more than 15 percent of the total numerical strength of the Armed Forces. In February 2011, after a meeting with the president, Serdyukov agreed to increase the number of officers by 117

“Zamministra oborony o situatsii v ‘Sel’tsakh’: ‘Ia absoliutno solidaren s ministrom oborony - to, chto ia tam uvidel, vyzyvaet vozmushchenie,’ ” Regnum.ru, October 21, 2010, https://regnum.ru/news/1338564.html.

166 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA 70,000 all at once. The explanation that the minister offered was that a huge increase was needed to create the system of Airspace Defense. This was totally unconvincing. His system was being created on the basis of already existing units and formations of Air Defense and the missile warning system. There was no need for another 70,000 officer positions at all. In mid-2010, however, information surfaced that there were exactly 70,000 unassigned officers. These were individuals who had found no positions in the army of the “new image.” But they also could not be discharged since the government was not able to provide them with housing. It is logical to assume that, having realized its inability to provide compensation and housing for the future retirees, the Defense Ministry decided to simply keep them on the rolls. To ignore the protests of so many uniformed people was becoming risky. Parliamentary elections were also just around the corner. In any case, Serdyukov’s concession had deplorable consequences. Until that point, the high-ranking military had hesitated to act decisively because Medvedev and Putin had demonstrated their unequivocal support for the minister. But now those who hated him decided it was time for him to lose that support. Tossing and Turning Over Conscription The tossing and turning over the issue of conscription shows that the reformers did not have a complete and detailed plan. How the Armed Forces would be manned, of course, was one of the central issues of military modernization. By 2008, there was no longer any doubt that the program of a partial shift to contracts had failed. Serdyukov and Makarov could not come up with anything better than bringing it to a halt and announcing that, from this point on, the focus would be on conscription. “We are not transitioning to the contract service,” announced Makarov. “Moreover, we are increasing conscription and decreasing the contract-based part.”118 However, the 118

“Rossiiskaia armiia ne stanet kontraktnoi,” Vedomosti, February 26, 2010.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 167 reformers did not wish to openly acknowledge the failure of their predecessors. Instead, they came up with the “flexible” formula. They decided they would consider units permanently combat-ready when the “positions defining combat-readiness” were filled with contractbased servicemen. The rest of the soldiers could be draftees. The military was thus given the ability to freely interpret which positions defined “combat-readiness” and which did not. There was some logic to this. “We have come to the conclusion that a contract serviceman must be trained by different methods than the ones used before,” said Makarov. “Therefore, right now we hire only sergeants whom we train for two-and-a-half years. And that’s how we plan to transition to a contract-based army.”119 In reality, he was merely repeating what liberal experts wrote as early as 2002, when plans for transitioning to contracts were first published. It is, in fact, senseless to try to shift to an all-volunteer army before you have created a corps of professional sergeants. Junior commanders should be the ones tasked with ending dedovshchina in the barracks. To do that, it is necessary for a sergeant to be able to maintain order using his authority and not his fists. He must differ from his subordinates in age, professional training and life experience. When the ministry announced that sergeants would be getting professional training at special training centers affiliated with the best military academies for almost three years, hope emerged that the reformers at least understood the essence of the issue. It soon turned out, however, that this 34-month training would be available only to those sergeants who were to serve in positions occupied by officers in the past, such as platoon commanders and aviation mechanics. This meant that, in terms of his qualifications, a sergeant would become an inferior version of the officer he came to replace. In their desire to avoid another conflict with the generals, Serdyukov and Makarov preferred to rely on the leaders of the Main 119

“Genshtab: My uvelichivaem prizyv, a kontraktnuiu chast’ umen’shaem,” Vzgliad, February 24, 2010, http://vz.ru/news/2010/2/24/378585.print.html.

168 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA Directorate for Organization and Mobilization, who claimed there were more than enough draftees to bring the Armed Forces up to strength. No one took into account the obvious fact that the country was about to fall into a demographic sinkhole. In 2009, to maintain the necessary numerical strength, the army had to “call to the colors” around 750,000 young men. But only 840,000 young men turned 18 that year. Institutions of higher education were prepared to accept approximately 300,000 students, who would then receive deferments. Approximately 25–30 percent of potential recruits would be getting deferments for health reasons. Instead of accepting the reality of the situation, the generals argued furiously that the army could be brought up to strength if only they could abolish all types of deferments and track down “draft dodgers.” They should have been careful what they wished for. They were given an opportunity to test these approaches in 2009–2010. First, they decided to scrape the bottom of the barrel. ROTC was taken away from 160 college-level schools, which meant that graduates of colleges and universities would have to be drafted as privates. But that only provided a little over 100,000 draftees. The Defense Ministry decided to hunt down those who had successfully dodged the draft for years. Among these so-called dodgers were both those who, having received a summons, did not show up for medical evaluation (there were approximately 11,000 of them) and those who managed to avoid getting a summons. Militia officers were tasked with hunting them down. In order to make it easier for law enforcement to hunt down potential recruits, the Duma passed an amendment entitled “On Military Duty and Military Service.” It stipulated that if any man subject to conscription (i.e., citizens in the 18–27 age group) wanted to travel away from his place of permanent residence for more than two weeks, he was to report to the assigned recruitment center and register there. It was clear this requirement was absurd. But the objective was quite concrete: to provide a legal base for militia raids on dodgers. Residence abroad was another loophole that the Defense Ministry closed for potential recruits. The existing law, in the opinion of one of

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 169 the top bureaucrats in the Main Directorate for Organization and Mobilization, General Vladimir Konstantinov, allowed citizens subject to conscription not to register for military service. The bureaucrats from the Ministry of Defense had so many ideas that they intended to replace the above mentioned legislation “On Military Duty and Military Service” with two other laws. One would deal exclusively with military duty, forever inscribing conscription slavery into the law. The other would solely cover military service. In May 2009, Vasily Smirnov, chief of the Main Directorate for Organization and Mobilization of the Defense Ministry, acknowledged the obvious: Due to the demographic problems, it was not possible to come up with 750,000 recruits annually. To deal with this dilemma, Smirnov offered a whole range of completely draconian steps. He proposed to raise the draft age limit from 27 to 30. Another proposal was to abolish the practice of having each potential recruit personally sign for the summons delivered to him. The ministry instead proposed to send men subject to conscription text-messaged summons and, if they did not show up, to prosecute them as criminals. Another proposal was that the spring recruitment period be extended to August 31 so that high school graduates could be drafted before they ever had a chance to apply to college. It was apparent the generals spun their figures out of the thin air. Smirnov, for example, claimed that 100,000 dodgers evaded receiving summonses annually. One of his subordinates, Major-General Ivan Borodinchik, said the number was 200,000. Despite increasingly cruel measures, it was harder and harder to find the necessary number of conscripts. The moment of truth came in late 2010. On the New Year’s Eve (the law stipulates that December 31 is the last day of conscription), a raid was conducted at the dormitory of the Moscow Conservatory of Music. At 6 a.m., as many as four dozen flautists and clarinetists were plucked out of their beds. A few days earlier, several dozen graduate students of various Voronezh schools were attacked. The conservatory students were guilty of not having registered with army recruitment centers. The

170 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA trick was to grab those who were legally entitled to deferment, using the help of militia officers. The recruiters knew perfectly well that, even if a recruit would later be able to prove his deferment was justified by law, he had practically no chance to leave the Armed Forces. The recruitment plan would be fulfilled, come what may. The fact that graduate students and musicians were being dragged into the army made it clear the situation was critical. In Voronezh oblast, only 70 percent of the recruitment plan was fulfilled. The authorities had tried to corral everyone, including musicians and dancers. The low quality of the conscript contingent was no secret. “You already know whom we have drafted and in what numbers. Got screwed, pardon my French. We need to think about the integrity of our army, about who joins it. Therefore, the leadership of the Ministry of Defense insists on this principle: it is better to have fewer of us, but we need to be better. Even if it means that the army is not up to full strength,”120 proclaimed Deputy Minister Nikolai Pankov. I was told that in Moscow, in the heat of the moment, they even picked up a team of illegal Tajik workers. The president and defense minister had to publicly restrain the recruiters who, fearing they would lose their jobs, would not hesitate to grab anyone and push them into the glorious army. But the conscription failed. Vasily Smirnov tried to persuade the country’s leadership that it was possible to jump over the demographic gap by corralling into the army almost one million dodgers who had escaped the draft in previous years (this figure was purely random; military bureaucrats varied it at their convenience). Even if a miracle occurred and Smirnov, with the help of the militia, had hunted down a million 25 to 26-year-old men (who had managed to escape the draft for seven or eight years), this would have delayed the complete meltdown of the draft system for no more than a few years. The generals were never able to refute information provided by Vitaly Tsymbal, head of the Military Economics Lab at the Institute of Economics of the Transitional Period. According to 120

Ol’ga Bozh’eva. “V armii mogut sokratit’ sokrashcheniia.” Moskovskii Komsomolets. 27 March 2009.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 171 his calculations, the number of 18-year-old men was equal to the number of the military positions in the Armed Forces as early as 2010. Staking everything on the draft not only did not make it possible to bring the army up the strength. It rendered senseless the formation of permanent readiness units. All formations of permanent readiness (and a decision had been made that there would not be any other formations in the Russian army) had to be manned by applying a “mixed principle.” Those positions contributing to combat readiness should be given to contract servicemen, and the rest would be filled by conscripts. At the same time, Deputy Minister Nikolai Pankov reported that the training time for any brigade to make it combat ready had been reduced from 24 hours to 1. The question left unanswered was what magic would help make a formation combat ready when, at any particular moment, half of it consisted of soldiers whose term of service is only six months. So, they decided to train truck drivers for three months. In this way, soldiers would have to stay with the unit for nine months. Yet the teaching methods were such that soldiers could not learn driving trucks in three months. It turned out that officers were taking tests for their subordinates. The reformers intended to test the correctness of their approaches during the strategic operational exercise “Vostok 2010.” Problems began to surface during the preparatory stage. The Khabarovsk Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers started receiving massive numbers of letters complaining that commanders of military units were preventing the discharge of conscripts who had served one full year. Some incidents were totally outrageous: The deputy commander of one battalion burned civilian clothes that belonged to discharged soldiers. Human rights activists learned that the cause of such a massive number of abuses was precisely the forthcoming “Vostok 2010” exercise. When planning for the exercise, the General Staff did not take into account that it coincided with a large-scale discharge of conscripts and the arrival of new recruits who knew nothing. There was no one to prepare the exercise area for the exercise and to demonstrate a high level of training and combat cohesion. In this

172 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA situation, the commanders chose to violate soldiers’ rights by refusing to discharge them. As one expert observed, not without irony: It appeared combatreadiness was one thing, but combat capability quite another. In essence, “permanent combat-readiness” was about bringing units up to strength. Troop performance did not seem to be all that important. The country’s leadership decided to test the results of Serdyukov’s reforms and the “new-image army.” Therefore, “Vostok 2010” did not feature a single hypothetical opponent. Forces engaged in combat actions on “isolated axes.” In one case, it was a counterterrorism operation. Elsewhere, it was an operation against large-scale formations of separatists. On another axis, they fought a regular opponent with missiles, aircraft, submarines and surface ships. The leadership had to find answers to several important questions, including, first and foremost: To what degree is Russia able to “project power” over great distances? Or, simply put, is Russia able to redeploy forces to its most distant borders? To test that, two significant operations were carried out. First, three dozen Su-24 and Su-34 tactical bombers flew non-stop from central Russia to the Far East, refueling in flight several times. This would be replicated five years later during the deployment in Syria. Secondly, a motorized rifle division was redeployed from Ekaterinburg to Primorye. The brigade flew light, without heavy equipment. It picked up tanks, armored personnel carriers and artillery from a storage depot on location. This was the first attempt at such a redeployment. Supposedly, the entire operation was successfully completed, and the brigade carried out its combat mission on unfamiliar terrain in a timely manner. However, it appears the experiment was not entirely without blemish. The problem was that the storage depot had been created just before the exercise, on December 1, 2009. The military technology stored in it had come from а recently discontinued division. They were able to get the equipment up and running for only one battalion. Consequently, only one battalion out of the entire brigade participated in the exercise. Obviously, if, during the exercise, the troops had attempted to take up equipment that had not been used for years, the result

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 173 would have been quite different. Nevertheless, it was clear the General Staff was seriously testing the possibility of guaranteeing country’s security using rapid deployment forces in potential conflict zones, instead of deploying forces over the country’s entire territory as had been done before. If successful, this would render senseless the theory that, because of her vast territory, Russia needs a multimillion-man army. What we may never learn is: Who were those that “fought” in Transbaikalia and the Far East, who drove tanks and armored vehicles, who guided air defense missiles to flying targets? The exercise organizers did not hide the fact that they aimed at establishing whether it was possible to send into battle formations where half of the soldiers had been drafted only a few weeks earlier. “This is one of the main objectives of the forthcoming exercise—to evaluate the level of training of today’s soldier. It is important to answer the question of whether it is realistic to train a soldier in any meaningful way within one year. I will tell you this: All the talk that, supposedly, we brought in servicemen who will be discharged in the fall to participate in this exercise, has nothing to do with reality,” the Chief of the General Staff, Nikolai Makarov proclaimed.121 After the conclusion of “Vostok 2010,” the bosses claimed that half of the participants had been spring recruits (i.e., they had had no more than a month or two of training) who had successfully carried out everything that specialists are supposed to do. No one cared to explain which particular methods created such a miracle. After all, it was not that long ago that the same kind of specialists had to go through a half-year training (which later shrank to a three months). But a few weeks? In place of clear explanations, there appeared optimistic reports along the lines of “We worked hard and mobilized our intelligence and imagination.” 121

Aleksandr Golts. “Itogi nedeli. Bol’shie manevry ostavili bol’shie voprosy,” Ezhednevnyi Zhurnal, 9 June 2010. http://www.ej.ru/?a=note&id=10234

174 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA In reality, things do not appear to have been quite so brilliantly carried out. Here is an example. If one were to believe the reports, an Air Defense brigade repelled a massive short-range missile strike and hit every target. Yet, unexpectedly, in one of the upbeat reports a small detail slips in: “Many soldiers faced actual fire for the first time, and the very first round caused a shock. However, they also gained trust in our technology and its capabilities,”122 reported Igor Sukristov, the Chief of the Department of Combat Training of the Directorate for the Troop Air Defense of the Ground Forces of the RF. So, the “shocked” conscripts who found themselves at a firing range for the first time in their lives, did not lose their cool even for a second and successfully carried out the firing operation? It is much more logical to assume that officers worked on control panels and monitors and carried out live-fire demonstrations. It is telling that, having attended these exercises, the Chair of the Defense Committee of the RF Council, Viktor Ozerov, generally an ardent supporter of all of the Ministry of Defense innovations, unexpectedly acknowledged that there was a need to consider an increase in the number of contract servicemen. Another aspect of the exercise should also be noted. At least some of the participants found themselves in a situation quite far removed from the “humane army,” as the defense minister described it. Local news outlets reported that soldiers preparing the terrain for the exercise near Ussuriisk had no hot food for several weeks. They also had no way of washing themselves and became infected with lice. The “humanization” of military service that Serdyukov announced in 2010 did nothing to improve this situation. The parents of potential recruits were allowed to attend meetings at recruitment centers. Representatives of the public and parents received permission to accompany future soldiers to their units, because many crimes occurred precisely on the way there. Soldiers were allowed to have cell phones. The draftees were told that they would serve relatively close 122

Neskuchnyi Sad, No 11, November 2010. http://www.docme.ru/doc/7879/neskuchnyj-sad-N11-noyabr._-2010

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 175 to home. In addition, they were promised afternoon naps and outfits for physical training. A day off was also guaranteed. In other words, the course was set to turn a penitentiary regime into that of an athletic camp. That was certainly remarkable. Unfortunately, it had very little to do with the creation of a “new image” of the Armed Forces. These were attempts to modernize and humanize an institution that does not lend itself to either of those things. In the process of humanization, it became apparent that it was becoming increasingly more expensive to support the institution of conscription. According to human rights activists, the price tag for draft campaigns, which included health evaluations and delivering the conscripts to the place of service, was 100 billion rubles per year, which amounts to one-tenth of the annual military budget. When the generals insisted that the country cannot afford to maintain a contract-based army, they took for granted the fact that conscripts could be forced to live like cattle: without hot water, with rations that consisted of rutabaga and potatoes, with jumpsuits that had not been washed for years. The conscripts did not have to be paid. But as soon as attempts were made to realize Serdyukov’s dream about “humane service,” it became clear that such an army would cost far more than the one on contract footing. The draft could not be saved with either a carrot or a stick, with either cruel or “humanized” measures. In the fall of 2011 the inevitable happened. The same Vasily Smirnov who just recently had insisted that the fall draft would not be any different from the spring one and would generate around 250,000 recruits, acknowledged that no more than 135,000 was possible. This was an obvious blow to the draft. Under these circumstances, the General Staff gathered enough courage to take steps that should have been taken long ago. General Makarov announced that, from now on, the goal would be to create a contract-based army. Conscripts would comprise no more than 10 to 15 percent of the Armed Forces. In a speech to the Civic Chamber, Makarov emphasized that the Defense Ministry had set a course to steer the Armed Forces toward contracts. Between 2013 and 2017, the ministry planned to sign

176 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA contracts with 50,000 volunteers. As the result, the number of contract-servicemen should reach 425,000. Lessons had been learned from the failure of the Federal Targeted Program to partially shift to a contract military that had been attempted in 2003–2008. Everyone remembered how, after a few months of service, young conscripts were pushed into becoming “professionals,” whether they wanted or not. The Ministry planned to create special recruitment centers across the regions of the Russian Federation. Those who signed contracts would have to undergo three months of training at centers affiliated with military institutions of higher education. A specially created subsection of the Defense Ministry Personnel Department was put in charge of contracting servicemen. Finally, and most importantly, the General Staff chief announced that, while the full replacement of conscripts by contract servicemen was totally reasonable, the Defense Ministry wanted to make sure the new contract servicemen were adequately trained. If by 2017 the program is successful, the idea abolishing the draft could be considered. Gained at the price of such pain were two things. One was the realization that modern, combat-effective armed forces cannot be built on conscription. The other was understanding the benefits to be gained from the elimination of cadre formations and radical reductions in the number of officers. These are probably the most significant positive results of the reform. But this is probably the extent of the reformers’ achievements. The country has moved on. The reform became one of the few, if not the only, accomplishments of President Medvedev. Serdyukov’s reputation suffered. The man who fires 200,000 people cannot be loved, by definition. His total lack of interest in public relations and the unpleasant way he dealt with subordinates can be added to the strikes against him. Medvedev and Serdyukov summed up the results of the reform effort in an appearance on March 19, 2012, at the Defense Ministry college. “Personnel and the leadership of the Armed Forces demonstrated their ability to solve tactical and strategic problems,” Medvedev proclaimed. “Generally speaking, as the result of reforms,

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 177 we have new Armed Forces. They are by far more aligned with the character of today’s threats and are able to respond to any potential threats directed against us.”123 Yes, the basic dirty work was completed. Parliamentary and presidential elections were on the horizon. It was time to find a scapegoat. After the March college, Medvedev’s and Serdyukov’s paths diverged. The former President received a Prime Minister’s post as a reward for his zealous locum tenens. As to Serdyukov, to whom Putin owes his later international successes, his fortunes soon changed. Counting on the president’s support, he entered into a serious conflict with arms manufacturers. In his fight to reduce prices, he found himself on the opposite side of a group of very influential bureaucrats, including the president’s chief of staff, Sergey Ivanov, and the president of RosTekh, Sergey Chemizov. At stake were 20 trillion rubles that had been allocated for an ambitious rearmament initiative. On October 25, 2012, a search was conducted at the apartment of Evgeniia Vasilyeva, head of the Defense Ministry’s Department of Property Relations. The media relished the details provided by investigators, such as the fact, that early in the morning, Serdyukov was found in Vasilyeva’s apartment. What is important here is not so much the suggestion that they had an affair, but the question of why investigators entered an apartment with a protected official inside without a warrant. Clearly, Serdyukov’s opponents were counting on the president’s neutrality. More searches and interrogations followed in rapid succession. The leaders and bureaucrats of the Defense Ministry were accused of intentionally selling government property at discount prices. The investigators used their own experts’ conclusions and ignored the opinions of other experts. In their search for kompromat on Serdyukov, they made some totally ridiculous accusations. 123

“Medvedev ‘obnovil’ Vooruzhennye Sily RF, nameknuv, chto ikh ne stoit ispytyvat’ na prochnost,’ ” Newsru.com, March 20, 2012, https://www.newsru.com/russia/20mar2012/medvedevdefence.html.

178 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA In the summer of 2011, Vladimir Putin notified Dmitry Medvedev that he intended to return to the Kremlin. Ironically, this historic meeting took place at a tourist center in Astrakhan oblast. Two years later, the Investigative Committee brought criminal charges against Serdyukov. He was accused of giving a verbal order to build and landscape a road to the Astrakhan tourist center where Putin and Medvedev met. The crime, in the opinion of law enforcement, consisted in having a Railway Troops battalion build the road and conscripts from the nearby aviation unit plant the trees. “Instead of service and military training, some soldiers were planting poplars in the Astrakhan steppe, while others were building not a railroad but rather a highway,” the Investigative Committee spokesman said. “As the result, a road was built that benefited only the owners and the guests of a private property.” 124 Тhat would happen in November of 2013. But a year-and-a-half earlier, the state media unleashed a bacchanalia of slander. Could Putin’s powerful minister ever have imagined he would be treated like Khodorkovski or Kasyanov—an enemy of the state? All channels of the central television denounced Serdyukov. The complete lack of decency in the campaign perhaps rivaled the propaganda coverage of the crackdown on Yukos. But even in that case, I do not remember anyone comparing the victim to “the German-fascist invaders.” There is no doubt that the president did not initiate the persecution of Serdyukov. He could have fired Serdyukov just a few months earlier, when Serdyukov actually wanted to resign. Moreover, on the day when searches were conducted, Putin gave an audience to Serdyukov. In the past, it would have been taken as a sign of the president’s support: Everyone knows that Putin does not give audiences to someone about to become a sacrificial lamb. But somehow the signal did not work this time. Apparently, the

124

“Anatolii Serdyukov stal figurantom ugolovnogo dela,” Newsru.com, November 28, 2013, http://classic.newsru.com/russia/28nov2013/serdukov.html.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 179 bureaucratic clans decided to act without Putin’s permission, presenting the president with a fait accompli. On November 6, 2012, Putin signed the order to fire Anatoly Eduardovich Serdyukov, the man who carried out the most painful stage of military reform—in fact, the only real reform of the last decade. Serdyukov was removed without honors. He was seen not as a successful reformer, but as a man fighting a corruption scandal. A reformer’s lot is never easy in our fatherland. As Oscar Wilde said, “Nothing is impossible in Russia but reform.” To the Rear, Forward, March! The president faced the task of finding a man who, when everyone was expecting a complete retraction of Serdyukov’s reforms, would instead maintain them. He chose a man who had made it his profession to work under force majeure circumstances. Personalities: A Manager and a Courtier Only one man in Russia could handle such a daunting task. This was a man who had spent 20 years in a ministerial position and had survived every Russian political storm. He was loved by the people and leaders of Russia. Sergey Kuzhugetovich Shoigu, governor of Moscow oblast since May 2012, was appointed defense minister to replace Serdyukov. The Armed Forces, once again, had a leader with outstanding organizational abilities. But unlike Serdyukov, Shoigu was a masterful courtier who knew how to please each boss. Sergey Shoigu was born at the edge of the Soviet empire, in the small Tuvim town of Chadan. Although his father, the editor of the local newspaper, belonged to the local elite, the boy did not lead a privileged life. There is a reason why his street name was “Shaitan.” He was not the best of students, to say the least (these days, the minister explains he was “free-spirited”). He took part in street fights, once swam across the Yenisei on a dare, and forded the river during

180 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA the spring ice, leaping from one block to another. As a teen, he dreamed of becoming a long-haul trucker. I suppose such a childhood prepares one for becoming a Kremlin powerbroker. A lack of diligence in high school did not prevent Sergey Shoigu from getting into Krasnoyarsk Polytechnic Institute and graduating with a degree in civil engineering. For the next 10 years he worked in the construction industry. In 1977–1978 he worked as a foreman at the Promkhimstroi Trust in Krasnoyarsk; in 1978–1979 as a foreman at Tuvinstroi in Kyzyl; during 1979–1984, as general foreman, then chief engineer, then the head of the construction department of the Achinskaluminstroi Trust in Achinsk; in 1984–1985 as the deputy director of the Saianaluminstroi Trust in Saianogorsk; in 1985–1986 as director of the Saiantiazhstroi Trust in Abakan; between 1986–1988 as director of the Abakanvagonstroi Trust. Such professional growth, from a foreman to the director of a trust building a large industrial production plant, was not typical of the late Soviet period, when bosses occupied their posts for life. Of course, he would not have done it without support from above. Sergey Shoigu’s father was deputy head of Tuva government. He was friends with an even more influential party apparatchik, the first secretary of the Sverdlovsk oblast Party Committee, Boris Yeltsin. Little Seryozha spent some time in Yeltsin’s lap, as they say. He had another patron, the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Oleg Shenin. “Seryozha was married to the daughter of our former neighbor in Achinsk, Aleksandr Antipin,” said Shenin’s wife. “Aleksandr was working as the chief engineer at the Achinskaluminstroi Trust. And my husband was, at the time, the first secretary of the City Party Committee. We were close friends with that family, and my husband took Seryozha under his patronage. When we moved to Abakan, my husband created the Abakanvagonstroi Trust especially for Sergey and grew him to become a new leader of Tuva. Later on, he made him the secretary of the Abakan City Party Committee in charge of construction. In 1991, when my husband, a member of the State Committee on Extraordinary Situations, was arrested and taken to Matrosskaia tishina (a federal penitentiary in

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 181 Moscow), Seryozha disappeared and surfaced again only when public opinion about us changed. The first time he phoned me at home, and we secretly met outside. Later, when my husband was freed, Sergey came to see us. It is then that he said to my husband, ‘I have never been a scumbag, and never will be one. You are like a second father to me.’”125 Shoigu made his career not staying close to the desk, however, but by working on large Soviet construction projects. To succeed in that world, one had to have excellent leadership skills, an ability to control and command thousands of down-on-their-luck wretches, as well as the courage to making decisions swiftly. Shoigu appears to possess these qualities. A successful construction leader ought to also have the ability to put together comprehensive plans: where to send teams, where to deliver materials, how to provide housing and food for workers. He has to plan the course of action each day. It is a talent akin to that of a military commander. Shoigu proved that he absolutely had such a talent. As was customary during that time, a prospective leader had to go through the school of party work. Our protagonist became the second secretary of the Abakan City Party Committee. From there, the direct line was to the Academy of Social Sciences, affiliated with the Central Committee of the CPSU. His classmates included promising young leaders such as the future liberal governor of Tomsk oblast, Viktor Kress, and future speaker of the State Duma, Ivan Rybkin. Shoigu made it onto a certain “list of cadre reserve.” And, lo and behold, the first prime minister of the Russian Federation, Ivan Silaev, recommended Shoigu for the post of chief of the State Committee for Liquidation of Consequences of the Chernobyl Disaster. It was here that a very rare misfire in Sergey Kuzhugetovich’s career occurred: The Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR did not confirm him. He has never forgotten the insult. “What is interesting to me is that today the people 125

Inessa Slavutinskaia, “Ministr v chrezvychainoi situatsii,” Profil’, October 4, 1999.

182 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA who were present at that session all as one assure me, ‘I actually was the one who voted for you!’” Shoigu recalled 20 years later. “Although I can say with certainty that there were very few who did.”126 Shoigu has a special talent to present himself in good light, to please his bosses. Ivan Silaev really did not want to let go of this promising young leader. Shoigu got appointed deputy director of the Russian Construction and Housing Department but did not like it there. As Sergey Kuzhugetovich explained later, he “turned out to have no talent for paperwork.” He handed in his resignation. But Silaev was still reluctant to let him go. On April 17, 1991, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR confirmed Shoigu as the head of the Russian Rescue Corps. “I left the session with a thin folder in my hand that contained only one document, the order appointing me as head of the Corps,” Shoigu recalled. “The attitude was as follows: you got the assignment, solve your problems on your own.”127 It was here that Sergey Kuzhugetovich’s incredible organizational talent revealed itself. Within a few months, in a country where everything was falling apart, he created an effective functioning structure. Shoigu enjoys looking back on it and saying he could have lost his post literally within two weeks of getting the job. An earthquake occurred on April 29, 1991, in the South Ossetian town of Dzhava. Silaev demanded that Shoigu report on what measures were being taken. Shoigu did not make any reference to the fact that the structure he headed had nothing but a fancy name, and that he had neither employees, nor offices, nor equipment. What helped him was his instinct of a construction boss, for whom a state of emergency is a way of life. He quickly gathered control and rescue personnel with whom he had worked in the past. He used his travel allowance to pay for tickets. The next day, the rescuers were in Vladikavkaz. It was not enough, however, to simply make himself noticed. He needed an office in Moscow. The leaders of the newly created State 126 127

Vitaly D’iachkov, “Pervyi spasatel’,” Itogi, No. 51, 2010. Ibid.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 183 Committee for Extraordinary Situations moved into the building of the Defense Research Institute on Krasnaia Presnia, unceremoniously pushing the institute’s director out of his own office. Sergey Kuzhugetovich does not like to talk about his involvement in crushing the 1991 attempted coup, although he received the first of his many medals, “Defender of Free Russia,” for doing just that. He usually limits himself to brief remarks like “[We] secured communications with the guys.” According to him, they gathered a group of amateur radio-electronics geeks on the roof of the White House and put together a radio station that broadcast the communications of those inside the building under siege to the rest of the country. After the disintegration of the USSR, Russia had to create its own rescue corps. Before the fall of 1991, the State Committee for Extraordinary Situations had 16 full-time personnel and 60 volunteers. However, as early as November, Shoigu received a “gift” that he initially did not want to accept. The government transferred to his agency the Civil Defense Troops (GO), comprised of 19 regiments, or almost 10,000 servicemen. Under the Soviet regime, GO troops had a bad reputation, to put it mildly. As was the case with the infamous construction battalions, the GO was doomed to get only officers with major violations on their records and the conscripts completely unfit for any service. Within three years, Shoigu turned them into top-notch military units. Of course, it also helped that, due to the humiliating financial struggle, a massive number of cadre officers were leaving the army and other power structures. These were precisely the people who bolstered the troops of Shoigu’s budding agency. Their combat experience came in handy. The former Soviet Union was in the middle of bloody fratricidal conflicts: South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, the civil war in Tajikistan. Shoigu and his people turned up in combat zones before talks about bringing in peacekeepers even began. They got thousands of refugees out of Tkvarcheli and Dushanbe. They delivered food to Tskhinvali and Transnistria, guided humanitarian convoys to Yugoslavia, saved the

184 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA lives of children and old people in Chechnya. According to Shoigu, a priest in Sochi who was receiving refugees from Abkhazia told him and his people, “For this work, all your sins and those of two generations of your descendants will be forgiven.” Whether these words were indeed spoken is not really important. I would think that anyone who lived in Russia in the 1990s would subscribe to them. In 1992, Reserve Lieutenant Sergey Shoigu was promoted directly to major-general. A year later, he was a lieutenant-general. In most cases, awarding a civilian a high military rank is viewed as a profanation and is usually counterproductive. In this case, however, it made sense. Circumstances forced Shoigu to take charge of coordinating real military operations in which army units and Ministry of Internal Affairs troops participated. To make such coordination effective, he needed a military rank. It would not have helped, however, if, I repeat, Shoigu did not possess extraordinary organizational talent. Within 20 years, Shoigu had transformed the Russian Rescuer Corps from a small group of 16 people into a powerful ministry with thousands of personnel. The effectiveness of these people was particularly evident compared to the ineptitude of local bureaucrats who, standing atop ruins, could only throw up their hands. The Russian rescuers enjoyed great respect internationally as well. “The Ministry of Emergency Situations—this is unique in its organization and coherent structure which measures up to the standards of the analogous services in the West,” a leading expert of the Britain’s Royal Military Academy, Christopher Donnelly, told me in the mid-2000s. He knew what he was talking about: During the 1990s, Donnelly was special advisor to NATO’s secretary-general for matters relating to Central and Eastern Europe. The Emergency Situations Ministry (MChS) was consistently moving toward manning its units with volunteers. The leadership did not have baggage from the imperial past. They had plenty of problems to deal with and were not preparing for war with the entire world. Their experience told them it was much easier to solve problems in cooperation with Western partners. Everyone who came into contact

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 185 with these soldier-rescuers noted their skill, discipline and high morale—all the qualities the Russian Armed Forces were lacking at the time. When the new political system was born out of the ruins of the old one, people whose mission it was to defend the state, such as the military, the militia and KGB, demonstrated in all critical situations a striking ineptitude, at times even a cynical indifference. And suddenly, there was this man who rescued, fed and kept everyone warm. When Shoigu was in charge of the MChS, it carried out more than 400 humanitarian and rescue operations. There was an earthquake in Neftegorsk, flooding in Lena, a plane crash in Irkutsk, the Beslan school terrorist act, the fire in the Khromaia loshad’ club, terrorist acts in the subway, explosions in apartment houses. As soon as the head of the MChS showed up, the chaos and panic stopped. It was not just that his orders were sensible and provided guidance: The minister himself did not shy away from work. They say the minister put his entire retinue to work when he discovered there were not enough workers to deliver generators to every floor of an apartment building where the heating system had failed because of frozen pipes. And, of course, he carried generators up the stairs himself. It is not surprising that Shoigu, quite deservedly, was loved by the Russian people. The Emergency Situations Ministry became the most important ministry of all. Shoigu appeared on TV no less frequently than the president himself. And it was not because of the efforts of his image makers. Rather, something was always exploding, burning, freezing or flooding in Russia. The country, whose very existence represented one continuous emergency situation, needed those who rescued, rebuilt, put out fires, and provided heating. Shoigu created a service that knew how to do it. Of course, Russian rulers soon exploited the love of the people. From the very moment when he became head of the Russian Rescue Corps, that is, from 1991 to the start of the Putin era, Sergey Kuzhugetovich refused to trumpet his political views and preferences. He never joined a political party, never made ideological statements, refused to participate in Yeltsin’s election campaign. When asked

186 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA about it, he always insisted, “The MChS is not a political, but rather a humanitarian structure. We help people regardless of their political and ideological views.”128 In 1999, when it became obvious who would be ruling Russia, Shoigu understood that he would not be able to maintain his political ambiguity. He agreed to participate in the creation of the pro-Putin block Edinstvo. Since then, Shoigu has displayed his continued loyalty to the powers that be, always stressing that he has no political ambitions of his own. And this is vitally important if one wants to remain among those close to Putin. It is well known that Russia’s president always watches someone else’s popularity with a jealous eye. Shoigu, the “Teflon minister,” has always been second to Putin in every popularity rating. But Putin likes him. Of all the people close to Putin, he is probably the only one who is not a chekist and not from Petersburg. They were not close to start with, when Putin came to power, but became so in the second half of the 2000s. They began to share vacations, the somewhat extreme vacations that the president favors in his struggle to stave off aging. In my opinion, what has brought them together are their similar personalities and lives. It can be said that, generally, Shoigu and Putin both live according to the code of a “decent” Soviet man. In the 1960s and 1970s, songs celebrating the comradeship of street boys (as an alternative to the cardboard Soviet virtues, always hypocritical by definition) gained great popularity. The code of values of these street boys dictated loyalty to friends, a willingness to help a comrade in need, and repaying anyone who is kind to you many times over. I suspect it is this lost paradise of youth that Putin missed most in his terrarium of chekist associates. It is my belief that if anyone has a real chance of filling Putin’s shoes, it may be Shoigu. In contrast to the weak-kneed Medvedev, Shoigu may possess the determination to hold real power.

128

Aleksandr Golts, Aleksandr Ryklin, “Minister v chrezvychainom polozhenii,” Ezhenedel’nyi Zhurnal, No. 110, 2004.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 187 How to Save Reform—and Not Run Afoul of the Top Brass Russia’s new defense minister, appointed to the post on November 6, 2012, was a man who understood the benefits of Serdyukov’s reforms. When Serdyukov was relieved, both President Putin and Prime Minister Medvedev praised the painful reforms he had carried out during his four years in office. Such praise sent a clear signal to Shoigu that he was not expected to seriously reevaluate the results of the reforms. The president addressed this issue in an address at the Defense Ministry on February 27, 2013. Though there was much talk about abandoning modernization, Putin was rather positive about the work of his former defense minister. “The experience of large-scale fundamental military reforms in the history of our country in the 19th and 20th centuries teaches us that the ideal model has never been achieved all at once, from the first try,” said the commander-inchief. “Some issues had to be addressed again and again in search for the so-called happy medium. Today, too, some corrections and clarifications could be, and already have been, made to the plans for the development of the Armed Forces.”129 Putin obviously counted on preserving the fruits of Serdyukov’s reforms, which had taken such an enormous effort to put in place: “Obviously, we cannot just follow the same templates; however, I also have to emphasize that we should stop this constant jumping from place to place, these endless revisions of the earlier decisions.”130 Shoigu found himself under enormous pressure from the moment he moved into his office on the sixth floor of the Arbat building. The chair of the Duma Defense Committee, Admiral Vladimir Komoedov, said lawmakers, who have been losing sleep worrying about the welfare of the people, would propose to the new 129

Kira Latukhina, “Bez komandy ‘krugom,’ ” Rossiiskaia Gazeta, February 28, 2013. 130 Rasshirennoe zasedanie kollegii Ministerstva oborony, Kremlin.ru, February 27, 2013, http://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/17588.

188 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA minister that the term of service for conscripts be extended. “The term has to be a year-and-a-half long,” the former Black Sea Navy Commander told Izvestiia. “Reducing the time of service was a political decision, and it has negatively affected the army’s combatreadiness. Especially because we are within a hair’s breadth of a demographic gap.”131 In all fairness, Komoedov quite adequately described the alarming situation with conscription. What he failed to mention was the fact that Serdyukov and the former Chief of the General Staff, Nikolai Makarov, had planned to resolve this issue by gradually increasing the number of contract-based servicemen and moving closer to the creation of a professional army. Komoedov, on the other hand, just as most generals, was convinced that contract-based armed forces were “a soap bubble, which bursts as soon as you touch it.” The Admiral firmly believed that only a mass mobilization army, with a gigantic reserve, like the Soviet force, could defend Russia. And only those who went through compulsory military service could form such a reserve. To give the admiral his due, he, as is expected of a professional military, correctly identified the essence of Serdyukov’s reform, namely, the abolition of the mass mobilization army. However, what Komoedov proposed was a return to the Soviet model, which had proven to be totally ineffective, both during the Chechen wars and in the conflict with Georgia. Simultaneously, Nezavisimaia Gazeta published an open letter to Shoigu, signed by a group of former Soviet commanders, including Marshal Dmitry Yazov. The veterans demanded “a multifaceted and open investigation of the results of Serdyukov’s work.” They recommended to “revive the Armed Forces command-and-control system” of the pre-Serdyukov era and to “examine the expediency of carrying out programs for transitioning the Armed Forces and other troops, troop formations and organs to a unified system of logistic and technical support, character training, as well as the program of 131

Vladimir Voloshin, “Ot Shoigu trebuiut uvelichit’ srok sluzhby v armii do polutora let,” Izvestiia, November 22, 2012.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 189 standardization and unification of weapons and military equipment.” In addition, they insisted on “reviving the training of the designated personnel” and “conducting a scientific examination of the prescribed 1,000,000 numerical strength for the Armed Forces of the RF, revising it, if necessary.”132 In other words, they were talking about a full-scale return to the Soviet model of military development. Putin’s decision to grant the new defense minister the rank of general, which he had given up when he was the governor of Moscow region, did not help the situation. It meant going back to 2007, the year Serdyukov was appointed. Serdyukov’s predecessor, Sergey Ivanov, also proudly wore general’s stars. Trying to explain Putin’s decision, commentators close to the Kremlin claimed it was a way for the president to make sure Shoigu would enjoy the respect of the military, the respect that “Marshal Stoolman” did not have at all. But they ignored the fact that it was this same civilian who managed to do what none of his predecessors—all insignia bearers—had been able to accomplish. Serdyukov did what even Putin was afraid to do. He did exactly as much as Putin wanted him to do—break the inefficient military machine. And his absence of stripes and shoulder boards played an important role in it. Had Serdyukov worn a uniform, nothing would have come of it. Russian generals are great masters of toadyism and psychology. They are artful at instilling in a new boss the sense that he is part of the military clan. Life has proven that non-military generals, who deep in their hearts know they are not entitled to wear a uniform, are especially susceptible to it. Unlike Serdyukov, ministers in uniform were hesitant to ask the military simple questions for fear of being seen as incompetent. A defense minister inevitably finds himself in a precarious position when he begins to assume that he is part of the military corporation. This is exactly what happened to Shoigu.

132

Vladimir Mukhin. “Veterany-voenochal’niki predlagaiut optimizirovat’ armeiskie shtaty.” Nezavisimaia Gazeta, December 5, 2012.

190 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA Initially, it appeared that Sergey Kuzhugetovich would be able to get off easy, with a few compromises, such as allowing cadets of the Suvorov and Nakhimov schools to once more participate in the Victory Day Parade, reviving athletic companies, and suspending relocation of the Military Medical Academy away from the center of St. Petersburg. These half-measures soon turned out to be insufficient. The generals demanded clear signals that the good old times had returned. So, the Minister decided to resurrect the Main Directorate for Combat Training. This was the first and, alas, not the last blow to the essence of reform. The logic behind abolishing this directorate was that the responsibility for combat training was shifted to the offices of the commanders-in-chief of the respective branches of the Armed Forces. Before, they were not able to exercise direct command and control of troops. The entire operational command of the Ground Forces brigades, the Airforce and the Navy was placed under the military districts’ commanders. This command-and-control structure reflected one of the most important ideas of the reformers, that is, the implementation in Russia of the concept of a “unified operation,” when formations of all branches of service and all types of troops act under a single command. As we remember, the war with Georgia demonstrated that Russian Airforce and Ground Forces did not coordinate their actions. Serdyukov created unified strategic commands on the basis of military districts, placing under them not only ground troops formations (which had been the case before), but also air and sea forces deployed on each district’s territory. However, with the return of the Main Directorate for Combat Training, offices of the commanders-in-chief went out of business. The commandersin-chief of branches of the Armed Forces were forced to become involved in command and control of forces in military districts. Then, in February 2013, Shoigu announced the revival of positions of deputy commanders for morale and welfare. “I consider their presence obligatory,” he declared. “However, it is fundamentally important that we train educators and do not look upon them as a ‘rudiment of the Soviet time.’ We should also not allow a morale and welfare deputy to become a deputy for ‘general issues.’ He has to be a

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 191 professional. It is his responsibility to know how soldiers live, what their means of existence are, who among servicemen smokes, who drinks, what their circumstances at home are. He needs to know how to work with a soldier’s soul.”133 One can see from this excerpt that, however much the minister tried to dispense with the Soviet past, the unwavering hand of some political worker had inserted into the minister’s interview the clichéd catchphrase about the “soldier’s soul.” Serdyukov, who served in the Soviet military as an enlisted man, was never sentimental about morale and welfare officers. The armed forces of the United States and other Western countries have no such officers. Of 17,500 morale and welfare officers employed in the Russian Ground Forces and Navy in 2008, more than 12,000 were let go. Around one-third of those who remained on the payroll were converted to civilian positions. The Main Directorate for Educational Work was placed under the Main Personnel Directorate. But in 2011, Lieutenant-General Viktor Goremykin stated it was necessary to immediately reinstate the system of military morale education, and that morale and welfare officers receive the status of deputy commanders. He explained that, in the absence of these officers, bullying and crime had spread throughout the barracks. The problem, of course, was not a shortage of officer-educators, but a lack of adults in the barracks. The problem could have been resolved by putting junior commanders through short-term special training. Yet the generals really wanted to send Shoigu along the beaten path. If discipline is lagging, the system of “soul” specialists should be revived. It did not bother anybody that 22-year old “educators” would be in charge of the 18-year-old boys. What they saw instead were splendid prospects for developing a new net of educational institutions. Teaching materials were developed for the “patriotic” and “cultural” care of soldiers’ souls.

133

Sergey Shoigu, “Reforme nuzhen zdravyi smysl,” Komsomol’skaia Pravda, February 12, 2013.

192 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA Had he limited himself to these small steps leading back into the Soviet past, one could say that, indeed, Shoigu, an experienced manipulator, had managed to avoid major bloodshed. But one of his concessions pulled the plug, if not on the reform itself, then certainly on the hopes that it would continue, so that we could finally transition from quantitative reductions to a qualitative modernization. On November 15, 2013, the Commander-in Chief, Vladimir Putin, conducted a seminar on improving military education. The seminar took place at the Ryazan Higher Airborne Command School. Both Putin and Shoigu said a lot of reasonable things, stressing that knowledge and skills of future officers must meet the demands of modern war. Putin described what he imagined this war would be like. “From now on, armed struggle will assume an intellectual character. It will resemble computer games a lot, with minimal losses of life and a maximum use of technology.”134 The President also knew how to teach the future commanders the intricacies of this kind of intellectual war. “To do that, we need to create the most effective educational programs, to analyze continually how the graduates serve in the Armed Forces, which of the skills and knowledge acquired at schools and academies find practical application, and which turn out to be irrelevant. On the basis of such analysis, we need to correct educational programs; improve teaching technologies; introduce into learning process every innovation, both our own and foreign, to take into account probable changes in the character of armed struggle while educating our military.”135 All these very general and reasonable things have been said again and again by our Russian leaders over the past hundred years, and always with the same result. The institutions of military education have always prepared students for the past war. You could easily

134

“Soveshchanie po voprosam razvitiia sistemy voennogo obrazovaniia,” Kremlin.ru, November 15, 2013, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/19631. 135 Ibid.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 193 ignore the speeches, if it were not for one very important circumstance. Pointing to the necessity of completing the “optimization” of the military education system as early as 2014, Putin stated, “I consider it vitally important to maintain a number of military academies as independent educational institutions. These are the Mikhailov Artillery Academy, the Military Academy of Army Air Defense, the Aero-Space Defense Academy, and the Military Academy of Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense.”136 Sergey Shoigu actually went even further. Having reported that, at that time time, the system of military education institutions consists of 18 college level schools and 15 branches, he proposed to “return to the branches the status of independent educational institutions, to revive a historically developed typology of military higher education institutions, that is, academies, universities, schools.”137 Both the commander-in-chief and the minister of defense chose to forget that less than two years earlier, as a presidential candidate, Vladimir Putin praised the successes of the military reform in the area of military education: “Ten large integrated research/educational centers are being created. All of these institutions are built along the vertical and allow officers to continuously improve their qualifications, regardless of where they stand in their career.”138 Obviously, Shoigu was correct when he pointed to the administrative difficulties for the branches when the head school was thousands of kilometers away. Yet, at the beginning, they all thought that these local branches would be maintained only during the transitional period. As a result of the reform, demand for officers was

136

Ibid. “Voennym vuzam mogut vernut’ status samostoiatel’nykh organizatsii,” RIA Novosti, November 15, 2013, http://ria.ru/society/20131115/977196642.html. 138 Vladimir Putin, “Byt’ sil’nymi: garantii natsional’noi bezopasnosti dlia Rossii,” Rossiiskaia gazeta, February 20, 2012. 137

194 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA drastically reduced, so there were 700 to 800 instructors, technicians and support staff per every 200 students at the provincial military schools. Most importantly, the quality of education in those schools was not very high, to put it mildly. Serdyukov’s reformers proposed to assemble all these small schools into large integrated research/educational centers, organized by branches of service and types of troops. But now, the provincial schools established as branches regained their independent status. Can one seriously expect 33 military educational institutions spread all over Russia to provide the high level of education the country’s top leaders so passionately desire, or at least say they do? And the fact that the military education institutions, once again, were placed under the command of their respective branches of the Armed Forces did not make preparations for future wars any more effective. Super modern technologies and the ability of servicemen to rapidly master these technologies will play the leading role in those wars. Only education in fundamental sciences can provide such ability. But the schools’ student advisors from the headquarters of each branch, addressing strictly the interests of their specialization, demanded that students master practical skills, in the first place, military service skills. These skills, however, could prove totally useless with the new generation of weapons. Finally, Shoigu proposed to dismantle the centerpiece of the military education reform. As presidential candidate Putin pointed out in his 2012 article, the integrated research/educational centers provided officers with an opportunity for continuous education. The reformers believed it quite unreasonable that the best officers spend almost half of their service (around ten years) not with the troops but getting an education. First, a military school (five years), then the “branch” academy (three years), finally two more years at the General Staff Academy. They proposed to do away with branch academies altogether and to reduce the time at the General Staff Academy to a few months. First, future lieutenants would get the basic military education. Once they become officers, they would continue their education throughout their time in the army, without leaving service.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 195 In order to be promoted to the next rank and receive the next position, a commander would have to take the ensuing set of relatively short courses or acquire new knowledge and new skills in some specific area. Now, under Shoigu, everything will have to return to the old, essentially Soviet, system of military education. Serdyukov’s reform in the sphere of military education is dead. Unfortunately, that is not all. The system to which the Ministry of Defense has returned is aimed at “extended reproduction.” In order to justify its existence, each school or academy began to fight for a maximum number of students. They did that by lobbying, which had already shown how effective it could be during the opposition to Serdyukov—after all, there is always a highly placed former graduate who is willing to help his alma mater. And yet, the Ministry was planning to secure positions for the students graduating in 2010–2012 only by the end of 2013. In the meantime, they would continue to serve as sergeants. Moreover, the Ministry of Defense was able to extend the term of service for officers to five years. Obviously, senior officers, majors and lieutenantcolonels were the ones who used the opportunity to serve longer. The Chief of the Personnel Department/Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, General Viktor Goremykin, reported that, in 2014, over 26,000 officers applied to extend their term of service. In my estimation, the number of officers exceeded 241,000 by the year 2016.139 An excess number of officers, as one may recall, was the most characteristic trait of the mass mobilization army. Officers are needed to command someone. In Russia’s case, it turned out not to be important whether they command live soldiers or lines in a manning chart. Consequently, they shall soon announce that the army urgently needs units and formations of reduced strength. To give Shoigu his due, there was one area where he did not yield to pressure—the system of manning the Armed Forces. He continued 139

Aleksandr Golts. “Chto maskiruiut pobednye reliatsii,” Ezhednevnyi Zhurnal, December 14, 2015, http://www.ej.ru/?a=note&id=29067.

196 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA the course charted by his predecessor toward a volunteer army. In September 2013, almost a year after his appointment and after studying the arguments of those who advocated a return to a Sovietstyle conscript military, Shoigu declared: “Whether we want it or not, the army has to be put on the contract-based footing, or else we have to recruit the conscripts for a minimum of five years. The complexity of weapons is such that we cannot train a conscript either in one, or even in two years to fight with these weapons.”140 Shoigu added that the number of conscripts would be reduced by thousands. He promised to report on concrete numbers in November. The minister did not disappoint. By the end of the year he announced that one of the most important objectives of the Defense Ministry was to raise the number of contract-based servicemen to 499,000. In 2015, the Defense Ministry announced a remarkable achievement: The number of contract servicemen had reached 352,000 and, for the first time in history, it surpassed the number of conscripts. The ministry later reported that the number of contract servicemen had reached 384,000 by the end of 2016, close to the goal of 400,000 contract servicemen that had been set for that year. According to the official data, in 2016 the manning of the Armed Forces stood at only 93 percent. In other words, their strength grew by only 10,000, and this was despite the fact that 32,000 contract military personnel were hired during the same period. It appears that our demographers were correct when they predicted further decreases in mobilization resource. The Ministry of Defense still had to resolve two other serious problems in connection with the manning of the Armed Forces. It had to implement the commander-in-chief’s order to bring up the strength of the Armed Forces to 1,000,000 men by 2015. It also had to respond somehow to those who continued to sound the alarm, claiming that today’s model of the army development does not allow 140

“Shoygu: Minoborony perestanet gnat'sya za kolichestvom prizyvnikov,” Rosbalt, September 17, 2013, http://www.rosbalt.ru/main/2013/09/17/1176790.html.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 197 it to accumulate the necessary mobilization reserve. Looking back at the experience of the wars of the late 19th and 20th centuries, these alarmists have insisted that the country’s security could only be provided by its preparedness for mass mobilization, the ability to bring under arms millions of men during the so-called “period of threat.” Therefore, they insisted, the country needed to have a trained military reserve and, hence, a conscript army, which, during peace time, would continuously provide elementary military training. The dilemma, of course, is that over the past few decades weapons and military equipment have become increasingly more complex and more expensive to produce. So, not only does the number of conscripts decrease steadily due to demographic changes, but the state also cannot produce and stockpile enough weapons because of their prohibitive cost. A few years ago, the then-current Commander of the Ground Forces, Vladimir Boldyrev, reported that he had only 60 brigade kits at his disposal for arming the reservists. Shoigu tried to elaborate on the need for the reserve: “In case of a threat, we need to have the ability to mobilize. To do that, we have to have a mobilization resource. There is a decision to create four reserve armies.”141 It follows that the entire mobilization reserve of the Armed Forces will be concentrated in those four reserve armies. A combined-arms army is comprised of 40,000 to 50,000 soldiers and officers (right now the ground forces have 10 armies, with 400,000 men combined). If we are talking about the entire mobilization reserve, it will be, at a maximum, 300,000 men strong. That will include the reservists for the Air Defense Forces and coastal units of the Navy. When General Makarov was the Chief of the General Staff, he cited a different number, namely 700,000. To put together this kind of a reserve, they would need to draft no more than 70,000 young men annually. In this case, the draft would become de facto voluntary: only those would enlist who plan to 141

“Rossiiskaia armiia nikogda ne budet polnost’iu kontraktnoi, zaiavil Shoigu,” RIA Novosti, November 9, 2013, http://ria.ru/defense_safety/20131109/975715963.html.

198 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA either sign a contract upon completing their term, or to go into civil service or power structures. Two relatively rational methods of replacing the reserve servicemen were proposed. In the summer of 2015, Vladimir Putin signed an order authorizing the conduct of an experiment in the formation of a mobilization reserve. This goes back to the 2013 attempt to create a mobilization reserve by more-or-less “civilized” method. The assumption was that, upon completing the obligatory service, a soldier would voluntarily sign a contract to stay in the reserve and would even receive a small monthly payment of approximately 2,000 rubles. This would be something never seen before in Russia. In return, the soldier would be regularly called up for training in special military reserve units within the structure of each military district. The generals did not like the idea. They were used to considering the country’s entire male population as the “mobilization resource.” Therefore, they insisted on carrying out the experiment on a ridiculously small scale, defining the size of the mobilization reserve as 300 officers and 5,000 enlisted men and sergeants. Where it concerns reservists, the numerical strength is of particular importance. The only way to establish whether the new system of formation of new combat units in pre-war conditions would work is to operate with large numbers. “Experimenting” with 5,000 reservists cannot prove anything. Therefore, the President’s order notwithstanding, the 2014 experiment was over before it even started. Thus, in 2015, Putin decided to try again. This proves that there are people in the Ministry of Defense, after all, who understand that the armed forces do not need cannon fodder, the untrained mobilization reservists who are doomed to be killed in the very first battle. Reservists need to be competent soldiers. The August 2016 snap inspection of three military districts and the Northern Fleet, which morphed into strategic exercise “Kavkaz-2016,” was, in fact, an attempt to establish the ability of deploying reserves. A month earlier, mobilizational exercises had been conducted all over the country’s territory; yet, the scale of those was apparently quite insignificant.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 199 According to Chief of the General Staff, Valerii Gerasimov, an experiment in introducing a new system of training and build-up of mobilization manpower had been conducted within the framework of exercises “Kavkaz-2016.” By all accounts, reservists now are supposed to man units of the territorial defense. For instance, according to the newspaper Izvestiia, a whole division of territorial defense manned by reservists was created in Crimea; during the pre-war period, this unit would be safeguarding strategic objects and fighting sabotage. Of course, at this point, the size of mobilization training does not look too impressive. Within the framework of the exercises, 400 reservists formed a battalion with its base at the Novosibirsk military school. Altogether, approximately 4,000 men were called up from the civil service. It appears that no decision has been made yet concerning which version of preparation for mobilization is preferable: whether it is better to create a corps of reservists-volunteers, or continue the tradition of drafting trough recruitment centers all males ages 18 to 60. The above initiative apparently was connected to another one, which promised to lighten the burden of the military service for at least one part of our citizens. During the same 2013 experiment, Vladimir Putin, eagerly supported by Shoigu, proposed to devise a system of army service for college students that would allow them to go through training on campus. Within a two-year or a year-and-ahalf period, students would have to devote one day a week to military training. Having completed such a course, they would have to do three months in a boot camp. After that, they would be transferred to the reserves as enlisted men and reserve sergeants. This was an extremely rare case when the interests of the citizens and the military bureaucracy coincided. “We really want you to see it as a good opportunity not to run [and hide] anywhere, but continue your studies in peace, and go through three months of training without interrupting the educational process. For that, we will create suitable training centers, including those at our institutions of higher education. You will do theoretical training one day a week. This is not

200 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA too difficult. After that, you will form teams and go to training camps for three months. We have enough units, training sites and equipment. And believe me, we will try to do everything in our power to create humane conditions. But of course, we will also demand complete dedication. We need to enlist 80,000 to 100,000 men a year in the reserve,”142 Sergey Shoigu assured students quite sincerely. In doing this, he pursued his own interest. By signing tens of thousands of students to the Armed Forces all at once, he found a creative solution to an essentially unsolvable problem that Putin had set before him: of bringing the army’s numerical strength up to one million men. This initiative obviously did not please the military leaders either. So, they set about sabotaging it. According to the original plan, 58,000 students were to start training under the new system as early as 2015. In reality, only 15,000 did. Lieutenant-General Evgenii Burdinskii, the Deputy Chief of the Main Organizational Mobilizational Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, appearing on Ekho Moskvy, stated that the Ministry of Defense was not chasing the numbers (where did the 80,000 to 100,000 reservists annually go?). According to him, the initial conception had changed, and now a school had to comply with certain requirements set by the Ministry of Defense to participate in the program. This directly contradicted Shoigu’s statement that all students would be able to go through training under the system. The initial plan stipulated that all those who wanted to participate could start training under the new system as early as September 1, 2016. This objective was not met. Consequently, the issue of manning the Armed Forces turned into a bureaucratic trench war. By the end of 2016, the top leaders in the Ministry of Defense decided that they had found a way out of the dead-end situation. They submitted to the Duma a bill amending the ill-fated “Law on Military Duty and Military Service.” The amendment would allow short-term contracts from six months to a year. Reservists would be able to sign the contracts and, in addition, conscripts could do so one month before 142

Aleksandr Tikhonov, “Studencheskii prizyv – v nogu so vremenem,” Krasnaia Zvezda, December 19, 2013.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 201 the end of their term of service. The bill stipulated that such contracts could be allowed only during the period of some extraordinary circumstances, such as post-natural-disaster recovery operations, a state of emergency, restoring the constitutional order, as well as participation in peacekeeping operations and peace and security restoration abroad. The explanatory memorandum attached to the bill described quite candidly the circumstances that had forced the government to resort to short-term contracts. “Changes in military-political environment, the accelerated pace of international terrorist and extremist organizations activity have dictated the need for the heightened mobility of troops, for the creation of composite and nonorganic subunits and their accelerated manning with the contract servicemen in order to solve short-term important issues… The bill also takes into account the specifics of service for crew members on the Navy ships and submarines.”143 The authors of the proposed amendment claimed that the term of service for coscripted seamen/sailors could be completed during a long sea voyage. Therefore, the commanders should be able to transfer them to a contract service. The Ministry of Defense appeared to have forgotten that several years earlier it had planned to shift to contract-based service all sailors serving on ships. But then again, all of this would affect just a few hundred sailors. Much more serious was the intent to create some sort of “composite and non-organic subunits” and to man them in a very short time. It was the first time that such units were mentioned in official Russian documents. It was an obvious attempt to give some legal status to those citizens who, as had been reported, were already

143

“Poiasnitel'naia zapiska k proektu federal'nogo zakona ‘O vnesenii izmenenii v Federal’nyi zakon O voinskoi obiazannosti I voennoi sluzhbe,’ ” Duma.gov.ru, http://asozd2.duma.gov.ru/work/dz.nsf/ByID/1EF5FB382A1B168B4325805 00044EA0C/$File/%D0%9F%D0%97.doc?OpenElement.

202 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA fighting in Syria and, before that, in Ukraine. These people are usually hired through some intermediaries to carry out the Ministry of Defense’s assignments, but their actions abroad are not covered by any Russian law. Just recently, there was talk about legalizing them via a new law on private military companies. The proposed law got shelved in the Duma due to opposition from the FSB, which decisively refused to share its right to violence with private entrepreneurs. The short-term contracts, thus, provided a solution to the problem. For all intents and purposes, this also legalized mercenary troops. Even more suspicious was the idea of allowing commanders to shift conscript soldiers to contracts. In 2003–2008, the Ministry of Defense had already obtained the right to sign contracts with conscripts. I have discussed above the widespread abuses when soldiers were forced to sign such contracts. It was this negative experience that made Serdyukov give up the idea of contracting conscripts, in principle. Until recently, only a reservist who, having completed his conscript service, spent some time as a civilian could become a service member. Moreover, upon signing the contract, the man had to go through a three-month training before they could assigned to a unit. It is obvious that short-term contracts represent a profanation of volunteer military service and military professionalism. A man who decided to go to war for a few months for money will have neither knowledge, nor skills of a military professional, nor the morale expected of a defender of his motherland. Shoigu did not limit himself to the all-out war on Serdyukov’s legacy. He is very good at PR and understands that he continually has to be in the limelight. Therefore, right up to the point when Moscow began using its forces in Ukraine and Syria (when advertising was no longer needed), the Ministry of Defense had announced one initiative after another. There are two identifiable groups of these. The initiatives in the first group are, in essence, nothing but marketing. Some are reasonable, others make no sense whatsoever. Shoigu’s admirers insist that the goal of these initiatives is to strengthen the fighting spirit of the Armed Forces. His detractors claim that they are meant to accomplish nothing more than to consolidate Sergey

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 203 Kuzhugetovich’s power and raise his ratings. The other group of innovations are those that, in fact, have contributed significantly to the development of the Armed Forces and the strengthening of their combat readiness. PR—Nothing but PR The initiatives designed to instill a “patriotic” spirit in servicemen definitely belong to the first group. They are meant to demonstrate that the Ministry of Defense is in step with the main political trend. In 2013, Sergey Shoigu declared: “I’m asking commanders and other people in command to assure that the Russian national anthem is played. I’m tasking [them] with starting every morning with the anthem, regardless of what military personnel are doing at the time.”144 Later, he ordered the famous Aleksandrov Ensemble to record two versions of the anthem, one standard and austere, performed by the choir and orchestra, the other more in a pop style to develop the military-patriotic spirit in youth. This was on top of the Russian anthem traditionally being played at the evening roll-call in each military unit, according to barrack regulations. Apparently, the minister decided that once a day was not sufficient to achieve the necessary level of patriotism in servicemen. The anthem was not the only educational tool for patriotic spirit. “I am beginning to think that commanders should spearhead the process of creating discharge albums, since every unit has its own history,” Shoigu said. 145 But that was not the end of it. The minister took the trouble to have a history textbook developed especially for the military. “If we do not succeed in putting together a standard national history textbook for the entire country, we will have to create 144

“Gimn Rossii mogut spet’ artisty,” Interfax.ru, August 20, 2013, http://www.interfax.ru/russia/324481. 145 “Nadel pogony – bud’ patriotom,” Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie, August 9, 2013.

204 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA one for the army and introduce it into all educational programs for the military,”146 Shoigu insisted. Naturally, the deeply patriotic content achieved by a frequently performed anthem requires a suitable form. Shoigu mandated that all Defense Ministry staff and other administrative bodies wear what he called “office suit.” The minister, his subordinates report, came to the conclusion that wearing a woolen uniform coat in summer is uncomfortable. Therefore, he decided to have a different uniform tailored, similar to the one that MChS officers wear. But the requirement to wear the uniform concerned not only the military, but also civilian personnel. The “office suit” had shoulder boards. Every civilian staff member was thus obligated to wear shoulder boards with stars corresponding to his or her civilian rank. The Deputy Minister for financial services, Tatyana Shevtsova, received shoulder boards decorated with the big star of an army general. And deputy minister Anatoly Antonov, who had spent his entire professional life as a diplomat, had to show off the shoulder boards of a colonel-general. But Shoigu was still not satisfied. These days, the administrators of military-industrial enterprises are also required to wear a uniform. I suspect it was Shoigu’s way to show the “captains” of the militaryindustrial complex who is in charge. This change in dress code is not an innocent folly. It is a continuation of what started when Shoigu dressed himself in a general’s uniform the moment he was appointed defense minister. According to this logic, the Defense Ministry is not just a military establishment, it is a ministry that is commanded and managed by the military. Civilians get to work there only when there is no way to do without them. As a result, civilians are given to understand that they are no more than half-baked military. And professional officers cannot but be irritated by the fact that civilians receive, for “doing nothing,” the same stars that they earned with their sweat and blood during many years of service. Behind all of this was an obvious

146

Oleg Vladykin, “Shoigu vzrastit patriotov,” August 2, 2013.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 205 unwillingness to understand that civilian and military personnel have fundamentally different objectives. Shoigu also insisted on the staging of competitions in military prowess. The problem is that these “tank biathlons” and “aviadarts” contests have little to do with real combat training. It does, of course, make for a fascinating show when specially trained crews demonstrate jeweler’s precision in driving tanks and hitting shooting targets. It will not help you in battle, however. It is possible these competitions are held to somehow invigorate officers, show them that their future may hold opportunities for professional growth. Another Shoigu initiative was the creation of a children’s military-patriotic movement, “Iunarmiia.” Judging from the scope of it—structures for the movement have been established at practically every school—as well as the attention that state-sponsored media pays to it, the country’s leadership has, once more, resorted to voluntary-compulsory methods of teaching love for the Motherland, this time by getting everyone to march in step and learn how to speed-assemble Kalashnikovs. We should absolutely be grateful to Sergey Shoigu for continuing and improving on Serdyukov’s mission to humanize military service. Vacuum cleaners and washing machines appeared in barracks to make everyday life in the army more human. Installing thousands of showers in barracks where there had never before been hot water— that was truly revolutionary. Bureaucratic Battles For all of that, it is worth noting that a number of Shoigu’s initiatives have led to the strengthening his hand within the apparatus, to the minister quietly becoming the first among equal siloviki. It was Shoigu who proposed that the federal agency in charge of defense contracts, Rosoboronzakaz, be broken up and its functions transferred to several other agencies. The bureaucratic games around this relatively unimportant office sound like something out of

206 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA medieval Europe: There was once a relatively poor principality with a scarce population and no revenues. Yet the most influential barons and princes regularly fought bloody battles for the right to own it. It turns out that some very special relics of some very special saint were located on its territory, and possessing them guaranteed one a royal title. In the same way, under Putin’s feudalism, the grandees of the regime continuously fought over Rosoboronzakaz. The funny thing was, of course, that having control over Rosoboronzakaz was not profitable. Its functions were limited to the licensing of defense production enterprises and control over the fulfillment of defense orders. Multibillion contracts went through the Agency for Procurement of Military and Special Equipment (Rosoboronpostavka), and Shoigu had a firm grip on that agency. So what was it all about? My educated guess is that Rosoboronzakaz was on its way to becoming putty in the hands of a master of PR, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin. It is telling that the head of Rosoboronzakaz, Aleksandr Potapov, gave several interviews in which he claimed his agency was failing because the Defense Ministry held on to the funds allocated for weapons production and delayed payments to production enterprises. So, Shoigu, Putin’s favorite, decided to strike back. Far more significant was the creation of a top-secret “Plan for Defense of the Russian Federation.” According to Shoigu, 49 ministries and agencies participated in developing the plan. The idea of creating such a plan had preoccupied Russian military leaders since the mid-1990s, and “the brain of the army” began to discuss the necessity of subordinating all power structures to the General Staff in case of extraordinary circumstances. At the time, this initiative caused a horrific conflict. The situation began to change about a decade later, in the late 2000s. Formations of power structures like the FSB, MChS and MVD, as well as local authorities, were invited to participate in Armed Forces exercises. This was clearly demonstrated during “Vostok- 2010.” It was obvious that the exercise was designed as preparation for reaction to an armed conflict on the Korean

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 207 Peninsula. Within the framework of this scenario, the Border Troops controlled the border, the Interior Ministry Troops created refugee camps, the MChS carried out operations necessary in case of a disaster (radioactive leakage or radioactive terrain contamination), while the Armed Forces fought off attempts by foreign forces to penetrate Russian territory along several axes. It was this integrated “Plan for Defense” that, one can assume, showed once and for all that the Defense Ministry was in charge. The General Staff, acting on behalf of the ministry, will coordinate the work of all four dozen ministries, agencies and regional administrations. As the result, today it is “the brain of the army” (read Shoigu) that has become the top planning and coordinating state organ in the sphere of defense and security. It is telling that, in the course of exercise “Kavkaz-2016,” discussed above, they were testing the readiness of “a number of production plants in the defense industry complex to carry out the required mobilization-related assignments for procurement and maintenance of weapons and the military as well as special equipment in the interests of groupings of forces that are being created.” In addition, they also tested local administrative organs’ readiness to support the Armed Forces and the ability of the Bank of Russia to launch field branches. The General Staff, which takes upon itself the entire command and control of the Armed Forces, unavoidably becomes a source of militaristic influence on all spheres of life. Such an expansion of the functions of “the brain of the army” is not at all harmless in today’s environment. Shortly after Shoigu and General Staff chief Valerii Gerasimov submitted the “Plan for Defense” to the commander-inchief, Gerasimov declared at the annual session of the Academy of Military Sciences: “No one denies the existence of large-scale wars. Being unprepared for them is out of the question.”147 Note that, in the General Staff jargon, “large-scale war” is a euphemism for “world 147

“Goriachie tochki’ vblizi nashikh granits,” Vzgliad, January 26, 2013, http://vz.ru/society/2013/1/26/617599.html.

208 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA war.” In the opinion of many experts, it was the Soviet General Staff that, in the process of preparing the country for such a war with NATO and China simultaneously, ultimately wrecked the economy of the USSR. If the “Plan for Defense,” once again, assumes that such a war is possible, then the General Staff is doomed to follow in the tracks of the Soviet General Staff. It means that it will, once again, deploy cadre units and formations that will have to take in millions of reservists and, hence, abandon Serdyukov’s idea, approved by Putin, that the Armed Forces must be comprised of fully manned formations. The centralization of military power reached its peak during the last days of 2013, three months before the annexation of Crimea, with the launching of the National Defense Command and Control Center (NDCC). The center was built on the spot where the Office of the Ground Forces Commander used to be. The immense structure impressed visitors. If necessary, its gigantic halls can shelter and house simultaneously the Security Council, the entire General Staff, and all other federal administrative organs that have to do with defense. It has hundreds, if not thousands, of monitors. Specialists work in shifts around the clock, receiving and recording data on the state of all units and formations of the Armed Forces without exception. Obviously, such all-embracing and absolute control, and a corresponding level of command, require sufficient levels of funding. The head of the NDCC, Lieutenant-General Mikhail Mizentsev, made this clear in his report to Vladimir Putin. According to Mizentsev, the heart of the complex of hardware and software is a system of unified, geographically dispersed, identical, powerful data processing centers. “Their cumulative processing capacity is three times higher than that of the Pentagon’s analogous system, and their database volume is 19 times that of the Pentagon’s.”148

148

“Minoborony: ‘mozgovoi tsentr’ VS Rossii v tri raza moshchnee analoga v SShA,” Argumenty i Fakty, December 19, 2014, http://www.aif.ru/society/army/1411282.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 209 All power structures are represented in the NDCC by operational teams headed by high-ranking bureaucrats—which, once again, places them under the jurisdiction of the Defense Ministry. The center is, of course, the entity that provides the means for a decisive military advantage over the West: rapid decision making. At the foundation of this head-spinning speed lies the fact that, within the framework of this system, the commander-in-chief does not have to obtain parliamentary approval for his actions. In other words, the entire center of decision making is in the brain of the head of government. The NDCC makes sure the commander-in-chief’s order is instantaneously passed on for execution. It also places each forthcoming operation withing the context of the current militarypolitical situation. How an Exercise Became a War An important Sergey Shoigu innovation was the staging of “surprise exercises” aimed at allowing the Russian Armed Forces to display their new capabilities acquired as a result of reforms. I am referring to rapid deployment. Ever since Soviet times, military exercises were mostly rehearsed shows that permitted no surprises. They were not about testing new ideas for the conduct of war. But after reform, it became crucially important to the Russian leadership to conduct real-life tests of the military’s capabilities. In February 2013, Sergey Shoigu issued an order to carry out a “snap exercise” for troops. Forces deployed in the Central and South districts received an order to advance, and paratroopers of 98th division were moved by air from their base in Ivanovo to the Urals. The results of the exercise were far from exemplary. General Staff chief Gerasimov, reviewing the results, painted a sad picture: “Graduates of the training centers demonstrated low level of training, particularly drivers and mechanics-drivers, which lead to equipment breaking down while leaving motor pools, on the march, and while carrying out combat

210 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA assignments. Practically in all tested ‘organisms,’ operation duty officers and duty officers in individual units demonstrated the lack of skills in transmitting signals from the automated systems of combat command and control.”149 One example of the “lack of skills” was that the Russian forces deployed in Tajikistan simply failed to receive the combat alert. The situation with the combat-readiness of military equipment was even worse. Five helicopters turned out to be in need of repairs and could not participate in the exercise. Su-25 bombers returned to the airstrip without having completed their combat mission because, during bomb delivery, two bombs did not separate from the delivery rails. (Two years later, official propaganda would claim those same bombers did not have a single miss while bombing “terrorists” in Syria). According to Gerasimov, 34 percent of aircraft turned out not to be ready for use in combat. The situation with the Ground Force’s equipment was not any better. In the 28th Motor Rifle Brigade of the Central District, two self-propelled Msta-S artillery units turned out not to be combat-ready. Paratroopers also had problems. “BMD-2s are too old, morally and physically,” Gerasimov reported. “Some of them are 20–25 years old, some even older. Major components are so worn out that the combat potential of this technology cannot be used. Because of that, during the march toward the training area toward the exercise area, two BMD-2 units broke down.”150 The defense minister’s idea that snap exercises were necessary showed he was interested in pursuing solutions to some of the most significant challenges faced by the Armed Forces. It is widely believed by military theorists that future wars will break out unexpectedly, without long “periods of threat.” The problems that surfaced during the February 2013 test exercise were of systemic nature. They could 149

“Shoigu napugal SSHA vnezapnoi proverkoi boegotovnosti armii RF amerikantsy zametili ‘iadernuiu’ trenirovku,” Newsru.com, Mach 6, 2013, https://www.newsru.com/world/06mar2013/mane.html. 150 Viktor Litovkin, “Genshtab ob’iavliaet trevogu,” Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie, March 1, 2013.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 211 not be solved by pointing to “existing shortcomings” in a strict voice during a meeting of commanders. And yet, a miracle occurred. The first snap testing exercise was also the last one to provide a peek into (at least for outside observers) the actual condition of the Armed Forces. The Kremlin PR folks, who in early 2013 were frantically searching for a way to improve Putin’s slipping public approval ratings, apparently liked the idea of snap exercises. Participation of the demanding but impartial commander-in-chief in snap exercises seemed like an ideal thing. However, in this scenario, Shoigu would find himself in the role of a reprimanded bureaucrat. He could not allow that to happen. And so, the snap exercises immediately metamorphosed into the usual showbiz. As early as April 2013, the president ordered troops to advance toward the Black Sea coast. The 45th Airborne Regiment, the subunits of the 106th (Tula) Airborne Division, as well as the 22nd Brigade of spetsnaz, received this order. Military transport aviation successfully transported them into the area of potential conflict. Simultaneously, the Black Sea Fleet received an order to begin operational deployment. The deployed troop units began to advance toward the area of concentration. Subunits of the 7th Air Assault (Mountain) Division were mentioned in the press. By coincidence, in February–March 2014, this scenario would be repeated during the annexation of Crimea. According to official reports, the exercises went smoothly and seamlessly. Military transport aviation transported paratroopers and spetsnaz troops to the deployment area on time. The Naval Infantry, which had to carry out several tactical debarkations, including to a training area near Feodosiia, also accomplished its mission. This was what General Staff chief Valerii Gerasimov proudly reported to the president, who arrived to visit the exercise. It is obvious, however, that a fundamental breakthrough in combat-readiness training is not possible to achieve within two months. At the time, the understrength of the Russian army stood at about 30 percent, and half of conscripts had spent less than six months

212 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA in service. We could, of course, assume the Defense Ministry came up with a magical technology that was able to transform yesterday’s school boys into unique extra-specialists for servicing 30-year-old tanks. Short of that, we can only acknowledge that the “snap” exercises were no longer so “snappy.” It was not a coincidence that the leading role in that exercise was given to the paratroopers, who had the highest number of contract servicemen. The snap exercise of the Eastern Military District that took place July 13–20 also turned into a show, but on a larger scale. If we were to believe the official information, 160,000 military personnel took part in it. The five-million strong Soviet military had only one exercise, in 1981, in which more than 100,000 military took part. Before the Russian “snap exercise,” a 2009 Chinese exercise involving more than 50,000 soldiers and officers was considered to have been the biggest one staged in Asia. If we were to believe the official Russian sources, nearly one-quarter of Russia’s Armed Forces participated in the exercise in the Eastern District. Such a large-scale exercise presented the Armed Forces leadership with problems. There are only 14 army brigades in the Eastern District, and they are deployed thousands of kilometers apart. Transporting tens of thousands of servicemen to the exercise area was a formidable task, especially considering the limited infrastructure in Siberia and the Far East. No less difficult was to redeploy all formations simultaneously, as stipulated by the exercise order. Half of the conscripts had entered brigades only a month before the exercise, during the spring recruitment period. There was also, as mentioned before, the issue of no less than 20 percent under-manning. The forces were also supposed to use weapons systems stockpiled in depots. All of the above factors should have resulted in a chaos—that is, if we are to believe that 160,000 military participated in the exercise. Lo and behold, another miracle happened. According to official reports, there was only one instance of delay—a 10-hour delay in transporting a radiation and chemical defense brigade. The civilian aerodrome turned out not to have the necessary amount of fuel for the military transport aviation aircraft. Other than that, the reports

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 213 claimed, everything worked smoothly. Reinforcement units were transported in a timely manner by train ferries and transport aviation aircraft to Sakhalin, where the first stage of the exercise took place. After the “enemy’s” attacks had been successfully fended off, events moved to Transbaikalia. Once again, remarkably, the units and formations of three combined-arms armies were transported there simultaneously to participate in a two-sided exercise. The question is: How is it that the deployment of 10,000 soldiers and officers in February 2013 had created so many problems, while six months later, an exercise many times larger went so smoothly? The soldiers in the later exercises had the same old technology and were trained no better than their peers. One begins to wonder whether, in fact, 160,000 men indeed participated in that “snap exercise.” Let us look at numbers. On the first day of the exercise, the Defense Ministry said approximately 1,000 tanks, 130 aircraft and close to 70 ships would participate. Apparently, they then figured out that the planned number of land vehicles was not sufficient for 160,000 servicemen. It would mean 160 men per each tank or armored vehicle. What kind of a modern army would that be? Later, a new, totally inconceivable, number appeared: Supposedly, 6,000 military vehicles were participating in the exercise. We know from open sources that there are approximately 600 tanks and, apparently, a corresponding number of armored vehicles, which brings us to a little more than 1,000 vehicles altogether. The number of ships in the Pacific Fleet has not changed. Several strategic bombers and around 30 transport aviation aircraft based in Central Russia were sent to participate in the exercise. It follows that, if one were to believe the official reports, no fewer than 4,000 tanks, armored vehicles and selfpropelled howitzers were transferred from Central Russia to Siberia within two or three days. This exceeds by far the Red Army’s data about transporting tank armies by rail in the run-up to war with Japan. One can assume that, to impress the country’s top leader, military bureaucrats combined on paper all the formations of the Eastern Military District and those from the Central Military district as

214 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA participants in the exercise. I suspect that most of them were never transported anywhere and did not participate in the exercise. The main conclusion to be drawn from the snap exercises of 2013 was that units comprised primarily of contract-based servicemen were the ones that were actually ready for battle. And they could remain ready through the organization of tactical battalion groups consisting of several dozen elite formations. “Snap exercises,” of course, fit very well into the scenario of hybrid war, or “colored counterrevolution,” that Russia unleashed against Ukraine in 2014. On February 26 of that year, when the victory of the “Maidan,” which the Kremlin considers an anti-constitutional plot hatched by the Western intelligence, became evident, Vladimir Putin ordered a snap exercise of troops in the Western and Central Military Districts. Defense Minister Shoigu announced that 150,000 military personnel would be participating in it, including Airborne Forces, Air and Space Defense Forces, Military Transport Aviation, and LongRange Aviation. Shoigu denied the exercise had anything to do with events in Ukraine. “We are not connecting these things in any way whatsoever,” he said. “These exercises will take place along Russia’s border with other countries. Ukraine may be one of these countries.”151 Today, it is apparent that the exercise represented preparation for the Crimean and Donbass operations. It gave a chance to mobilize formations, advance them to an area of concentration and to test the combatreadiness of weapons and military equipment. The concentration of Russian forces along Ukraine’s southeastern border initially had the goal of containing Ukrainian forces to prevent them from redeploying to Crimea. Later, the same Russian forces performed the same function in support of the secret operation in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts. Still later, they carried out a direct military invasion.

151

“Nachalas’ perebroska voisk, zadeistvovannykh vo ‘vnezapnoi proverke boegotovnosti,’ ” Newsru.com, February 27, 2014, https://www.newsru.com/russia/27feb2014/sudden.html.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 215 The annexation of Crimea, the secret war in Donbass and the Syrian operation have clearly confirmed the validity of Serdyukov’s reforms. But these successful operations also demonstrated the limitations of the reformed army. In the spring of 2014, Russia had sufficient forces deployed along the border to occupy southeastern Ukraine (especially if we consider the level of degradation of the Ukrainian military). But at the very moment when success in carrying out the plan for the occupation of “Novorossiia” was a sure thing, Russia inevitably faced the question: “What do we do next?” Most probably, this was the question military planners had to deal with after the Crimean triumph in the later part of March. It seemed they had all the aces. Troops were already deployed along the border. All it would take would be to organize another referendum and to send “polite little green men” to ensure the referendum was conducted correctly. But that is when the downside of abandoning mass mobilization presented itself. The Armed Forces created by Serdyukov’s reforms were decisively unable to perform the functions of occupiers. Russian strategists created their rapid deployment forces using the blueprints of the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell. The function of these forces was to achieve a rapid victory in a military action and then immediately withdraw. Their capabilities would have been sufficient to contain Taliban fighters within Afghanistan, warding off the Taliban’s attempts to break into the territory of the Middle Eastern countries with concentrated strikes. But their capabilities were obviously not sufficient for occupying several oblasts of Ukraine. It is unlikely the Crimean scenario could have been replicated in Donbass. After all, it was quite easy to chop Crimea off from the rest of Ukraine. All troops had to do was to cut off the transport links through the Perekop Isthmus. But that is hardly possible in the Donets and Lugansk oblasts. Troops would have had to create a border where there had never been one. That would have implied cutting off not two or three highways, but perhaps several hundred roads. It would not

216 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA have been a secret action that could be handled by a few hundred elite soldiers. It would have had to be quite a traditional military operation that would have required installing block posts at all more or less significant communication routes to prevent the penetration of proUkrainian military units. Even if the Kremlin succeeded in concentrating 40,000 troops along the border with Ukraine, it would not have been enough for occupation. That would have required no less than 100,000 enlisted men and officers. They simply did not have that many contract servicemen. Looking ahead, I do not believe they ever will. The despicable games they played with the secret funerals of fallen paratroopers, and the despicable fairy tales about Russian troops being there exclusively by choice (which exonerates the commanders who put them in harm’s way) destroys any chance of creating the professional army that Serdyukov’s reforms envisioned. A reasonable person would never willingly entrust his life to a system that values it so little. Of course, they could have deployed formations manned by conscripts on the occupied territories. But these soldiers spend only a few months on active duty. This would have meant that “polite green men” would have been replaced by young people with no discipline, with propensity for all kinds of crime, who had been pushed into the army more or less by force. Their presence certainly would not have improved the relationship with the locals. Desertion and a whole range of other crimes typical of an occupying army would have been unavoidable. Add to this the necessity of replacing half of the men every six months. Apparently, this is why, having considered all the risks, the Kremlin decided not to replicate the Crimean scenario in the Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts. When the “militiamen” began to lose in battles with the Ukrainian army, and Russian subunits had to be brought in for reinforcement, Moscow did not build on their successes. It chose a hybrid war using mercenaries. But the longer the war in Donbass continued, the more obvious it was becoming that troops were not prepared for such protracted secret military actions. A two-year deployment along the border wore out tactical battalion groups and

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 217 their elite units. Combat-readiness declined so significantly that in February 2015, the Armed Forces had to bring in a tank battalion from Buryatia in order to assure success at Debaltsevo.152 Back to the Vicious Circle? Victories played a cruel joke on the Kremlin. Today, the military might the Kremlin has at its disposal is the major tool in its relationship with the rest of the world. Therefore, the army has been tasked with ever newer missions. At the Russian-Ukrainian border, tactical battalion groups that were designated for short-term combat missions were held there for two years. This wore them out. Moreover, the elite formations were also worn out. Russia’s military actions in Ukraine provoked the NATO countries to deploy rapid reaction forces and heavy military equipment in the Baltic countries, in Poland and in Romania. So now Moscow feels that it has to respond to that. An announcement has already gone out about creating three new divisions on “the Western axis.” These are the 10th Tank Division (Boguchary, Voronezh Oblast), the 144th Motorized Rifle Division (El’nia, Smolensk Oblast), and the 150th Motorized Rifle Division (Novocherkassk, Rostov Oblast). If one is to believe the data published in Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie, just recently as many as “eight new operational formations [in other words, armies] have appeared, more than 25 divisions [combined arms, aviation, air defense, surface ships], and 15 brigades.”153 Shoigu has already reported that, since early 2015, approximately 30 new formations and army units have been created in the Western Military District. The minister also announced that more than 15 formations and units had been created in the Southern Military District, while two more formations were 152

Elena Kostiuchenko, “My vse znali, na chto idem i chto mozhet byt,’ ” Novaia Gazeta, April 3, 2015. 153 Nikolai Poroskov, “Nekolokol’nye interesy Rossii,” Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, February 19, 2016.

218 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA nearly completed. Earlier, it had become known that, in 2015, a new 1st Tank Army had been formed in the Western Military District, with headquarters now near Moscow. And, according to the media, the 20th Combined Arms Army was formed anew because most of its troops had been transferred to the 1st Tank Army. It is not out of the question that the new divisions would become components of the 20th Army. However, not even Putin and Shoigu can do anything to change the demographic situation. The Ministry of Defense’s plans indicate that they expect the numerical strength of the Armed Forces to increase only by 10,000. This is a minuscule number if it wants to create 40 new formations. Until recently, the Ground Forces had only three divisions: Tamanskaia, Kantemirovskaia, and a machine gun artillery division deployed in the Far East. The rest of the formations were brigades. In 2009, within the framework of Serdyukov’s military reform, a painful transition from the division-based structure of the Ground Forces to a brigade-based structure took place. At that time, our army was not preparing to go to war with the “blasted” NATO, and a brigade, which is made up of tactical battalion groups, is far more effective in a local conflict than a division. This, by the way, was clearly demonstrated during the “secret” war in Donbas. But, if the Ministry is preparing for a large-scale war with the West, the fully manned divisions that are, in fact, small armies are a better tool. And, alas, it is not out of the question that the decision to form three new divisions represents the onset of a new painful reorganization. Even as we speak, Russia, in its effort to fend off mythical aggression from the West, is weakening its strategic position in places where the threat actually does exist. In early February 2016, the commander of the Central Military District, Colonel-General Vladimir Zarudnitskii, announced that “the 201st Military Base will be shifting to the brigade structure.”154 This was in reference to Russiа’s largest military outpost abroad, the 201st Military Base in Tajikistan, which, until recently, had a divisional organization. As recently as 154

“Rossiyskuyu voyennuyu bazu v Tadzhikistane perevedut na brigadnyy shtat,” TASS, January 30, 2016, http://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/2627063.

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 219 April 2015, however, plans were very different. At that time, the commandant of the base, Major-General Evgenii Tubol, reported that the numerical strength of the base would be increased one-and-a-half times over the next five years, that is, from 5,900 to 9,000 military personnel. The reasons for that are obvious, for the threat of military aggression in Central Asia has been growing. In Afghanistan, since the major forces of the international coalition left, anti-government forces have been seizing new territories. Some of these forces claim that they are loyal to ISIS, which Russia is apparently fighting in Syria. Any heightening of tensions in the Central Asian republics, which is inevitable should the Taliban come to power in Afghanistan, will entail thousands of refugees streaming into Russia. Keep in mind that the Russian-Kazakhstani border, which is far longer than the RussianChinese border, exists only on paper. In this environment, the major objective of our troops in the region is to secure the landing of the rapid deployment forces of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (ODKB). It is exactly this scenario that was rehearsed during the strategic exercise “Tsentr-2015.” Then, suddenly, Russia’s military leadership reduced its military presence in this highly volatile region. The question is, Why? The press service of the Central Military District goes into abstruse explanations, such as, “Due to the events on the Central Asian axis, the division deployed on the territory of the military base is reorganized into a brigade, which increases its mobility but reduces its personnel.”155 Let us not forget that, in November 2015, the 149th Motorized Rifle Regiment was redeployed from the South Khatlon Oblast to the Tajik capital and to the training area Liaur, 25 kilometers south of Dushanbe. The transfer of the regiment deployed near the Afghan border to the Central Military District was also attributed to “the interests of improving combat readiness and increasing combat capability of the formation.” Note also that two motorized rifle brigades were redeployed to the western 155

“Rossiya sokrashchayet shtat voyennoy bazy v Tadzhikistane,” Fergana News, February 2, 2016, http://www.fergananews.com/news/24399.

220 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA border, the 23rd (Valuiki, Belgorod Oblast) and the 28th (Klintsy, Briansk Oblast). The former used to be based near Samara, and the latter near Ekaterinburg. Both of them were under the Central Military District and, apparently, played the role of strategic reserve for the possible heightening of tensions in Central Asia. It is obvious, however, that the hole in the structure cannot be plugged by simply moving troops around. The increase in the number of units inevitably leads to the appearance of “paper” cadre divisions, where, once again, we will have more officers than enlisted men. It is not a coincidence that, all of a sudden, we have a shortage of commanders in the Armed Forces. Just recently, we had an excess of them, so some lieutenants were appointed to sergeant positions. In order to fill the personnel table with lieutenants as quickly as possible, personnel offices applied “nonstandard measures.” The course of study in many military schools was reduced from five to four years. Enlisted men and sergeants who had a college degree were awarded officer rank after taking short-term courses. Commanders who had been previously discharged were urgently recalled from the reserves on a massive scale. For all intents and purposes, the Ministry of Defense has already abandoned all attempts at improving the system of military education. The only thing still left from Serdyukov’s reforms is the loudly declared initiative to professionalize the Armed Forces. Today’s leadership in the Ministry of Defense insists that even a deep economic crisis will not stand in the way of increasing the number of contract servicemen by 50,000 annually. By the end of 2016, their number was supposed to reach 400,000. If the reports of the Ministry of Defense are true—that, as of now, all sergeants positions are filled with contract servicemen—then it is, indeed, a great achievement. However, it is not entirely impossible that in the near future the generals will present the president with data collected by some sociologists showing that millions of Russian citizens are eager to perform their patriotic duty and, having manipulated the numbers, that those generals will convince the commander-in-chief to return to the idea of a conscript army. This would mean that the Russian army,

A Breakthrough and a Retreat | 221 for the umpteenth time, is ready to relinquish the results of the military reform that was achieved at the cost of so much suffering.

Chapter 3: The Unfinished Reform Let us now summarize the attempts to reform the Russian Armed Forces over the past quarter of a century. On a positive note, the Kremlin has finally acknowledged the challenges that require urgent and radical reforms in the Russian Armed Forces. The most important factor that will define the state of the Armed Forces is the country’s demographic situation. In 2017, 570,000 young males reached the age of 18. In 2018, this number is 600,000, and in 2019, it will fall to 568,000.156 It follows that it will be simply impossible to man the Armed Forces with millions of soldiers by conscription. To do that, we would need to recruit 700,000 conscripts annually. This “demographic hole” opened in the early 1990s, and we have no way of knowing when it could close. The most optimistic forecast is that by 2032 the number of potential conscripts may go up to 800,000. Therefore, the possibility of building up a mobilization resource that could be transformed into a million-man-strong army is a dangerous illusion that robs the country of huge resources. As opposed to the Soviet Union, where the military sector could not be separated from the rest of the economy, since all of it was oriented exclusively toward preparation for possible future war, today’s Russia can spend large, but not limitless, amounts of money and resources on defense. Another objective factor that has an impact on the development of the military is the revolution that is presently taking place in 156

“Problemy i praktika perekhoda voennoi organizatsii Rossii na novuiu sistemu komplektovaniia,” Nauchnye Trudy № 75. М,: Institut economiki perekhodnogo perioda, 2004, p. 238.

222

The Unfinished Reform | 223 military affairs. The essence of this revolution is that, in addition to war on land, on sea, in air, and in space, there is also a new type of warfare, namely information warfare. Modern technologies provide those who have them with complete data on an opponent’s actions, allowing the military to strike an enemy with high-precision weapons from a distance that is hundreds, and even thousands, of kilometers away from a conflict zone. There is also intensive research into the application of military robots in warfare. To keep up with all these scientific-technological achievements, the development of the Armed Forces requires a high level of education and training for all military personnel. A mass-mobilized army cannot meet such requirements. Neither now, nor in any foreseeable future, will Russia have a million people with these kinds of knowledge and skills. All of the above factors have defined major directions for military reform. We are talking first of all about abolishing the system of mass mobilization, where the country’s defense has been based on the ability to run a maximum number of males through the active service in the Armed Forces and to create a mobilization reserve in this way. The reform boiled down to just that—abolishing mass mobilization. This, by the way, is in keeping with the predominant worldwide tendency in military development. Today, practically all large developed countries have transitioned or are in the process of transitioning to volunteer armies. In 2011, Germany, too, abolished the draft, so the Russian devotees of the conscript army can no longer cite its example. In Russia, this process was complicated by the fact that, at the same time it was abolishing the mass conscript army, military reform had to solve (yet failed to solve) several other important problems. In addition to reforming the system of manning and organizing the Armed Forces, it was necessary to radically modernize the system of military education and service, to establish an effective system of civilian control over the army, and to carry out a decisive demilitarization of other “power” structures.

224 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA Strangely enough, before 2008, the above issues were not topics for the discussions that took place between those who proposed radical reforms and the military establishment. The problem was that the opponents of the reformers were not proposing alternative plans for reforms but rather insisted that nothing should be changed. The point of departure for the proponents of reform was that the military system inherited from the Soviet Union was incompatible with the new social structure of the country. The opposition held the view that the Soviet system was ideal and that the goal of reform should be to deactivate the military’s major elements under the present “unfavorable conditions” but to maintain the military structure in order to set the elements in motion again in the future and, thus, protect this army from reformers’ attempts on its life. The defining feature of the discussion around military reform, which doomed it from the very beginning, was that none of the participants on either side could spell out their views fully and openly. The adherents of the Soviet model—that is, the absolute majority of the Russian generals—did not dare present their views openly, since that would make them critics of Boris Yeltsin, the President and Commander-in-Chief, who led the forces that had destroyed the Soviet Union. Therefore, they avoided discussing the essence of military reform altogether. Instead they went into detailed descriptions of conditions that had to be created in order to carry out reforms. Their main objective was to demand conditions that could not be created for various reasons. The fullest and most coherent presentation of this point of view is to be found in articles of General Rodionov published during his service as the Head of the General Staff Academy.157 It should be noted that Putin’s authoritarian regime put an end to those fruitless discussions. As soon as the country’s strong-willed leader finally realized that the Russian army could not continue to exist in its Soviet form (no doubt, Dmitry Medvedev and Anatoly 157

See, for instance, “Voennaia reforma v Rossii,” Nezavisimaia Gazeta. 073 (NBO-2) April 1996.

The Unfinished Reform | 225 Serdyukov consulted “Man No. 1,” who, at the time, was nominally the Prime Minister), he put a stop to all discussions and gave a “green light” to the most radical military reform of the last century and a half. The Rejection of Mass Mobilization Means the Rejection of Conscription As was noted above, the reform, in fact, was reduced to a rejection of the concept of a mass mobilization army. Under a mass mobilization system, the main task of people responsible for the defense of the country was pushing through conscription the maximum number of male citizens in order to create, in case of war, the largest possible mobilization reserve and to assemble in warehouses the maximum quantity of weapons. However, under current Russian circumstances, this concept simply would not work. So in place of a mass mobilization army, the reformers sought to create another compact, mobile force, where all formations and units would be completely manned. If you took into account the demographic situation, the only way to achieve that goal would be to reduce the size of the armed forces and to man them on the basis of contract service. One has to say that it is here that Anatoly Serdyukov, and subsequently Sergey Shoigu, enjoyed significant success. Because of the sharp reduction in the quantity of units and formations, it became possible to achieve full manning. Simultaneously, contractualization of the personnel of the Armed Forces took place. If we were to believe the official statements, by early 2017 the quantity of contract troops had already reached 385,000 and for the first time exceeded the number of conscripts. As indicated in the plans of the Defense Ministry,158 by the end of 2017 the Russian Army should have been composed of 310,000 conscripts and 425,000 158

“Komplektovanie Vooruzhennyx Sil lichnym sostavom. Plan deiatel’nosti na 2013-2020 gg.” http://mil.ru/mod_activity_plan/constr/lvl/plan.htm

226 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA contract soldiers,159 250,000–260,000 officers, and an indeterminate number (25,000–30,000) of cadets in military schools.160 In fact, this meant that the Armed Forces were approaching a situation in which it would be possible to abolish compulsory conscription without any special loss for security. Service by enlistment would become voluntary for all who want to continue to serve as contract personnel in the Army or other power structures. However, return to a mass mobilization army is still a possibility. Evidence of this can be found in the repeated experiments with the organization of the reserve, as discussed above, which the generals have succeeded in turning into а sham. Nevertheless, changes in the sphere of manning the Armed Forces should be considered the chief success of the reform. Sergeants Are the Backbone of the Army The prospect of qualitative changes, without which modern armed forces simply cannot exist, looks far worse. How to transition to a professional army is well known. The Americans did it in the 1970s. The French did it in the 1990s. Of course, it is not enough to simply abolish the draft. First, radical changes have to occur in 159

The leadership of the Ministry of Defense even made an ambitious promise that, by 2020, the number would reach 499.000. This number later mysteriously disappeared from official plans. See “V 2020 godu v rossiiskoi armii budut sluzhit’polmilliona kontraktnikov,” Argumenty Nedeli, February 14, 2014. 160 In 2016, only 2,000 officers graduated from military schools (see “Ministr oborony general armii Sergey Shoygu vystupil na priyeme v chest’ luchshikh vypusknikov voyennykh vuzov,” Mil.ru, June 6, 2016, http://function.mil.ru/news_page/country/more.htm?id=12088746@egNew s), which was the result of the fact that, in 2010–2012, admissions were sharply down. But then, in 2013, approximately 15,000 cadets were admitted (see “V Minoborony soobshchili o bespretsedentnom konkurse v voyennyye uchilishcha,” Lenta.ru, June 29, 2015, http://lenta.ru/news/2015/06/29/yourinthearmynow/).

The Unfinished Reform | 227 training both junior commanders and officers. It is no secret that professional non-commissioned officers are the backbone of such armies and, without a corps of well-trained junior commanders, professional armed forces are unthinkable. After all, sergeants, whose authority is based on both experience and military proficiency, are the ones to maintain discipline in the barracks with an iron fist. Otherwise, order in the barracks rests on criminal and ancient dedovshchina. With regard to providing the Russian army with sergeants, there was once a special program for that. It was created in 2008. According to the plan, it was supposed to train enough contract sergeants to fill all 65,000 positions by 2016.161 One can find on the Ministry of Defense website a very clear text,162 spelling out the system of training for sergeants, which, very importantly, implies the creation of a special hierarchy of sergeant positions. According to this system, the training of sergeants begins at the second stage of contract servicemen training and continues for three to ten months and, for some specializations, as long as two years and ten months. At this second stage, sergeants are trained to command detachments, tanks, and gun crews. In order to begin the training, a perspective sergeant needs to have at least two years of military service under his belt. The training takes place at sergeant schools, training centers, training formations, army units and colleges. The text emphasizes that special attention is given to training of this category of sergeants because, having completed the course, “they must not only know weapons and military equipment but also have skills in command and control of troops, both in their everyday activities and in the course of a combat.” At the third stage, sergeants train to become platoon commanders or platoon deputy commanders. The candidates are selected from 161

Postanovlenie pravitel’stva RF ot 18.08.2008 No 621, http://www.referent.ru/1/179752. 162 Sluzhba po kontraktu, http://recrut.mil.ru/career/soldiering/qualification/soldier.htm.

228 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA among those sergeants who have completed the second level of training and have subsequently served in the military as sergeants for at least three to five years. At this stage, their training takes place at schools for sergeants and colleges and continues about three months. The fourth stage prepares master-sergeants in a brigade or regiment tactical unit. To get into this training, one needs at least secondary professional education and ten years of service. The training is done for three to five months at the center for training sergeants at Ryazan. The students acquire theoretical knowledge of all aspects of staff and commanders’ work. Finally, at the fifth stage, sergeants are trained to become sergeant-majors for army tactical units and higher, up to being sergeant-majors for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The candidates are selected from among master-sergeants of brigades or regiment tactical units who have served for at least 15 years. They train for about three months. The Ministry of Defense website lists the seven training centers where sergeants are trained. The trouble is that the Ministry of Defense, which never misses an opportunity to report on all its successes, has no information on the results of the implementation of this program, the most important one it has installed to modernize the Armed Forces. And, as we recall, this program was supposed to have been completed by 2015. These days no one remembers that reforms were meant to create the positions of master-sergeant and sergeant-major in the branches of the Armed Forces. This suggests that the program was torpedoed and the Ministry chose to forget about it. It would seem that creating a corps of professional sergeants would be the easiest part of “qualitative” reform for the army. It should not have become a source of significant disagreement. And yet, the Ministry of Defense was still not able to implement a program that had been discussed since the 1980s. The Officer Is the Future of the Armed Forces As soon as they embarked upon training sergeants the right way, it turned out that our military institutions of higher education for

The Unfinished Reform | 229 officers graduated not professionals but, rather, military hacks who can feel that they are professionally independent only in a conscript army in which there are no professional sergeants. Therefore, one of the most important aspects of military reform must be radical changes in the system of military education and active service conditions. A Russian officer should stop being a minuscule cog in a huge military machine, deprived of the right to initiative, who acquires knowledge limited to the “area relevant to him,” in order to master one or two types of military technology. In order to make our officers true professionals, the whole system of education has to shift toward more humanities and social sciences. Yet all of that will be of no use if the conditions of active service do not radically change. To change the situation, all promotions have to go through an open competition. Let us not forget that Serdyukov and his team made a decision to transform all military colleges—in 2008 there were 68 of them—into 10 research-educational centers for each branch and type of service of the Armed Forces. It is there that, according to the plan, the leading researchers in corresponding aspects of military science would be concentrated, and cadets and officers would have an opportunity to study the most up-to-date methods of warfare. They also made a decision to abolish academies of the branches of service and shorten the course of study at the General Staff Academy to a few months. The reformers’ position was that cadets, once they completed basic military education, would acquire further knowledge without having to leave active service for long periods of time. Under the earlier system, an officer could spend years away from active duty, that is, three years at an academy and two more at the General Staff Academy. But under the new system, to get a promotion and a new position, he would be required to take relatively short courses to gain new knowledge and skills in a specific area. The number of years in service would be no longer sufficient. Finally, and perhaps most important, the reformers proposed to radically revamp the program of the military education. In their view, it had to place major emphasis on fundamental sciences and spend

230 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA less time on concrete military skills. The experience of other countries demonstrates that the latter can be easily acquired in special training centers. Moreover, the reformers intended for the military institutions of higher education to place at the center of their programs humanities and social sciences and, especially, foreign languages. In other words, the emphasis was on such qualities in commanders as the ability to continue their lifelong education and intellectual development and to understand the world around them and their own place in the world. It is in this area that, after Serdyukov had been fired, the reform was thrown into reverse. To meet the demands of “the army community,” the Ministry of Defense decided to retain a number of the academies as independent educational institutions, altogether 26 academies and their branches. During Serdyukov’s era, military education institutions were under the control of the Ministry of Defense Education Department. But now they are, once again, placed under the offices of the Commanders-in-Chief of their respective branches. Striving to solve their own specific problems, the Ministry naturally demanded that its students be armed not with fundamental knowledge but, rather, with practical skills. There is no doubt that we will get the same old results from the return to the old, essentially Soviet, structure of military education that Shoigu recently announced, namely, a military school, an academy of their respective branches of service, the General Staff Academy. I believe that there is a reason the government rejected the reform of military education. Imagine that educated, independently minded, self-assured people who are confident of their rights came into the army. It is not likely that they would accept today’s system, under which an officer has to carry out every order, even a criminal one, because otherwise he would be court-martialed. (He may file a complaint, but only after carrying out the order.) This kind of an educated officer is quite inconvenient for today’s powers that be. The Ministry of Defense also has been turning back toward the past “expanded reproduction” of the officer cadre. Clearly, all of the military schools that have not been eliminated are now trying to prove

The Unfinished Reform | 231 their relevance with renewed energy and will pressure their high command headquarters to give them more cadets. The country is also facing an excess of officers because the term of service for them was extended to five years. Civilian Control In spite of these reversals, the reform has decisively improved the effectiveness of the army. And the issue of civilian control over the Armed Forces, which should enjoy the respect of both the government and the general population, is becoming ever more relevant. For years, the favorite argument of those opposing the reform has been, justifiably, that the Armed Forces cannot reform themselves. It would seem that the logical conclusion from this argument is that the military leadership must unconditionally accept and implement the plans for reform proposed by country’s civilian leadership. But in Russia, this argument, strangely enough, has been used to justify the resistance of the military institutions of higher education to participate in reforms and, simultaneously, avoid taking responsibility for their open sabotage. Instead of implementing the President’s orders, generals resisted any proposals by civilian reformers, accusing them of incompetence, irresponsibility, and striving to destroy the Armed Forces by reducing their great power. Igor Rodionov, when he was still the Head of the General Staff Academy, characteristically wrote, “The political leadership has no right to define the contours of the Armed Forces and the new military organization on the basis of resources available today within the framework of the slashed military budget.”163 Essentially, the top military leaders tried to convince the Kremlin that they own exclusive rights to evaluating whether plans for reforming the Armed Forces, which had already been accepted by Russia’s political leadership, are good or bad. The very fact that the 163

“Voennaia reforma v Rossii,” Nezavisimaia Gazeta, April 2, 1996.

232 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA top military commanders have been able to stymie the reform for 16 years with the help of sophistry points to the truly critical, and as of today still not solved, issue of civilian control over the Armed Forces. It is worth noting that, as far as the Kremlin is concerned, this problem no longer exists in Russia. At least, that is what follows from Vladimir Putin’s statements to that effect. At some moment in the past, the appointment of Sergey Ivanov, former general of the Foreign Intelligence Service, to the post of Minister of Defense was presented as “a step toward demilitarization” of Russian society. And when Anatoly Serdyukov—who, having completed his compulsory military service, never had anything to do with the army again—landed in Ivanov’s chair, the Russian government became convinced that civilian control over the military had been established in Russia once and for all. But then, again, the Kremlin began to feel that there was too much civilian control there. And with Shoigu replacing Serdyukov, we have come full circle. Even though Sergey Kuzhugetovich Shoigu has no military education, he loves his military uniform. Moreover, he bedecked the civilian bureaucrats of his ministry with uniforms and graced the shoulders of big bosses with generals’ stars they had not earned. Guchkov, Kerenskii, Trotskii, Yeltsin, Serdyukov—this is the scanty list of civilians who have been in charge of the Ministry/Department/Commissariat of Defense throughout Russia’s history. During the last 25 years, we have not succeeded in breaking the tradition that goes back many centuries, according to which military affairs is a sphere closed to the public and accessible only to those initiated. The symbol of this initiation has been the military uniform that—ever since Peter the Great—Tsars, General Secretaries and People’s Commissars love to wear. Therefore, every time a man who had just taken his uniform off became a Minister of Defense, officials hurried to announce that civilian control of the military had “come to pass.” The country now has a “civilian” Minister of Defense and, thus, has made one more step toward the civilian control over the Armed Forces that exists in civilized countries. But history has taught us that the absence of stars and stripes on the suit of a Minister of

The Unfinished Reform | 233 Defense does not necessarily translate into civilian control over the Armed Forces. The same “civilian” Trotsky was a quintessential militarist and the creator of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Army. They say that Igor Rodionov, who had just parted with a general’s uniform, attended for the first time a meeting of the Security Council as a civilian Minister of Defense. At that meeting, the naïve Minister reassured his fellow siloviki, “It’s only the form that has changed. The content is still the same.”164 He spoke the truth. As for Sergey Ivanov, he did not bother trying to comprehend that it was his responsibility to exercise civilian control over the military establishment. Most probably, he perceived his appointment as a clever cover operation. These boring Westernizers demand a civilian Minister of Defense, so let them choke on it. He, a professional counter-intelligence officer, was prepared to play this role as well. In fact, the only man in charge of the military establishment who actually fit the criterion of “normal,” by the standards of civilized countries, was Anatoly Serdyukov, whose detractors never tired of criticizing him for his supposed incompetence, along with his “furniture shop” past. Serdyukov was not simply an example of a civilian manager who had proven his effectiveness in other spheres. He also tried to bring into the Ministry of Defense other civilian bureaucrats—many of the high-ranking ones being women. The proverbial “skirt battalion” was greeted by generals with such hatred, not because of the supposed corruption and incompetence of Serdyukov’s appointees, but because these appointees obviously cut off the generals from the flow of money

164

It is unlikely that Rodionov was aware of the fact that he was repeating almost word for word a historical anecdote about a famous French general, Gaston de Galliffet. The latter, when he became Minister of Defense, ordered that he should be addressed not as “Minister” but as “General.” “I am a minister for just a few days, but I shall remain a general till my dying day.” Ironically, Galliffet did not stay in the post of Minister of Defense more than a few months (just like Rodionov) and left it by saying: “This is crap. I’ve had it up to here.”

234 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA and deprived them of the ability to handle the huge financial resources of the Ministry of Defense. In reality, civilian control is not at all a foreign fancy and, especially, not a subversion meant to destroy the Armed Forces. It is quite an efficient tool that provides effective command and control of the army in a democracy. We usually do not talk about it, but military service differs from civil service in that the country has a right to demand of its soldiers and officers that they do things that are contrary to human nature, that is, to kill and to subject themselves to mortal danger. It took centuries to develop the specific principles of this service: unity of command, unconditional obedience to orders, a strict hierarchy of ranks and positions. Therefore, even within a democracy, the army, owing to its specific needs, lives according to entirely undemocratic norms and regulations. This paradox is easy to explain: only in this way can one overcome the fear of death that is natural to all men. For example, the military’s love of marching in formation, to which civilians have a hard time relating, is quite logical. It is hard to break out of formation and run away. Democracies have to be especially vigilant about controlling their Armed Forces. Even though armies are designed to solve their countries’ external problems by the use of force, they have everything they need at their disposal to force upon their own societies the will of the generals. History abounds in examples of this. It is called a “military coup.” The system of civilian control of the Armed Forces is designed to deal with precisely this contradiction, that is, with the existence within a democracy of a fundamentally undemocratic instrument used to defend this democracy from external threats. At the foundation of this system is, of course, parliamentary control. This is obviously not possible under the present form of the Russian government, which presupposes the impotence of the lawmaking branch. But what is meant here is, first and foremost, “positive” control over the sphere of national defense and security; namely, the parliament must have the right and responsibility to evaluate critically the proposals of the Ministry of Defense, law enforcement agencies, and special services and to finance only those programs that, in the

The Unfinished Reform | 235 opinion of representatives, are compatible with the nation’s interests and ability to pay. Moreover, the press must regularly inform the public about discussions in the parliament. Minutes of meetings and hearings on defense matters in the State Duma and its special committees must be published in the open press, with the exception of those rare cases in which the topics are, indeed, sensitive. Thus, the government policy in the sphere of defense and security is shaped in a transparent and public manner. The defense expenditures, too, must be detailed to a maximum and transparent to a maximum, which requires amending or changing a number of laws, in particular, the Budgetary Code and the law “On State Secrets,” as well as a number of bylaws. The military budget must not only be compatible with the standards of the United Nations’ reports on military expenditures of other countries; it must also be more comprehensive and detailed so that lawmakers and the experts they consult do not simply take the leaders of the Ministry of Defense at their word with regard to major tendencies in the development of the Armed Forces, the weapons they are equipped with, and their pay and other services but would have an opportunity to evaluate them independently. In addition, the parliament must be given the function of “negative control,” that is, the statutory right of control over the way the allocated budget is spent. Civilian control is not limited to the parliament. The creation of research institutions of independent expertise in the sphere of defense and security is of fundamental importance. These research centers must provide objective analysis of processes that take place in this sphere, they should develop recommendations that are not dictated by interested ministries. Simultaneously, these research centers must also create educational institutions that would train not only future researchers but also civilian specialists who are competent in the sphere of defense and security. These specialists must become part of the apparatus of civil servants working in the Ministry of Defense. Obviously this option can only be realized if a fundamental change in the political system occurs. If one considers the very

236 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA specific, militaristic essence of the present system of government, the above transformations must become some of the most important elements of political change. These proposals, in one form or another, were contained in Yuri Baturin’s plan as well as in documents prepared by the Security Council under Andrei Kokoshin. But in their fullest form, they are to be found in the document entitled Military Reform in the Russian Federation: Theses of the Council for the External and Internal Defense Policy.165 One of the most important elements of civillian control is a strict delimitation of functions among military and political leaders. Unfortunately, only in Russia does a strange term like “militarypolitical leadership” have a right to exist. It looks like an oxymoron to any normal democratic country. To exercise effective command and control of the Armed Forces, it is absolutely necessary to decisively divide the functions and, consequently, responsibilities of the top military and political leaders. Two centuries ago, one British statesman defined the relationship between the army and politicians as follows: “The duty of a soldier is to kill the enemies of the queen. The duty of a politician is to identify those enemies.” Theoretically, a situation must never occur in which the military top brass makes decisions about what threat the country faces at a particular moment. The top political leadership should consult the military, and once the former makes a decision, the latter must steadfastly implement it. It stands to reason that simply having a civilian Minister of Defense is not sufficient to exercise civilian control over the Armed Forces. In the West, ministries of defense are staffed primarily with civilians. And these civilians formulate the decisions that the military has to implement or carry out after they have been approved by the top political leadership. Moreover, in theory, a Minister of Defense must not be “the top general” but, rather, must turn into a politician. And the Ministry itself must become the organ that develops a defense policy that aligns the country’s defense needs with its capabilities. Its 165

Voennaia reforma v Rosssiskoi Federatsii, Tezisy Soveta po vneshnei i oboronnoi politike, http://svop.ru/public/pub1997/1238/.

The Unfinished Reform | 237 mission then becomes to translate the President’s political goals into the language of specific military orders. The General Staff and operational commands are the ones to carry out these orders. So far, there is not even a hint that the Kremlin and today’s top leadership in the Ministry of Defense are conscious of the necessity for such an overhaul of the system. Moreover, Shoigu has to pay for his general’s stripes, the ones that make him into the “top general.” And that is a major trap for him. If the Ministry of Defense remains a military institution, then the Minister is doomed to make strictly technical decisions and bear responsibility for them. In this way, he cannot escape being a hostage to the military, which dictates its decisions to him. Today’s Ministry of Defense still wears a military uniform, just as it has always done in Russia. No one has bothered with the issue of educating hundreds of civil servants to be competent in military affairs or to educate a new breed of generals who would carry out the orders of any civilian minister without prejudice. Certainly, some success has been achieved in suppressing the willful behavior of the top generals in the 1990s and early 2000s, when they often expressed their own opinions and ignored the President’s and Commander-in-Chief’s positions. There are many examples of that. For instance, the generals demanded that the offensive in Chechnya continue in the fall of 1999 when the Kremlin had not yet reached the final decision on how the operation should proceed. Another example involves the sinking of the Kursk, when, contrary to the obvious, the admirals falsely insisted that the disaster was caused by some mythical NATO submarine. In October 2001, Putin had to yield to the leaders of the so-called power ministries when they resisted the plans for cuts in their respective power structures developed by the Security Council. These types of activities are possible only when there are no clearly established requirements for the military leadership’s behavior. However, during the last several years, the generals who have had to keep their mouths shut have mastered the art of sabotaging administrative decisions that are not to their liking. It is enough to

238 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA recall how, overall, they sabotaged a whole range of very reasonable attempts to shape service in the reserve forces into a civilized form, as I discussed above. For now, Vladimir Putin is certain that his own prestige, combined with Sergey Shoigu’s loyalty and “can-do” attitude, is sufficient to control the army. But this is an illusion. It is true that Putin and Shoigu can keep the military in check in the sense that the generals do not even dream about something like a military coup. But, without effective control from civil society, corruption will reign supreme in the army. And this means that the funds allocated for the Armed Forces will continue to disappear into the blue yonder. Transparency is not the one and only requirement for civilian control. Paradoxically, civil society must not only exert control over the military but must also create favorable conditions for the soldier to keep his contract with the society he is sworn to serve. The guarantee that the officer whom society has entrusted with powerful weapons will not give a criminal order comes from his conscious acceptance of the laws that guide the life of that society. And yet, instead of a realistic picture of the contemporary world, our professional military is fed a bizarre simulacrum prepared for it by the departments of scientific communism, which the administrations of military schools and academies have hastily renamed departments of “political science.” Very few in the Ministry of Defense comprehend that only an adequate understanding of what is going on in the country, and what its role in the state mechanism is, can spare the military the temptation of becoming involved in politics in a moment of crisis. The Army and Politics The substitution of control by Putin’s bureaucrats for civilian control has led to a situation in which the military has no idea what its role in the state is. When we look back at the tumultuous events of the 1990s and the decisive role that the Armed Forces played in them, we can conclude that the Russian Army’s excessive involvement in

The Unfinished Reform | 239 politics may, indeed, at some point become a danger to the state. In fact, the history of post-Soviet Russia began with a coup attempt in August 1991, where the Soviet Army was one of the major players. Later on, the military was the only power in Russia that, during the January 1992 all-Russia officer meeting, dared to directly accuse Boris Yeltsin of destroying the Soviet Union and to demand its restoration. In 1992–1993, during the showdown between the Kremlin and the Supreme Soviet, one of the most important issues was whether the army would take part in this struggle and, if so, on whose side. As is well known, the top military leadership, which had proclaimed its neutrality more than once, eventually took Yeltsin’s side. It would appear that the political role of the military today resembles the role it played during the Soviet era more than the role it played during the tumultuous 1990s. However paradoxical this statement may look, the political role of the military in the Soviet Union was more than modest. It is true that the country’s leadership was prepared to blindly believe any information the Minister of Defense fed it about the “hostile preparations of the world imperialism.” The same military was also able to get whatever monetary and other resources it requested for developing all kinds of military technology. The military was present in all organs of the party administration, from a district bureau to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU. However, its participation in political infighting was exceptionally rare. In the second half of the 20th century, however, the military twice played an important role in Soviet political infighting. Both times it was in connection with Marshal Zhukov. In the summer of 1953, officers from the headquarters of the Moscow Military District Air Defense who were loyal to Zhukov arrested Lavrenti Beria, the man who had been Stalin’s security chief for fifteen years and, after Stalin’s death, tried to seize power. Three years later, Marshal Zhukov provided military-transport aviation airplanes to take all members of the Central Committee from all regions of the Soviet Union to Moscow to prevent any attempts by former associates of Stalin,

240 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA Malenkov, Molotov, and Bulganin to regain power. It is quite telling that the willingness of the Minister of Defense, who enjoyed great respect of the army, to participate in a power struggle scared Khrushchev himself. Instead of showing his gratitude, Khrushchev quickly fired the Marshal, having subjected him first to a humiliating party hearing. During Brezhnev’s time, the top generals, who had a decisive voice on issues of foreign policy and security, had almost no influence on decision making regarding internal political issues. Thus, the military accepted—without enthusiasm, but also without any visible resistance—the appointment of a “civilian,” Dmitry Ustinov, as Minister of Defense. In fact, under Brezhnev, there was quite an effective system of control over the army in the Soviet Union. It was certainly not a system of control by civil society because there was no civil society. The main objective of Soviet political organs was to keep a vigilant eye on officers and generals for their loyalty. Suppression of any political initiative in the community of officers was 100 percent guaranteed. Because a totalitarian regime has at its core the principle of unquestioning subordination, it is much easier for it to exercise state control (I just cannot bring myself to call it “civilian control”) over the military than it is for a democracy. Records of “divorces through the party committee” and political reports—rather more like denunciations than reports—could instantly ruin the careers and lives of combat commanders. Character references for high-ranking officers were regularly submitted by their own deputies—political officers to the all-powerful Department of the Administrative Organs of the Central Party Committee, which had the last word on officers’ promotions. As for the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy, which had the status of a Department of the Central Party Committee, its vigilance embraced the entire defense sphere without exception. Here, the criteria for “ideological correctness” were more rigid by far than the standard Soviet ones. In general, only he who was an outstanding example of combat readiness and political awareness

The Unfinished Reform | 241 and whose outward appearance matched that of a poster standard was deemed “worthy.” So a gutsy photo reporter of Krasnaia Zvezda, who managed to reach some godforsaken platoon somewhere near the Salang Pass, in Afghanistan, would have to ask the soldiers to shave and button their shirts first, so that their “non-regulation” appearance did not spark the ire of some armchair political boss. Under Gorbachev’s perestroika, it was precisely the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army (GlavPUR) that supported the most controversial nationalist figures, such as Aleksandr Prokhanov and Karem Rash. That being said, one has to admit that there was no noticeable antagonism between the ruling power and the military that it raised. As long as the powers that be took upon themselves the responsibility for their decisions to use force, the military was willing to participate even in quite ugly affairs. It is enough to mention the 1962 massacre of the peaceful demonstration in Novocherkassk, the 1956 suppression of the anti-Communist rebellion in Hungary, and the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. The real crisis arose under glasnost’, when the Kremlin tried to use the army to put down national movements in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and the Baltic republics. For the first time, the General Secretary of the CPSU and the Minister of Defense were afraid to acknowledge that the army acted on their orders. Moreover, the government made no attempt to defend the forces when the wrath of the liberal part of Soviet society fell on their heads. This betrayal by the government became obvious to the military for the first time after the Tbilisi events of April 1989. Igor Rodionov carried out the Kremlin’s order and immediately became a scapegoat. And so, the brave general lived in fear for the rest of his life. But, while Rodionov was intimidated, Aleksandr Lebed, who commanded paratroopers in Tbilisi, was outraged, first of all by the irresponsibility of the civilian leadership. Later on, this outrage turned him into a politician. “Beginning in 1988, since Sumgait, I have not received a single written order,” Lebed said with obvious irritation. “The telephone

242 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA would ring: ‘Fly, our falcons, thata way, things are not good there, do restore order,’ and that’s it. For instance, I flew to Tbilisi with three regiments, using 140 military transport aircraft. Can you imagine how much work went into gathering dozens of aircraft from various cities, building this armada in the air, and taking it there? And when Gorbachev is surprised I pretend I don’t know how the hell it got there… Nothing has changed since then. Every time, it was a phone call. Not a single written order. It’s like the division commander made his own decision to load his men onto the planes and fly to Tbilisi, Vilnius, and Baku. And suddenly I understood: I was merely an instrument… I’m tired of idiots who give me orders.”166 At the same time, the government demonstrated an appalling incompetence in how it used the army. It gave the military secret orders that, as they knew in advance, could not be carried out. When sending troops to Baku and Nagorno-Karabakh, the government was not necessarily striving to de-escalate conflicts between nationalities. Rather, it was playing political games around them, trying, through “peacekeeping,” to strengthen Moscow’s hand in haggling with the republics over the degree of their independence. In taking this approach, the government sent the army into “hot spots” with undefined functions and unclear mandates, similarly to the 19th century situations in which they showed the uniform cap of the district chief of police to the peasants participating in an uprising. The government sent the army there to show its will to mitigate the conflicts without actually committing to it. In reality, this translated into significant losses of men and mission failure. The crisis of the Soviet system of civil-military relations reached its peak when the army took part in an attempt to overthrow Gorbachev. The military truly hated the first President of the Soviet Union, accusing him of destroying the most powerful armed forces in the world. They approved of the coup, but when faced with the need to use force, they stopped. They stopped precisely because they did 166

Yegeny Latyshev, “Neizvestnyi general Lebed,’ ” Novye Izvestiia, October 5, 2001.

The Unfinished Reform | 243 not trust the state officials initiating the coup, the State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP), and they were afraid that the responsibility for bloodshed would be, once again, placed on their shoulders. The result of the coup failure was that Yeltsin ended up with an army that was deeply mistrustful not just of individual government officials but of the entire upper echelon of state power. One needed to have the willpower and charisma of the first President to use this army in an internal political power struggle. He succeeded just once, in October 1993. But he had to personally go to the Ministry of Defense and spend several hours trying to convince Pavel Grachev, whose loyalty he never doubted, to use force against the Supreme Soviet. The Minister, who obviously did not want to do it, demanded a “written order,” just as Yazov and Lebed had insisted earlier. As is well known, this was not the last time Boris Yeltsin and those close to him contemplated using military force against the Communist opposition. However, it was instantly apparent every time that they had zero chances to get the army’s support for the executive authority’s cause. This is what happened, for instance, in October 1997, when the opposition announced their plans for mass anti-Yeltsin demonstrations on the anniversary of the 1993 events and threatened to organize hundreds of thousands of protesters. The Ministry of Defense indicated clearly that the army would not support either side in the political struggle. The high-ranking officer of the Moscow garrison with whom I spoke during those days categorically ruled out any possibility of his men’s involvement in providing security for the capital. It is telling that Minister of Defense Igor Sergeev, whose vacation was over on October 5, did not return to Moscow in turmoil but instead, rather demonstratively, went to Greece on an official visit. The issue of using the army against the opposition came up for the last time in the fall of 1998, when the deep economic crisis erupted into a political confrontation. After the fall of Sergey Kirienko’s cabinet, the Duma, controlled by the left, refused to confirm Viktor

244 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA Chernomyrdin as Prime Minister. And at the moment when all options were exhausted, the Communist opposition began seriously to worry that the President would dissolve the Duma with the help of the army. As we know now, the President’s administration, in fact, did consider using the army once more in the confrontation between the executive and the legislative branches of the government. However, the Secretary of the Security Council, Andrei Kokoshin, prepared a detailed memorandum about the mood of the army, based on the data collected by the military counter-intelligence. His conclusion was obvious: were the President himself to give a directive to “restore order in the capital,” neither the army nor the internal troops would carry it out. And the Yeltsin of 1998 resembled very little the Yeltsin of 1993. The Kremlin had no other options than to find another candidate for the post of Prime Minister, one whom the Duma would find more acceptable. Thus, after October 1993, the executive branch of the government no longer had the slightest chance to use the Armed Forces in its power struggles. The Kremlin’s opponents, however, did not have such a chance, either. During the entire 1990s, the left opposition considered the military as their natural ally. Just as the Communists and nationalists did, most officers accused Yeltsin and the reformers of destroying the great power of the nation and the great army. The largest demonstrations of the opposition alliance occurred invariably on February 23, the Day of the Soviet Army and Navy, which Yeltsin renamed but did not dare abolish. Moreover, political crises usually coincided with periods of extreme deterioration of the military personnel’s economic circumstances. In 1997–1998, it seemed that the army, finding itself in a desperate situation, would indeed decide to act against Yeltsin. Precisely at this time, the “Movement in Support of the Army, Defense Industry, and Military Science” (DPA) surfaced. It obviously aspired to the status of a military organization of the Communist Party, and it began to gain momentum. At the head of this movement was General Lev Rokhlin, a hero of the first Chechen war. Rokhlin wrote an open letter to the Commander-in-Chief and

The Unfinished Reform | 245 sent the text of the letter to all military units. He directly accused Yeltsin of destroying the Armed Forces, alluding to the fact that the President was doing the CIA’s bidding. The General appealed to all officers to unite “in the face of the attack on the army.” He offered to conduct meetings of officers and to send their collective demands to the President, the Parliament, and the Supreme and Constitutional Courts. Rokhlin unequivocally demanded that the President “leave and yield the road to others.” However, the starving army, angry at the government, ignored Rokhlin’s appeals. In July 1998, Rokhlin was murdered, and a representative of the radical wing of the Russian Communist Party, Chair of the Duma Security Committee Viktor Iliukhin, became the new chair of the DPA. He immediately appealed to the military “not to carry out orders of the command, not to turn in their weapons, and not to leave the military towns until the government provides those discharged from the army with housing and pays them all severance compensation.”167 What the military was supposed to do after they “stopped carrying out orders” became clear from Iliukhin’s interview to Nezavisimaia Gazeta. In it, he proclaimed that the “the legal ways of solving the issue of political power in Russia have been exhausted.”168 Yet the army was still silent. It would be naïve to think that, during that period, officers were so well disciplined that they carried out orders issued by the Minister of Defense on a regular basis, which prohibited the military from participating in political organizations. I suppose the non-involvement of the Armed Forces in the political processes during the second part of the 1990s is to be explained by the fact that officers felt the same mistrust toward the opposition they felt toward executive power. The leading members of the opposition looked well taken care of, which bore witness to their significant 167

Aleksandr Sadchikov and Viktor Litovkin, “Kommunisty vnov’ prizyvaiut armiiu k nepovinoveniiu,” Izvestiia, July 23, 1998. 168 Sergei Dunaev, “My dolzhny dobit’sia smeshcheniia presidenta do vsiakikh vyborov,” Nezavisimaia Gazeta, July 22, 1998.

246 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA integration with the “Yeltsin regime” they so hated. The Russian army perceived the political power struggle as squabbling among the “inlaws” and wished they would all “rot in hell.” The question is, why did the army not put forward its own charismatic leader and pick up the power that was lying on the floor during the entire second half of the 1990s? To be sure, the heavy steps of the generals did shake the Russian political stage during most of that tumultuous decade. Ruslan Aushev, Aleksandr Rutskoy, Aleksandr Lebed: all these generals had different—and in many cases, exactly opposite—political convictions, different goals, and dissimilar personalities. But they all had one thing in common: they came into politics at the point when they, combat generals who had made brilliant military careers, came to the conclusion that the behavior of the top government leadership, whose orders they were supposed to carry out without questioning, was dishonorable and turned people in uniform simultaneously into executioners and scapegoats. So Hero of the Soviet Union Aleksandr Rutskoy became a political figure when he stood behind the podium at the Congress of the People’s Deputies and denounced the Kremlin for having sent troops into Vilnius and Tallinn. And Hero of the Soviet Union Ruslan Aushev, insulted by the actions of Moscow during the Ossetian-Ingush Conflict in the Prigorodny District, went on to become the President of Ingushetia. All of this took place in a country in the midst of a deep economic crisis, where the President, clothed in immense power, rarely left the hospital. In this situation, it became almost fashionable to insist that the overabundance of generals involved in politics threatened the country with a dictatorship and with the rise of someone like Pinochet. To be fair, while all of the military figures who became involved in politics did achieve some success, none of them became a Russian Pinochet or ever aspired to be one. Moreover, the retired generals never appealed directly to the army. They clearly understood that any such attempt would most probably irritate the military, whose experience in Vilnius and Baku as well as in Moscow in August 1991 and October 1993 had taught them to keep as far as possible from political intrigues. It was hard to imagine that the army would respond

The Unfinished Reform | 247 to the appeals of even the most popular general and hand him the dictatorship. There is no doubt that the majority of the military, as well as many ordinary Russians, dreamed of a “strong hand” that would establish some order in the country. Yet neither the people nor the potential dictators were prepared yet to use force. The combination of these factors is what, in my opinion, accounts for the phenomenal popularity of Vladimir Putin, who is brilliant at creating an illusion of strong authority. The unsuccessful attempts to unite all of the military into a single party in the 1990s makes one think that, apparently, the very nature of that era’s army was resisting such unification. The officer corps (not to mention the conscripts) did not represent a monolithic caste that was cemented by some corporate interests. The point is that Russian generals and Russian lieutenants had very different interests at the time. The resulting active resistance of the army to get involved in political infighting looks almost civilized. The problem is that, unfortunately, it was due not to the conscious choice of the army, but to its disillusionment with politics. With Putin’s rise to power, the army’s possible involvement in politics was no longer an issue, at least not in the way it had been in the 1990s. The left gave up its attempts to flirt with the Armed Forces. The Army continuously swears its everlasting love for the Commander-in-Chief, under whose rule the status of the military, indeed, has grown. To be sure, Putin himself keeps on feeding this “enthusiastic support” by symbolic gestures, showering the military with ranks and medals. If the army still has any political role to play, it is only as a particular group of voters who are easily manipulated. However, this has significance only as far as parliamentary elections are concerned, when officers are most likely to receive “recommendations” to support “the party of power.” The Kremlin also has no problem with the fact that a significant number of the military is now serving in the administration. There are even more generals in our government today than there were under Yeltsin. But

248 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA Putin is not afraid of a possible fronde on the part of its generals, because it is Putin himself who has brought these star-studded fellows into government. High-ranking military and employees of the special services have become the major reserve cadre in our system of “managed democracy.” One can observe a curious trend here lately. During the initial period of Putin’s rule, the preference for filling government positions was given to the army generals as people who had significant administrative experience and the respect of the public. But soon the highest administrative positions came to be occupied by Putin’s former KGB colleagues. А certain wit close to the powers that be pointed out that the entire political life in the country was reduced to a competition between representatives of the earlier security service (intelligence) and the latter security service (counterintelligence). It appeared that there could be nothing worse than the unlimited power of the chekisty, with their specific ethics or, more precisely, the absence thereof. But then, during Putin’s third term, the highest posts were given to the recent personal bodyguards of the President, which is even worse. If the chekisty were indoctrinated to believe that everything they did served the purpose of defending their people, the bodyguards were taught something entirely different, namely, to defend the person they served, whatever the cost. The Kremlin may have miscalculated in its belief that Putin’s personal control could substitute for civilian control. The point is that the careers of those people who hold commanding posts today, both in the Armed Forces and in special services, started in the 1990s. They do not have the same aversion to getting involved in politics that officers brought up under the Soviet system of military education did. Should there be a serious crisis, members of the Armed Forces with no moral compass whatsoever, who are guided by some mythologized idea of a great imperial past, may shock us with very unpleasant surprises. Believing that the Russian army has practically always remained loyal to rulers (whether tsars, general secretaries, or presidents) and that Russian officers are deeply suspicious of all politicians (whether left or right, liberals or nationalists) may prove to

The Unfinished Reform | 249 be a big mistake. It suffices to remember February 1917, when, in order to keep its traditional structure and “principles” (the front commanders believed that Tsar Nicholas’ abdication could restore order in the army), the military got involved in politics. It could happen again. But such intervention will inevitably lead to chaos inside a nuclear power—to another Russian catastrophe. And no bodyguards will be able to prevent it from happening. The Devil Is in the Others Another aspect of the reform was supposed to be the demilitarization of the so-called power structures. Prior to the mid2000s, up to a dozen various ministries and agencies had their own military formations. These were the Ministry of Internal Affairs Troops; the Railroad Troops; the Civil Defense Troops; the Engineering-Technical and Road Construction troop formations, including troops of the Committee on Construction; Road Troops; the troops of all special construction services; the troops performing the function of internal intelligence of the Russian Federation; and troops for the organs of the Federal Security Service, of the federal organs of Public Security and Order, and the federal organ of support for mobilization preparation of the organs of state power of the Russian Federation.169 As best as one can surmise, for the last few years, this list has gotten shorter, although only by a bit. Thus the phrase “in addition to the Armed Forces” at a minimum translates into the National Guard, the Federal Security Service, the Federal Protection Service, the External Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Extraordinary Situations, and the Main Administration of the Russian Federation’s President’s Special Programs. The General Staff for a long time sought to subordinate all these “other” troops to itself. In this matter, neither the Commander169

Polozhenie o ministerstve oborony Rossiiskoi Federatsii, www.mil.ru/index.php?menu_id=90.

250 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA in-Chief nor the General Staff ever even addressed the question, does Russia have to have in addition to its army ten other ministries to which, by law, military service applies? In fact, almost as many people serve in these departments as do in the Armed Forces—certainly no fewer than a million. Ultimately, the intrigues of the Generals of the General Staff culminated, but not to their satisfaction. Putin put the Border Guards and a large part of the Federal Agency of Government Communications and Information (FAPSI) under the control of the FSB and, in this matter, practically re-created the KGB as it had existed in the Soviet Union. The Ministry of Defense had to console itself with the fact that it was in charge of electronic intelligence. It is reasonable to assume that, to some degree, the military was able to take its revenge with the adoption of the 2013 secret Plan of Defense (in late 2015, a new version of it was adopted). Judging by the commentaries of some officials, it appears that the plan places the responsibility for coordination of activities of all power structures on the Ministry of Defense. As a result, the operational groups of other ministries and agencies are now housed in the Defense Center of the Russian Federation. Clearly, these bureaucratic games have nothing to do with serious reform of that very same “militarized structure of society.” After all, the main objective is not in subordinating one militarized service or ministry to the other but, rather, in their decisive demilitarization. When strictly non-democratic principles of military service, of which I spoke earlier, spreads to other societal institutions, it is a sure sign that this society is not well. This is why, in countries that are based on democratic principles, people in military uniforms serve exclusively in the Armed Forces. Totalitarian regimes, in contrast, strive to militarize everything and everyone. The Communist regime in the Soviet Union did just that, and post-Soviet Russia inherited numerous “other” troops from the Soviet Union, although some of them have their roots far back as tsarist Russia. The ministries and power structures in which some of the employees are military can be divided into two groups. The first group is composed of the so-called law enforcement organs and special

The Unfinished Reform | 251 services. During Soviet times, the KGB (which is today divided into the Federal Security Service, FSB; the Foreign Intelligence Service, SVR; and the Federal Protective Service, FSO) and, to some extent, the Ministry of the Internal Affairs were punitive organs in which, as is well known, orders were not to be discussed. Not surprisingly, those organizations had a military structure. Most Russians cannot even imagine that an intelligence or counter-intelligence officer, an expert on secret codes, or a criminal investigator could be a civilian. And yet, this is a common practice in the West. There is no such thing as a “colonel of the CIA.” It exists only in the Russian spy thrillers. A CIA officer could actually have a military rank, but only if he came to the Agency from the Armed Forces, and that does not happen too often. Russian agents of the special services, however, would defend their right to wear their stars till their dying day. While their military service involves hardships and dangers, it also secures significant privileges, such as early retirement, a pension (a certain percentage of their salary goes into it, so a pension increases as a salary increases for a certain category of officers in active service), and an apartment at the time of retirement, to name a few. Our current President would be the last person to take these “military” privileges away from them. After all, he himself comes from the FSB and is unlikely to take away the customary privileges from his former colleagues in power structures. The second group of pseudo-military agencies are those that function on the basis of what is the de facto slave labor of conscripts. In the Soviet era, the existence of these quasi-military formations was justified, at least to some degree. The normal functioning of a huge army required construction work on a gigantic scale, and the operations that the army planned at that time, involving millions of military personnel, were unthinkable without building and repairing highways and railroads at a fast pace. But today, the ground forces are composed of 300,000 military personnel and do not need special railroad and highway construction troops for their redeployment.

252 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA Without a decisive demilitarization of the majority of ministries and agencies employing people in uniform, it is senseless to talk about military reform. Simply reducing their numbers will achieve nothing. All these structures have a tendency to regenerate themselves. But the “gigantomania” with which the power structures were obsessed did not allow them to realize in a timely manner that having at their disposal powerful military formations would inevitably lead to the expansion of their functions. In this context, the effort on the part of the General Staff of the Armed Forces to subordinate all these formations to its operational leadership looks justified. But the power structures naturally resisted it. In the end, ministries and agencies became confused as to who is responsible for what. And precisely this confusion became one of the causes of the embarrassing failure in Chechnya. For instance, when the MVD (the Ministry of Internal Affairs) requested army support, the army leadership reasonably argued that the troops in Internal Affairs had everything they needed for conducting the required operations, including aviation. In the early 2000s, proposals on demilitarizing the Federal Border Protection Service (FPS) were floating in the corridors of power. But, with Vladimir Putin’s ascendance to power, the idea of demilitarizing the FPS, as well as other agencies, was shelved. Moreover, the Kremlin’s latest decisions unequivocally point to the fact that the country is moving toward militarization of the entire security sphere. In 2016, the National Guard was created in Russia, which, for all practical purposes, is another army. The new military-police structure includes the internal troops of the MVD, the extra-departmental security units, and the detachments of the Rapid Deployment Task Force (SOBR) and Special Task Police Squads (OMON). Among the tasks of the newly created organ of federal administration are the war on terrorism, extremism and organized crime; enforcing the regime of national state of emergency; extra-departmental security; and even assistance to the border troops. On top of all that, they also have to exercise control over private security firms and the legal arms trade. The National Guard troops have the same authority as the police, including the right to shoot without warning, to enter private spaces,

The Unfinished Reform | 253 and to arrest citizens. According to the Commander of the National Guard, Viktor Zolotov, its numerical strength must reach 340,000 men—that is, a higher number than that of the Russian Ground Forces. It looks like the creation of the National Guard was the Kremlin’s response to the possibility of a “color revolution”—an internal uprising—which it considers the greatest threat to the country’s security. In May 2014, at a meeting in the Ministry of Defense, officials even announced that “color revolutions” were a new type of warfare that the West had developed. One would have expected the Russian General Staff to have developed plans for counter-measures in case such a disaster occurred. The Minister of Defense spoke on several occasions about the necessity of developing such plans. But apparently, the General Staff figured that, no matter how you look at it, these would be operational plans for using troops against their own populations in the streets of Russian cities. It seems, Russian officers decided that they could not have it on their consciences and so put a break on the government’s initiatives in this area. The military in the Ministry of Defense, however, had a solid excuse: After all, putting down popular revolts was one of the functions of the internal troops of the MVD. In fact, these troops were training for just such a mission. The mechanized formations of the internal troops were deployed in 46 cities of the 44 subjects of the Russian Federation, including 9 cities with a multimillion population. In April 2015, these troops were put on alert. The operational-strategic exercise “Zaslon-2015” stretched over the North-Western, Central, Privolzhsky, North-Caucasian, Southern, and Crimean Federal Districts—that is, the entire European part of the country. Forty thousand troops participated in the exercise. The spokesman for the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that “the theme of the exercise is the use of troops in case of a complicated operational situation in regions of the RF. The choice of the theme was dictated by the new threats to the internal security of the country.” He did not hesitate to explain what exactly the organizers of the

254 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA exercise saw as the “new threats”: “We based [it] on the events that had recently taken place in one of the neighboring countries. The internal troops were training for participation in enforcing public order, guaranteeing public safety, [as well as] combatting terrorism and extremism. In order to create a realistic situation, all attributes of the above events were used, including burning tires and throwing rocks and bottles at the soldiers.”170 The Press Secretary of the internal troops, Vasily Panchenkov, proudly reported that the exercise scenarios included the use of the entire available arsenal of riotcontrol weapons, such as tear gas and water cannon, as well as military equipment and special non-lethal weapons and equipment. However, they did not limit themselves to “non-lethal weapons.” The “troops also practiced to contain a large armed band at a training area in Rostov Oblast, using aviation and artillery against the hypothetical enemy.”171 Obviously, this is considered a possible scenario in plans for dealing with new internal threats. The government has showered the internal troops with privileges. While the Armed Forces were going through a harsh reform, the internal troops lived the good life, implementing their own conception of development—approved by the Commander-inChief—for the period ending in 2020. Their numerical strength was not reduced. Moreover, whenever the issue of transitioning the army from a conscript basis to a contract basis was raised, the country’s leaders immediately began explaining how expensive such an undertaking would be and why the government could not afford it. In the meantime, the internal troops reported, as early as 2015, that 80 percent of their sergeants and enlisted men were contract servicemen. We have heard time and again that their final goal was a complete shift to contractual service. Somehow money for that was allocated. In 170

„MVD otrabotalo podavlenie besporiadkov po tipu Maidana,” Newsru.com, April 9, 2015, http://www.newsru.com/russia/09apr2015/uchenia.html. 171 Vladimir Mukhin, “Vnutrennim ugrozam Rossii postavlen ‘Zaslon2015,’” Nezavisimaia Gazeta, April 8, 2015.

The Unfinished Reform | 255 order to increase military personnel salaries in 2012, the Ministry of Defense had to cut at least 135,000 officer positions in previous years. But there have been no reductions whatsoever in the number of internal troops. Yet that did not stand in the way of increasing their personnel’s monetary compensation by the same amount as the army’s. Finally, laws were amended in such a way as to allow recruitment of contract servicemen for the internal troops, bypassing recruitment centers. The commander of each unit recruits them independently on his own, and, hence, he bears personal responsibility for his subordinates. Such solicitous attitudes toward the internal troops leaves no doubt that the Russian government’s goal is to prepare to wage war on its own people. Apparently, even this is not sufficient. It seems like the Kremlin is continually tortured by doubts. What if these decisive and tough crimson berets cave in when told to shoot their own fellow citizens? After all, in 1991 the army paratroopers and the KGB spetsnaz guys refused to storm the building of the Supreme Soviet, around which citizens were building barricades. Recall that Pavel Grachev, who was supposed to carry out the criminal order, kept dragging his feet, demanding from the bosses in GKChP “clarification of his mission,” while the bosses, in turn, not wishing to be responsible, refused to talk to him and left it to their aides. A lesson was learned: There was a need for well-trained troops, and there was a need for a simplified command system, so that those who were supposed to carry out an order had no chance to dodge it. By creating the National Guard, the intermediate link represented by the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which could put the brakes on an order, was eliminated. In addition, and perhaps most importantly, there was a need for a man who would be able to force his subordinates to carry out any command whatsoever. Enter Viktor Zolotov, the head of Putin’s security detail, one of the people closest to him. In 2013, the President put him in charge of the internal troops. Before that, the internal troops were commanded by army generals who had, at a minimum, experience commanding large formations. So it took a

256 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA while for the President to risk entrusting Viktor Zolotov with creating and commanding a new power structure. Thus, we can say that the military reform addressed strictly the “military-technological sphere” of the manning and structure of the Armed Forces. It came to a halt at the moment the qualitative changes collided with the fundamental principles of Putin’s authoritarian state.

Chapter 4: Military Reform in an Authoritarian State: The Prussian Case What influence might a successful military reform have on an authoritarian state (of which today’s Russia is unquestionably an example)? Would it give impetus to modernization and democratization? Or would it add a new and effective weapon to the arsenal of the authoritarian ruler? The military reform carried out in Prussia in 1807–1813 may provide some insight. When Prussian reformers set out to fundamentally modernize the army, their objective was not limited to just military modernization. They openly proclaimed that reform had to become the main force of the general modernization of the kingdom. They hoped to create a constitutional monarchy, which they saw as the most democratic form of governing. More striking was the sad result. A highly successful military reform turned the German army into the Imperial Armed Forces and, subsequently, into the Wehrmacht—a perfect military machine that unconditionally followed orders of first the king, then the Kaiser and, finally, the Führer. And the orders it was given were becoming increasingly barbaric. The Defeat at Jena In 1806, Prussian forces, considered among the best in Europe, were soundly defeated by Napoleon’s army at Jena and Auerstädt. These defeats demonstrated the extent of the degradation of the

257

258 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA Prussian Kingdom, which by the early 19th century was existing as a feudal state. If the theory that a state is born out of the necessity to prepare for and conduct of war172 (I shall address this theory elsewhere in the book), the Prussian Kingdom offers an ideal example. Beginning with the founder of the Hohenzollern dynasty, the Great Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm, all of Prussia’s rulers built their power on the powerful army. “In Prussia, it is not the army that belongs to the country, but the country that belongs to the army,” Mirabaux observed. “War is a Prussian national profession.” The state’s existence was made possible by military victories. It continually conquered its weaker neighbors. The main (if not the only) goal of the kingdom’s subjects was to support the army. The nobility, the Junkers, were sent to battle to fight for the monarch. In exchange for their willingness to die, they received land and peasants. The life of the urban population, merchants and tradesmen, revolved around providing the army with muskets, cannons, cloth for uniforms and, of course, money, since they paid taxes. Peasants had to feed the army. Some of them, although not too many, also had to serve in it. All citizens owed service to the state. One-fourth to one-third of all servicemen were conscripts. However, recruitment was completely arbitrary. It depended entirely on a regimental commander, whose responsibility was to form his regiment by drafting into service residents of a particular part (canton) of the kingdom. There was no defined term for military service—indeed, service was supposed to be lifelong. In reality, however, after 18 months of service, a recruit was given the right to a 10-month annual furlough. Two-thirds of the army was comprised of mercenaries, predominantly citizens of other German principalities. Naturally, those who fell into the hands of recruiters were primarily social misfits, deserters and prisoners of war. According to Prussian law, all types of “rebels” were sent to serve in the army as punishment. The 172

The best known book on the subject is Charles Tilly’s Coercion, Capital and European States (Blackwell: Cambridge, MA, & Oxford, UK, 1990).

The Prussian Case | 259 low quality of human material did not bother Prussian commanders. They believed that any physically fit man could be made into a good soldier via iron discipline, rooted in the fear of harsh punishment. The Prussian army was guided by Frederick the Great’s maxim that a soldier must fear his corporal’s cudgel more than the enemy’s bullet. This was an army that employed the advanced 18th century tactics of “oblique order” (an angled formation that enabled attacks on the enemy’s flank), concentrated salvo fire and massive cavalry attacks. Combined with Frederick’s military genius, these strategies brought the Prussian army glorious victories. The 19th century delivered the French Revolution. The Prussian ruling elite initially perceived the upheaval as the result of their frivolous neighbor’s inability to organize their life using Frederick’s ideal state as a model. In truth, the nature of war, military strategy and tactics had radically changed. This was a new epoch, that of mass armies, of placing whole nations under arms. Napoleon insisted that large battalions won wars. The revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses inspired personal initiative on the battlefield. This, naturally, brought about revolutionary changes in military affairs. A division, which called for the concentration of huge amounts of troops, was now the basic combat unit. Linear disposition yielded to columns, and extended formations replaced closed formations. Feudal Prussia happily ignored all these radical changes. The indifference of the crumbling feudal monarchy toward the revolutionary changes in the military sphere has puzzled historians into the 20th century. “Except for a few minor changes, the Prussian military institutions dating from the time of Frederick the Great remained much the same,” wrote William Shanahan. “It is almost unbelievable that a state which owed almost all its fortune to the excellence of its army could watch with complacence the transformation of the French republican armies into a military

260 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA machine.”173 Gordon Craig seems just as mystified: “In reality, the Prussia which had been created and made a major power by the exertions of its army had now been swept away by the failure of that army to adjust itself to changing methods of warfare and by the unwillingness of its rulers to exploit the undeveloped energies of the Prussian people.”174 I would like to point out that Prussian strategists would have been unable to use the achievements of Napoleon and his predecessors, even if they had wanted to. Initiative, the ability to make and implement decisions independently, was quite unthinkable in an army based on the impeccable implementation of orders by a single commander. There could be no extended formation because Prussian field manuals required troops to march in closed formation led by their commanding officer, even when they were setting up a camp. This is because, if they ever found themselves out of reach of their corporal’s cudgel, these model Prussian soldiers immediately deserted. The Prussian army rested on the laurels of Frederick the Great’s victories. All attempts to modernize the army were quickly suppressed by the top brass. By 1806, four out of 142 generals were in their eighties, 13 had reached the age of seventy and 26 had crossed the critical line of 60. A quarter of all battalion commanders were also in their sixties.175 Napoleon’s marshals were youngsters compared to their Prussian counterparts. General Boyen, a reformer who later became the war minister, discerned three general types of officers. Wrote Shanahan: “There were the old campaigners of the Frederician era who revered all the antiquated tactics and drill. A second group of officers had entered the army after the Seven Year’s War and by 1806 173

William Oswald Shanahan, Prussian Military Reforms 1986–1813, Columbia University Press, 1945, pp. 68–69. 174 Gordon Craig, The politics of the Prussian Army 1640–1945, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1955, p. 36. 175 Karl Demetr, Germanskii oficerskii korpus v obshchestve i gosudarstve, 1650–1945, (M. 2007), p. 10.

The Prussian Case | 261 had become colonels. They were engrossed in the economy of their regiments and fearful lest the outbreak of war ruin their chance of making money. A younger group of officers had tasted war in Poland and along the Rhine and from this experience judged the Prussians to be invincible.”176 It is no wonder the Prussian army was decaying. Combat training was, for the most part, limited to battalion and regiment exercises. They were mostly held in the spring and lasted for six weeks. Recruits were called back to participate, but were sent home afterward. The exercises were reduced to marching and drills in preparation for the parade, the pinnacle of combat training.177 The rest of the time, enlisted men and officers were allowed to make some extra money on the side, which they also shared with their commanders. Then came the catastrophe at Jena. The Prussians were in reasonably favorable circumstances. They outnumbered the French overall. The French had also attacked the Prussian rearguard flank, having mistaken it for the main forces. Still, the Prussian commanders managed to get pulled into а battle with Davout’s corps, which outnumbered them four to one. Napoleon wiped out the Prussians piece by piece. The retreat turned into an embarrassing flight. As the enemy moved through Prussian territory, the commanders, one by one, surrendered corps and fortresses that were still actually able to defend themselves. Only one corps, commanded by Blücher von Wahlstatt, put up resistance. The disgrace of the defeat and capitulation was exacerbated by the fact the Prussian population viewed the victorious French, these

176

Shanahan, p. 30. The Instruction prescribed that “In the training of the soldier he shall neither stamp the ground with the heel nor stir it up with the tip of the shoe, but the foot must be so put down with the knee stiff that on firm ground the foot leaves the mark on the earth.” Cited from Alfred Vagts, A History of Militarism Civilian and Military (The Free Press: New York, 1967), p. 113. 177

262 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA eternal enemies of the Germans, with a certain neutrality, if not with enthusiasm. The delegation of the Berlin Mayor warmly greeted the occupiers in front of the Brandenburg Gate. Approximately the same thing was happening in the hinterland. Bureaucrats expressed willingness to serve under Napoleon. Citizens joined the National Guard created by the French to keep order. Many of the educated elite were of the opinion that the French occupation, which promised to bring with it the Code Napoleon, was not all that bad compared to a decaying monarchy built on feudalism. This moral meltdown was humiliating to patriotic officers who had dreamed of uniting Germany under the aegis of Prussia. The humiliation was particularly painful because the terms of the Paris Peace Treaty were totally devastating. The kingdom had to pay a huge indemnity. Prussia also lost the ability to defend itself and became something of an extension of Napoleon’s Empire. The French emperor radically reduced the size of the Prussian armed forces, shrinking it by a factor of five, from 250,000 to 42,000. Napoleon’s officials made sure that all the terms of the treaty were strictly observed. The Scharnhorst Commission and Its Proposals King Frederick-Wilhelm III played a key role in extracting Prussia from this moral and military crisis. Many historians see him as a talentless and ineffectual ruler who groveled before Napoleon. It is also true that it was the king, at this critical moment in Prussian history, who clearly realized that Frederick the Great’s Prussia was gone forever. There was no way to resurrect it. A new Prussia had to be built. The first step in this direction was the creation of an Army Reform Commission. In his 30 paragraphs of instruction to commission members, Frederick-Wilhelm stressed, perhaps to appease Napoleon’s informants, that the main goal of the commission was to punish officers who had displayed cowardly behavior and capitulated

The Prussian Case | 263 to the enemy. Only the last few paragraphs addressed the much larger objective: the radical modernization of the army. The king knew whom he needed to put in charge of this task. Major-General Gerhard von Scharnhorst was a widely respected commander, respected even by those conservative army officers who hated him. Everything about this man was contrary to the stereotype of an ideal Prussian officer. He was born in Hanover, which means he was not really a Prussian. He was a farmer’s son, not a nobleman. The general was a fanatic about military education and lifelong selfeducation. When he was barely 30, he became famous for publishing books that he believed every officer must read. He published the first professional journals. In 1801, he entered military service in Prussia and founded a military academy in Berlin. Among the 22 officers of the first, and only, graduating class were the future reformers Hermann von Boyen and Karl von Grolman, as well as Karl von Clausewitz, the future great theoretician. Scharnhorst, a “bookworm from Hanover,” as his detractors called him, was a fearless commander. When all was lost at Jena, this farmer’s son behaved like a true knight by offering his horse to the crown prince. But as chief of staff for the Duke of Brunswick (the commander-in-chief who ignored his suggestions), Scharnhorst found himself irrelevant. Immediately after the defeat at Jena, he joined Blücher’s corps, the only formation in the Prussian army that had continued to fight the French. Commission members of the reformist persuasion (there were, of course, conservative members as well) were people of similar stature. They included August von Gneisenau, the commandant of Kolberg, which he heroically defended against Napoleon’s forces until the conclusion of the Peace of Tilsit. Later, as Blücher’s chief of staff, Gneisenau would play a significant role in the victory by the anti-

264 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA Napoleon coalition.178 Von Boyen, who after Scharnhorst’s death would head the War Ministry, was also a commission member. What contributed to the successful work of the commission was that, at the moment of the deep crisis that enveloped his country, the king appointed Karl Stein as his prime minister. This was the same man the king had earlier dismissed as minister for manufactures and economic affairs for being “a refractory, insolent, obstinate and disobedient official.” Stein was a staunch supporter of the idea of constitutional monarchy. He sought to use the English model to change the Prussian feudal administration. Stein considered military reform crucial to general modernization. The other liberal officers who dominated the Army Reform Commission had Stein’s full support. Correctly assuming that they should be concerned with the future, rather than the past, the reformers were not eager to waste time investigating the disgraceful behavior of officers who had capitulated. During the entire period of the commission’s work, only 208 officers were found guilty. The commission faced other, truly enormous, challenges. It had a very modest budget and had to contend with the strict limitations imposed by Napoleon. The main objective was to transition to a mass army, an army of a people under arms. As early as March 1808, the commission unanimously agreed to send a recommendation to the king to introduce universal military service. However, the Treaty of Paris had established strict limits on the numerical strength of the Prussian army. It also prohibited the creation of a trained reserve. For all practical purposes, this meant that universal service had no chance. The French were rigid in enforcing compliance with these articles. Eventually, in 1810, Napoleon succeeded in having Scharnhorst dismissed as war minister due to his attempts to introduce the draft. Scharnhorst continued to advise the reformers unofficially. He took up the task of reforming the canton-based recruiting system, which 178

Field Marshal Blücher is said to have made a typical soldier’s joke about it when Oxford University awarded him an honorary doctorate: “If I am a doctor, then Gneisenau is my apothecary.”

The Prussian Case | 265 had existed since the mid-18th century. The essence of the system was that a regiment was manned by residents of a particular canton. All men who had reached 20 years of age had to go through military training for several weeks annually. However, before Scharnhorst, this system existed primarily on paper. The war minister transformed it into a system called Krumper.179 According to this system, each company, which in peacetime comprised 50 soldiers, had to take in about 30 men aged 18 annually and discharge about the same number of men who had already gone through training. The term of service was actually less than a year. There were periods when five soldiers were discharged each month so new recruits could be admitted. In 1811, each company recruited eight conscripts monthly. Each company commander kept a list of discharged soldiers and sent it to the magistrate to keep a record of reservists who could be called up within the next 10 years. Each company had several officers standing by to assume command of called-up reservists. In this way, a trained reserve was amassed right under the noses of Napoleon’s spies. Scharnhorst understood, however, that this was insufficient to actually arm the Prussian people. As early as 1808, he was mulling the possibility of creating the Landwehr, a militia that would represent “the troops of the second line.” In peacetime, this militia would enforce order in the cities and safeguard fortresses. In wartime, it would become a people’s army. Each member of the Landwehr was to serve two months during the first year, and one month annually for the next nine years. The reformers stressed that the Landwehr formations would be required to go through combat training separately from the regular army. They did not want mercenaries to negatively affect the patriotic spirit that would inspire men to 179

There is no agreement among scholars about the origin of this term. Some believe it was a professional slang word referring to a new recruit. Others propose that the term referring to a fresh reserve horse in the cavalry.

266 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA volunteer for the Landwehr. Service in the Landwehr would also be available only to the well-to-do. Each volunteer would have to pay 100 thalers, purchase his own weapons and uniform and, if he were to serve in the cavalry, his own horse. However, the king was not yet ready to give his stamp of approval to the creation of such a militia. The new army urgently needed a new type of officer, educated and independent of thought. In 1808, the reformers carried out what was essentially a revolution in the sphere of military education and service, the only reform they were able to carry out during the French occupation. Undercutting the legacy of Frederick the Great, an officer’s rank stopped being an exclusive prerogative of the nobility. If he could pass the appropriate exams, any subject of the Prussian king could become an officer. Corporals, and even civilians, of non-noble origin could take these exams. Military schools were obligated to offer nine-month courses so citizens could prepare for the exams. Education was beginning to take precedent over one’s origin. A new regulation prohibited recruiting the nobility’s minor children into the army as corporals. The new goal was to promote them to the rank of cornet by the time they turned 18. The Prussian Junkers’ 17-year-old sons now had to serve as enlisted men for at least three months, like everybody else. Each infantry regiment could have 14 cornets, and a cavalry regiment could have eight. To be promoted to the rank of lieutenant, one had to go before a special commission in Berlin and take an exam. In peacetime, an officer could not be promoted to a higher rank without taking an exam. The exams became more difficult each step along the ranking system. However, the king insisted that he keep his exclusive right to promote officers and appoint them to high posts. It became apparent that special officer schools had to be created. Before 1806, future officers were educated in four cadet corps and a school for officers’ orphans in Potsdam. Additional education could be acquired in “inspector’s schools” that young officers attended during the winter months, when combat training stopped. There were also three artillery engineering schools. But there was no standard program. The instruction was arbitrary.

The Prussian Case | 267 Two new cadet corps came to replace the old educational institutions. Future officers had to study from the ages of 15 to 20. Both schools had the same program. To continue their education, officers could go to one of the three new military schools. Finally, for 50 outstanding officers, there was a three-year course at the military academy. In addition to military topography and the tactical and strategic use of artillery, they studied mathematics, world geography, and French and German. On Scharnhorst’s initiative, the first reconnaissance trips were organized for officers to study theaters of potential wars. An official was put in charge of supervising education and developing unified standards. In the wake of such radical improvements came another, truly revolutionary, initiative. The reformers created the General Staff, a “collective genius” that would counter Napoleon’s genius. They believed that this collective genius would actually be superior to Bonaparte’s. The Prussian General Staff would be immortal, while there was no guarantee that France would find a new genius after Napoleon died. The reformers turned out to be correct. The General Staff was entrusted with the most important intellectual function within the armed forces: the continuous critique of the army and commanders and engaging the latter in a process of critical self-evaluation. A representative of the General Staff would accompany commanders on the battlefield. He would not replace them, but would offer advice and control their actions. In this way, military theory and practical knowledge of war and combat would be combined. Scharnhorst’s new officers would be able to react to concrete situations with greater precision. They would not be so harsh in their relationships with their subordinates. Their outlook would be compatible with the spirit of a “nation under arms.” Scharnhorst also proposed a radical reform of the military command and control structure. Before 1807, the king personally exercised command and control through his aides-de-camp. As early as 1809, the Army Reform Commission was replaced by the War Ministry, which consisted of the Main Military Directorate and the

268 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA Military-Economic Directorate. The Main Military Directorate was comprised of three departments. One was in charge of personnel matters (i.e., appointments and dismissals, salaries, commendations and punishments). Another department handled combat training, military education and military planning and mobilization. The third department dealt with logistical support, such as artillery, ammunition and fortresses. The king, however, did not wish to entrust a single individual with complete command and control of the army. Therefore, the War Ministry did not have a minister. Scharnhorst was put in charge of the Main Military Directorate. Extremely conservative Count Lottum was appointed head of the Military-Economic Directorate, sharing power equally with Scharnhorst. Acute conflicts continuously roiled the ministry during the time Scharnhorst served there. The creation of the “people’s army” also required an overhaul of the system of military justice, disciplinary action and corporal punishment. “A universal conscription […] could not be combined with the existing caning system,” wrote Shanahan. “Military life must be made more agreeable to the nation by removing its hateful aspects. All regulations must carry out this purpose and enliven anew the soldierly spirit. The elimination of blows of the cane is indispensable to this end.”180 In 1808, laws were passed that prohibited corporal punishment. Such punishment was replaced by imprisonment commensurate to the crime. From this point on, no officer was allowed to physically abuse a soldier for any misconduct. A harsh punishment, such as a 10year imprisonment in a fortress for deserting, had to be approved by the king. And handing down a death sentence remained the absolute prerogative of the king. Gneisenau wrote a euphoric article about the “liberation of the back.” To be sure, under the French occupation, most proposals of the Army Reform Commission dealing with an “army of the nation under arms” remained on paper. But the Krumper system went into effect. 180

Shanahan, p.137.

The Prussian Case | 269 The reformers succeeded in reorganizing the system of military education and military justice. Victory Over Napoleon Events in Europe continuously disrupted the work of reformers. In 1809, when a war between France and Austria broke out, Prussian officers appealed to Frederick-Wilhelm to join the war on the Austrian side. When the cautious monarch ignored their pleas, many officers, including Blücher and Gneisenau, resigned. A new FrancoPrussian treaty, signed in 1811 and specifically intended to liquidate even the modest reforms of the Prussian army, was met with indignation. The treaty stipulated that no orders concerning the movement of troops on Prussian territory could be issued without the permission of the French. This also applied to mobilization orders. In other words, Prussia was losing whatever was left of her sovereignty. Nearly 300 officers, or approximately one-quarter of the entire officer corps, resigned. Among them were Boyen and Clausewitz, who immediately left for Russia. The crushing defeat of Napoleon’s Grand Army in Russia gave impetus to a Prussian liberation movement. General Ludwig Yorck, ironically the leading conservative opponent of Scharnhorst and Stein in the Army Reform Commission, took the first step. He commanded a 20,000-strong Prussian corps attached to Napoleon’s army, according to the terms of the oppressive 1811 treaty. For all of 1812, the corps was deployed near Riga in support of Marshal McDonald. But it did not do much, for obvious reasons. The Prussians had no desire to fight for Bonaparte against the Russians. When the outcome of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia became obvious, Yorck, on his own initiative, signed the Convention of Tauroggen with the Russian high command. The negotiator on the Russian side was Karl von Clausewitz. Russian troops entered East Prussia and Stein was appointed the Russian government commissioner. Prussian society burst into

270 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA euphoria. The king was persuaded to break the pact with Napoleon and enter the anti-French coalition. Frederick-Wilhelm issued his famous proclamation: “To my people!” The Prussian monarch, for the first time, explained to his subjects why they must make sacrifices for the fatherland. The war for Prussia’s liberation had begun. And that was when the impact of military reforms was felt. Thanks to the Krumper system, it took only a few weeks for the regular army to nearly double to 70,000 men. But this was not sufficient. At Stein’s initiative, the transformation into the Landwehr began in East Prussia. Karl von Clausewitz, well aware of Scharnhorst’s proposal, took upon himself the responsibility to prepare the necessary orders for the Landwehr. Signing up for the Landwehr began in East Prussia and spread to the rest of the kingdom. On February 3, the king introduced the universal military service. Thanks to the reformers, the institutions for its realization were already in existence. The numerical strength of the army rose exponentially. By 1813, it had reached 280,000. This represented six percent of the entire population of Prussia at the time, one of the highest rates among the warring countries. The Landwehr battalions, poorly clothed and initially armed with nothing but lances, fought heroically. The opportunity for educated people to become officers, introduced five years earlier, was paying off by providing the army with a cadre of commanders. Combat participation by officers of the General Staff, nurtured by Scharnhorst, brought operational art to a new level. Combined, these things made the Prussian military reforms some of the most successful in history. There are mountains of books on the subject of these reforms, in Germany and around the world, except perhaps in Russia. In the Russian view, it is impossible that Germany, Russia’s main adversary in the 20th century, could have accomplished anything significant in the military sphere, anything worthy of using as a model. In the minds of Russians, a Prussian officer is, at best, an obtuse pedant Pfuhl, as Tolstoy described him. (The real Pfuhl, by the way, was apparently very much like the character in War and Peace. Clausewitz was “not very fond” of him). At worst, we would have him as an idiot with a

The Prussian Case | 271 monocle, an image created by Rostislav Pliatt in the movie The People of Courage. The fact that the Prussian reformers were glorified by the Nazis has not helped to improve their image. Liberalization, Prussian Style It is not my intention to describe Prussian military reform in detail. But this reform drew my attention because it was a unique case in world history when such a reform was carried out by progressives, or liberals in uniform. These people seriously believed that successful military reform could become a vehicle for general national modernization. The necessity of democratization, in their opinion, was dictated by military needs. “It was a strange liberation, a Prussian liberation, coming from above, a passing liberalism for military purposes,”181 Alfred Vagts observed in his classic work, A History of Militarism Civilian and Military. From the beginning, the reformers were cognizant of the fact that it was not possible to create an army of a “nation under arms,” like what Napoleon used so effectively, under the old feudal system. “The new time needs more than the old name, titles, and parchment; it needs new actions and strength,” Gneisenau wrote in 1807. “The Revolution has mobilized the whole national strength of the French people, and by equalizing the different estates and by the equal taxing of property.”182 Scharnhorst, like many other reformers, was convinced that the defeats of 1806 were the result of the fact that the oppressed Prussian people decidedly saw themselves as separate from the state and were not interested in defending it. How can one expect a serf to behave as a responsible citizen when he is completely in his landlord’s power? How can an average urban dweller recognize his obligations vis-à-vis the state if he is completely 181

Alfred Vagts, A History of Militarism Civilian and Military, The Free Press, New York, 1967, p. 135. 182 Ibid, p. 130.

272 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA cut off from governing his city? Why would anyone expect courage and devotion to duty from Prussian citizens recruited into the army if the army does not respect them, does not allow them to move up in rank, and if the powerful sees them only as cannon fodder? The reformers were convinced it was not possible to create a new type of army without abolishing serfdom. Stein insisted that “national service could not be accomplished without parallel emancipation of the serfs to fill the ranks of the new army,” wrote Everett Dolman in his book Warrior State. “This would, of course, radically reform the structure of society, but was the first step in creating a nation of free citizens, the only recruitment base capable of stopping the French.”183 In 1807, serfdom was abolished in Prussia. It may have been one of a few cases when a radical step toward the people’s liberation was dictated by military needs. It is also obvious that Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Boyen, these Jacobins in uniform, as Vagts refers to them, believed that the abolition of serfdom was only the first step toward a political and social modernization that would conclude with a written constitution and a parliament, thus transforming Prussia into a constitutional monarchy. “It can scarcely be denied that the reforms inaugurated in Prussia after 1807 represented a comprehensive effort to transform the social and political structure of Prussia and to make this state a constitutional kingdom capable of developing in the same direction as the more liberal states of the West,”184 Gordon Craig wrote. The army played a very important role in this movement toward democracy. Boyen insisted that the army would become a “school for the nation,” where citizens would learn to serve, fulfilling their duty. And this would prepare them for informed participation in civic life.185 The democratic potential of the Prussian military reforms was obvious from the beginning. Having learned about the proposals put 183

Everett Carl Dolman, Warrior State: How Military Organization Structures Politics, Gordonsville, VA Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, p. 131. 184 Craig, p. xiii. 185 Ibid, p. 48.

The Prussian Case | 273 forth by the Army Reform Commission, Napoleon told a Prussian diplomat that “In France, the canaille had made the Revolution. In Prussia, the army did it.”186 Alexander I famously told his generals that Russia just saved the king of Prussia from the French: “It is possible that at some time we shall have to come to the aid of the king of Prussia against his army.”187 Needless to say, the Junkers, the Prussian nobility, quickly discerned in the ideas of Scharnhorst and his allies a threat to their privileges and economic interests. That meant a threat to the monarchy as well. They pointed out that the reformers were following the path of the French Revolution. The reactionaries drew a direct line between the loss of their tax exempt status and the introduction of universal military service, the abolition of serfdom, and the equality of the estates. In their numerous petitions to the king, they insisted that universal military service would plant in the minds of his subjects the destructive ideas of liberty and equality. The Junkers perceived the Landwehr as something particularly pernicious. They saw the Landwehr as a potential lever that “the third estate” could use for their claim to power. The weapons and military training would enable them to achieve power by force. What caused the most fervent indignation of the Junkers was the attempt on what they considered their natural privilege, namely, their exclusive birthright to serve as officers. “Once Your Highness took our rights away from me and my children, how could your own be guaranteed?” General Yorck asked the crown prince.188 It is important to recognize that the Prussian military reformers were no Jacobins. Gneisenau, for instance, was very clear that reforms “from above” are necessary precisely to prevent a revolution: “Would a popular war lead to revolution? Yes, if the peoples, betrayed and forsaken by their government, should turn to self-help. Then the 186

Vagts, p. 131. Craig, p. 67. 188 Demetr, p. 16. 187

274 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA regents might easily be forgotten for lucky leaders.”189 Scharnhorst clearly understood that the French methods of conducting war, especially where it concerned arming the people, touched upon the most serious problems of absolute monarchies. “One of Scharnhorst’s greatest services was his skillful adaptations of the new principles of warfare and military organization to Prussian institutions without threatening the state with revolution,”190 William Shanahan points out. I suspect this particular circumstance played an important role in what happened to the reforms in the end. The war of liberation ended in victory. The Prussian military reformers also proved to be brilliant commanders. Gneisenau, Boyen, Grolman, Clausewitz—all of them received high ranks and posts and the highest orders of the anti-Napoleon coalition countries were bestowed upon them. In Prussia itself, respect for them as heroliberators of their country was initially indisputable. They were able to create a single system of command and control of the army when they merged the Main Military Directorate and the MilitaryEconomic Directorate of the Ministry of War. Boyen, Scharnhort's closest ally, became the first war minister. In this capacity, he was able to give the system of universal military service its finished form. From this point on, every subject of the crown who reached the age of 20 would be drafted into the regular army to serve for three years. After that, he would have to be in the active reserves for two years and go through frequent call-up reserve training. Then he would be transferred into the Landwehr first-stage call-up reserve, where he would remain for seven years, going through two weeks of combat training annually. In case of war, the Landwehr’s first-stage call-up reservists would participate in combat alongside the regular army. For the next seven years, the subject would be in the second-stage call-up reserve. In case of war, these reservists’ units would be responsible for defending fortresses and maintaining internal security. After a reservist reached the age of 39, he would be 189

Vagts, p. 136. Shanahan, p. 227.

190

The Prussian Case | 275 transferred into the Landsturm, the citizens’ militia. The reformers insisted that military service be, indeed, universal, with no class or property exemptions. The only exception they would allow was for representatives of the “educated sector of society” who intended to continue their education. If these people had financial resources to acquire weapons and combat gear, they would be allowed to serve as volunteers in special chasseur battalions. In the opinion of the reformers, this military service system would allow Prussia, which in peacetime had a standing army of 130,000, to rapidly deploy a half-amillion-strong army. Even these steps, however, were met with fierce resistance from conservatives, who sprang into action as soon as the war was over. At the head of the conservative wing stood Prince Wittgenstein, who insisted that “to arm the people means to organize resistance to the authority of the ruler, to ruin the country financially, and even to deal a blow to the Christian principles of the Holy Alliance.”191 But the king, reluctantly, did accept all of the proposed innovations that had proven so effective during the war. The problems started when Boyen and his collaborators argued that the military reforms must be followed by political reforms. “It was only natural that they should redouble their efforts now to secure that reform which they desired to crown their work—a basic constitutional reform which, as a minimum, would bring in a written constitution and some form of national representation,” Gordon Craig writes. “This had been implicit in the military reforms from the very beginning. The reform party had always taken the position that the duty of military service should be balanced by the right to some share in the politics of the state. But, in trying now to secure the political reforms which might have inaugurated an era of gradual progress toward representative institutions, the reform party met forces which proved too strong for them; and their efforts precipitated a full-scale 191

Cited in Aleksandr Svechin, Evoliutsiia voennogo iskusstva, Kuchkovo pole: M., 2002, V. 2. , Ch. 4, p. 471.

276 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA constitutional crisis which put an end to their influence in the state and delivered Prussia into the arms of reaction.”192 The Collapse of the Reformers’ Hopes A turning point occurred in 1819. Under the pressure of the conservatives, the king signed the reactionary Carlsbad Decrees, proposed by Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs von Metternich and adopted by the German states. Directed against revolutionary agitation, they introduced strict censorship of the press and police surveillance of universities. Boyen, along with philosopher Alexander Humboldt, who at the time was internal affairs minister, and finance minister Bem, were openly opposed to the Carlsbad Decrees, angering the monarch. Knowing how to intensify the conflict, the conservatives argued that the Landwehr, this favorite project of the reformers who believed that it represented the unity of the people and the army, was both harmful politically and, more importantly, ineffective from a military point of view. Yet Boyen and his followers considered that it was precisely the military role of the Landwehr that was more important than anything else. “In Prussia such liberalism as appeared was concerned with the composition of the army rather than control over it,” Vagts observes. “Men like Boyen […] trusted the Landwehr as a military value and did not share the dread of its revolutionary potentialities which filled the reactionaries.” 193 This was where the reactionaries struck. Pushed by the conservatives, the king radically cut the Landwehr forces. Thirty-four battalions were eliminated along with 16 brigades attached to the regular army. Indignant, Boyen immediately tendered his resignation. General Staff chief Grolman followed. This put an end to hopes for political reform. Dreams of popular representation and a constitutional monarchy were not to be realized. 192 193

Craig, p. 71. Vagts, p. 161.

The Prussian Case | 277 In 1823, the king created eight provincial Landtags with advisory capacity. This became the turning point in the development of the Prussian military organization. In the context of growing revolutionary tendencies in Europe, the king was interested in the army as an instrument of putting down popular unrest. In fact, the armed forces were being used ever more frequently for that purpose (e.g., during the “potato revolt” in Berlin in 1847). The concept of an enlightened soldier-citizen playing an active role in the life of society died. According to Gordon Craig: “In the years between 1819 and 1840, everything that Scharnhorst and his disciples had done to reconcile the military establishment with civilian society had been destroyed; the army was once more regarded as the main barrier to social progress; and it was clear that, in the event of a major domestic upheaval, its existence would be in peril.”194 All humanities were pitilessly struck from the curriculums of military schools. Purely military subjects replaced them. This is how the reactionaries explained their actions: “The deliberating soldier is really no longer a soldier but a mutineer.”195 According to Dolman: “More disturbing for the remaining military reformers, the War Ministry came under the sway of theorists who felt the notion of a politically realized citizen-soldier was not only dangerous but also socially foolish. The Ministry believed the role of soldier was a special calling, distinct from the rest of society. It was the essence of militarism to glorify the military virtues above all others.”196 No Deliberation! The high powers, however, did not stand in the way of professionalism, at least in its narrow definition. Combat training programs were significantly improved, the army was equipped with 194

Craig, p. 81 Ibid, p. 80. 196 Dolman, p. 131. 195

278 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA the famous Dreyse needle gun and artillery was reequipped. A Bureau of Topography and Department of History were added to the General Staff, which now had systematized functions. “Reconnaissance tours” of hypothetical future theaters of war became an annual event for General Staff officers. Royal troop exercises were subjected to multifaceted critical analysis. The drive for continuous selfimprovement, which Gneisenau and Clausewitz considered the duty of each officer, had led to efforts to discover and put to use the latest technological advances. As early as the 1830s, the Prussian General Staff was the first to discern the potential of railroads for the mobilization and redeployment of troops. Forty years later, this discovery would help bring the German army victory over the French. Decisive changes had also taken place in the consciences of the Prussian officer corps. Their ideal was no longer a broadly educated officer who took part in the life of society. Instead, he was a quintessential professional, loyal to the crown and removed from civil society. His main virtue was professional self-improvement. As historian Erich Marcks, observed: “The philosopher was retreating and the expert was coming forward.”197 All of this did not, however, translate into the political neutrality of the officer corps. “Making the army ‘unpolitical’ was one of the governing tricks of the Prussian conservatives,”198 Vagts writes. On the contrary, the elimination of humanistic enlightenment resulted in the return of the most savage feudal views. “Whole regiments, not to speak of the guards, became domains of the nobility where nobles locked themselves in as in their castles,” says Vagts. “To that extent, the Prussian officer became re-feudalized. And until the fall of the monarchy, the ancient, convenient fiction was reestablished that each officer stood in the very particular personal relation of a vassal to the king.”199 197

Cited in Gordon Craig. The politics of the Prussian Army 1640-1945. (Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1955), p. 141. 198 Vagts, p. 200. 199 Ibid, p. 168.

The Prussian Case | 279 The reformers eventually stopped insisting that military reform absolutely had to be followed by political modernization. “The reformers reduced their moderate liberalism and constitutional hopes in order to save the organization of the army, as they conceived it, from the growing reaction,” wrote Vagts. “Gneisenau, who had once appeared moved by revolutionary wrath, now admitted that all had been mere heat lightning, that ‘all improvement of our condition has to come from above and must not happen from below.’” 200 To military leaders, the reforms that had been “gifted” to the bourgeoisie and peasantry before 1813 were more than sufficient compensation for the universal draft. The most striking example of this transformation was Hermann Boyen himself, who was reappointed in 1841. “Boyen’s second term as War Minister was characterized by constructive work which further increased the technical proficiency of the army,” according to Craig. “Certainly it was ironical that during the last term of a man who had striven throughout his life to reconcile the soldier and the civilian, there were more frequent and more bloody clashes between the military and civilians than at any time in previous Prussian history.”201 Thus, the potential for democratic reforms in the wake of military reform was completely dead. In all subsequent events of Prussian, and, ubsequently, German history, the army represented an assault force of reaction. This manifested itself as early as the 1848–1849 revolution, in the wake of which the people of Prussia got universal suffrage, a parliament and a written constitution. The events of March 18, 1848, marked the revolution’s culmination. On that day, King Frederick Wilhelm IV was about to announce to a crowd assembled at the palace the abolishment of censorship and the call-up of the unified Landtag. A dragoon company cut into the crowd with bared sabers and a massacre ensued. The outraged citizens of Berlin began to build barricades. Frederick William ordered the troops out of the 200 201

Ibid, pp. 166–167. Craig, p. 90.

280 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA capital, which fell into rebel hands for several weeks. These events completed the separation of the army from the people. The military perceived their forced departure from Berlin as their “second Jena.” Future War Minister Albrecht von Roon wrote to his wife: “The army is now our fatherland, for there alone have the unclean and violent elements who put everything into turmoil failed to penetrate.”202 The officer corps continuously suspected the king of betraying their feudal “traditions.” During the initial period of its existence, the Prussian parliament devoted much attention to the army. Officers highly valued their special status as vassals of the king and absolutely refused to pledge allegiance to anyone but the monarch. A complex system was therefore created, according to which only one representative of the armed forces, namely the war minister, would take the constitutional oath of office. He also answered to parliament, which maintained a powerful influence over the army—the power of the purse (i.e., the military budget). The ambiguous situation of the war minister continually led to suspicion of both the king and the officer corps. Two war ministers were forced to resign because of the intrigue. In this way, Everett Dolman points out: “The events of 1848 completed the transformation of the military from its liberalizing peak in 1813 into a now-reactionary and fully independent power, parallel to the bureaucratic government and separate from the mass of civilians. This military held no loyalty to the state. It was bound to the monarch by the dual ties to feudal loyalty and obedience to the commander in chief, a relationship from which the ordinary citizen was excluded… The Prussian king, blaming the 1806–1813 military reforms for his current woes, quickly reacted to eliminate those reforms thought most dangerous, and to mitigate supporting pressure for the revolutionaries by placing the army in the position of police suppression.”203

202

I bid, p. 107. Dolman, p. 138.

203

The Prussian Case | 281 The reforms turned into their exact opposite in the 1860s. First, Wilhelm I, the regent for his ailing brother, the king of Prussia and the Kaiser of the Second Reich, and his War Minister Albrecht Roon, carried out a reform that finished off the idea of the people’s army. The term of service was prolonged from two to three years. “The regent and Roon considered the third year necessary to imbue recruits with esprit de corps, a sense of military honor, a proper devotion to the state and the monarch,” wrote Craig.204 Having completed his term of active service, the subject of the crown remained in reserve for four years (and subsequently five years in the reformed Landwehr). Roon finalized the transformation of the Landwehr into an appendix of the regular army, having taken away from it every last attribute of the people’s militia. The second call-up to the Landwehr was canceled altogether, and those from the first round were kept on exclusively for logistical support. From that point on, Prussian males aged 25–27 were in the reserve of the regular army. In addition, the 20-year-old men who had not been selected for active duty in the regular army were sent to the reserve. This meant that the Landwehr was now comprised exclusively of men aged 27–32 who had already completed their service in the regular army and reserve. It is telling that Roon had mostly political, rather than military, objections to the Landwehr. The war minister believed the Landwehr to be a “fake institution” because it was comprised of voters. This meant that, when making military decisions, higher-ranking commanders had to take into consideration the opinions of the lower ranks. This was totally unacceptable to Roon. The size of the peacetime army increased from 130,000 to 213,000. The annual draft grew by 66 percent. Simultaneously, there were continuous efforts to undermine the ability of society to exert influence on military policies. As early as 1850, King Frederick Wilhelm IV succeeded in exempting the army completely from swearing allegiance to the constitution. “This decision efficiently 204

Craig, p.146

282 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA separated the military from legislative control, creating a monarchial bulwark against future legislative encroachment,” wrote Dolman. “After 1850, the king would swear to uphold the Constitution and the military would swear to uphold the king.”205 Parliament initially tried to resist. Protesting the build-up of the peacetime army and the denial of the Landwehr’s independent role in military affairs (which definitely reduced the ability of society to influence the armed forces and military policies), parliament refused to approve a military budget for several years in a row. With Bismarck’s assent to power, the opposition started to scale back. “The Reichstag never played more than a mildly harassing role in military affairs,” 206 Samuel Huntington notes. The “Iron Chancellor” demanded passage of “an iron military budget” to fund forces for several years. Bismarck rejected the idea that the Reichstag had “the right to call in question every year the existence of the Prussian army.”207 He proposed a formula in which approval of the military budget would become nearly automatic. The numerical strength of the peacetime army would be equal to one percent of the entire population, and the cost of maintaining each serviceman would be fixed at 225 thalers. Military victories over Denmark, Austria and France put an end to all debate over civilian control. Parliament resigned itself to the idea that the leadership of the army was an inviolable prerogative of the crown. “In a monarchy like ours, the military point of view must not be subordinated to the financial and economic,”208 Wilhelm proclaimed when he was still regent. After Germany’s unification, this issue was no longer on the agenda. “The time of ideals is past… Politicians must today ask themselves less what is desirable, but what 205

Dolman, p. 140. Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1972, p. 102. 207 Vagts, p. 204. 208 Cited from: Gordon Craig, The politics of the Prussian Army 1640–1945, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1955, p. 143. 206

The Prussian Case | 283 is attainable,” Craig cites an opposition leader as saying. He adds that these words were an epitaph on the tombstone of Prussian liberalism.209 A State Within a State The fact that the army found itself completely separated from all values of civil society was not the worst part. Much worse was that society itself, riding the wave of patriotism inspired by military victories, began to consider the army an unsurpassed ideal. But this was no longer the army of Scharnhorst and Clausewitz. With the onset of reaction after 1819, the army was consistently purged of anyone whose thinking went outside the box of professional improvement. Society followed the example of the army, which was fossilized in purely feudal prejudices. To provide for its needs, the army, whose numerical strength (and number of officers) was growing, relied on the upper middle class, demanding that they, too, accept its feudal philosophy. To fit in and go along, the non-noble neophytes did everything in their power to adapt to these “higher” principles and morality. To receive an officer’s rank was considered the most important sign of social acceptance in imperial Germany. A character in a contemporary novel bloviated: “You have succeeded in becoming a reserve lieutenant. This is the most important thing these days, both from social and professional points of view. A doctoral degree is like a business card, but a reserve commission—that’s like an open door.” A different opinion was expressed in one of the era’s satirical magazines. It asserted that the social policies of the army had resulted in the conversion of “the Prussian lieutenant, who up till this time had been on the average relatively modest, into the unbearable prig of the Wilhelmine era.”210

209 210

Ibid, p. 177 Cited from: Craig, pp. 23–238.

284 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA In the years that followed, the German army turned more and more into a state within the state. “Nowhere else in Western Europe was the army so completely isolated from political interference, while guaranteeing the political power of the class from which the dominating officer type sprang,” wrote Vagts. “Nowhere was the army more solidly organized and the public mind more effectively militarized.”211 Moreover, “the leaders of the army regarded the military establishment as the true embodiment of the national interest. It was perhaps only natural that they should go farther and assume that soldiers were also better qualified than politicians and diplomats to determine the policies which would protect that interest.”212 The transformation of the German General Staff into a shadow government, more influential than the official one, was a gradual process. One of the important milestones was the famous conflict with Bismarck. At some point, the General Staff insisted that the military attaches in German embassies were better equipped than professional diplomats to evaluate situations in foreign countries. They eventually succeeded in obtaining permission to bypass the ambassadors when they sent their reports. Moreover, these reports were sent directly to the Kaiser, behind Bismarck’s back! In 1866, the General Staff was granted the right to issue orders to the army, bypassing the War Ministry, which, being a constitutional organ, was gradually losing influence. Thus, control over the officer corps was wrestled away from the War Ministry by the Emperor’s military cabinet. Scharnhorst’s ideas about the continuous self-improvement of officers survived. Except that this idea now was reduced to narrowly defined professional development. Thanks to the General Staff, the German military machine continuously followed the newest scientific and technological advancements, striving to find practical combat applications for them. It made every effort to perfect the military organization, including the draft system. This obsession with the 211 212

Vagts, p. 207. Craig, p. 255.

The Prussian Case | 285 military-technological aspect led to a disconnect between military strategy and economic realities (as well as neglect in terms of foreign policy). Convinced that military strategy had priority over all other considerations, Moltke and later Schlieffen created masterpieces of strategic thought, such as plans for conducting war on two fronts simultaneously against France and Russia. But attempts to put their theory to practice led to two world wars and two military disasters for Germany. In reality, the claim to being “apolitical” meant the negation of the necessity for civilian control. Moltke, Craig wrote, “accustomed to thinking in terms of pure strategy and to drawing up plans of almost mathematical exactitude, was irritated by the disruption of his calculations by unpleasant political realities. His irritation led him, indeed, to attempt the impossible task of delineating the exact boundaries between politics and strategy, apparently in hopes that he would be able to keep them separate. Once the political goal of the war had been determined and the decision to open hostilities had been taken, he seems to have believed, consideration of strategy became paramount.”213 As for Schlieffen, who was an ostentatiously “nonpolitical” military specialist, in his “technical decisions [he] had a disconcerting way of involving political commitments.”214 The predominant role of the General Staff in the state power structure and the priority given to military considerations over all others (attributes of militarism) played their negative role in the pre-war situation and during WWI. “The student of German policy in the summer of 1914 cannot help but be struck by the fact that the crucial decisions were made by the soldiers and that, in making them, they displayed an almost complete disregard for political considerations,” wrote Craig.215 The German General Staff dismissed chancellors and war ministers at the slightest sign of their disagreement with the military. 213

Ibid, pp. 195–196. Ibid, pp. 255–256. 215 Ibid, p. 294. 214

286 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA It consistently torpedoed all attempts by diplomats to conduct peace negotiations with members of the Triple Entente.216 Interestingly, when the heads of the Entente member states were developing the terms of the Versailles Treaty, they remembered Scharnhorst. Keeping in mind how the Krumper system allowed the Prussians to amass large reserves right under Napoleon’s nose while the army itself remained small, the victors insisted that the Reichswehr remain professional. And they made a terrible mistake. The 100,000 strong army that Prussia was permitted to maintain allowed General Seeckt to raise the quality of all servicemen. The enlisted men of the Reichswehr later became sergeant-majors in the Wehrmacht, which allowed them to train millions of enlisted men. It is in the Reichswehr that the military conceptions that would define the development of strategy and tactics for decades to come were tested. In the mid-1920s, Lieutenant-Colonel Walter Brauchitsch, future commander of the Wehrmacht ground forces, organized exercises to test the possibility of air support for advancing mechanized troops. In 1924, young Captain Heinz Guderian developed the theory and practice of longrange penetration by tank formations. He borrowed automobiles and motorcycles from the police to conduct his studies. Military professionalism was not the only thing that reached its peak in the Reichswehr. The most savage reactionary views also peaked out there. The Reichswehr completed the isolation of the army from the state. The army, in fact, refused to consider the Weimar Republic as the permanent embodiment of the German state. Because of that, “the leaders of the Reichswehr were required to make political judgments at any moment of acute crisis.”217 Once again, being “nonpolitical” had led to the spread among the military of the most reactionary views that had nothing to do with the concept of military professionalism. The champion of those reactionary views was General Ludendorff. In his 1935 book The Total War, he argued that

216 217

See: Huntington, pp. 107–108. Ibid, p. 112.

The Prussian Case | 287 “all the theories of Clausewitz should be thrown overboard.”218 This is how politics became enslaved by war, rather than war being a slave of politics. Here is Huntington’s grim assessment: “(Ludendorff’s) theory, with its delusions of omnipotence, its glorification of violence, its adulation of power, and its denial of specialized competence, was a rejection of everything that nineteenth-century German military thought stood for. It was indeed the employment of the more sordid elements of Treitschke, Nietzsche and Spengler to rationalize absolute military power. Ironically this theory, developed out of military dominance in World War I, in the end achieved its fullest realization in the complete subjection of the military by an Austrian corporal in World War II. In fact, German militarism simply committed suicide.”219 The overwhelming majority in the Reichswehr greeted Hitler’s ascension to power with enthusiasm and placed their talents at the service of fascism. “The commanders of Germany’s armies showed the technical virtuosity and physical courage which had always, since the recovery from Jena and Auerstäd, been characteristic of the Prussian officer corps,” wrote Craig. “But what most of them failed to demonstrate in these last desperate years was what they had failed to demonstrate when Hitler stood on the threshold of the chancellorship in 1933, what they had failed to demonstrate when he loosed his murderers on the land in June 1934, what they had failed to demonstrate when Schleicher was killed and Fritsch disgraced: namely, any trace of the moral courage and spiritual independence, and the deep patriotism which had marked the careers of such great soldiers of the past as Scharnhorst, Boyen and Gneisenau. Without these things, their other gifts were without value, and they themselves were powerless to avert the disaster which had been so largely the result of their political irresponsibility.”220 218

Cited in Huntington, p. 108. Ibid, p. 109. 220 Ibid, p. 502. 219

288 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA For a long time, German society could not forgive military professionals their readiness to serve the Nazi regime. This is why Germany was the last of all Western countries to give up the draft. It is not an accident that Scharnhorst’s ideas about the citizen-soldier, a serviceman who is also an active member of the civil society, formed the foundation of the ideological indoctrination of the Bundeswehr, the army of the Democratic Germany. Militarism Instead of Modernization Why do I think the experience of Prussian military reform is important for understanding the results of today’s Russian military rеform and the future development of the Armed Forces (as well as the state and society)? As Samuel Huntington points out: “No country has had a wider variety of experiences in civil-military relations than modern Germany. No other officer corps achieved such high standards of professionalism, and the officer corps of no other major power in the end was so completely prostituted. Each chapter of the German story has its lesson and its warning. The imperial experience shows the benefits of civilian control. The republican period demonstrates the difficulty of achieving that control amidst political chaos. World War I illustrates the disastrous results when military men assume political roles. Nazi rule illustrates equally catastrophic results when military warnings are unheeded and political leaders ride rough-shod over the military. The variety of German civil-military relations makes its history a terrifying but highly instructive study.”221 Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the Prussian military reform was unique. As discussed above, it was a rare, if not the only, example in world history when military modernization was initiated by liberals in uniform, remarkable military professionals who had liberal ideas. For them, military reform was unthinkable without broad democratic changes. They believed reform had to be based on the abolition of serfdom and the introduction of municipal 221

Huntington, p. 98.

The Prussian Case | 289 governments. They also calculated that reform would be continued naturally by the transformation of the Prussian absolute monarchy to the constitutional one (following the British model). The contrast between the Prussian military reform and the reform efforts of today’s Russia should not get in the way of comparing them. It is true that for Scharnhorst, Boyen and Grolman, the ideal was a mass mobilization army in which they saw a school that would prepare citizens for a responsible role in the state. The essence of Russian military reform has been to do away with the mass mobilization army. But as far as I am concerned, there is no contradiction here. In itself, the draft system is neither good nor bad. It is a method of raising an army that is appropriate for particular historical conditions and a particular level of technological development. Once a net of railroads sprang up across 19th century Europe, countries acquired the ability to carry out speedy mobilizations and quickly raise huge armies that could not be maintained in peace time. The level of training of soldiers was not that important. Napoleon’s maxim that “only large battalions win” appeared universally applicable. However, within the past 30 years, the situation has changed significantly. A revolution has been taking place in military affairs. Military technologies have become increasingly complex. Only those who have made military affairs their profession can be trusted with handling them. Mobility, being able to move troops to areas thousands of miles away within the shortest time possible, is today’s key to success in war. What makes it possible are landing ships and military transport aviation—and most importantly, well-trained combat-ready formations. Draft-based troops cannot be combat-ready by definition because units have new recruits at all times. Each time military force must be used, the command is faced with the choice of wasting time on reconstituting units or sending untrained young men into combat. France’s inability to carry out a quick operational deployment in the Persian Gulf in 1991 pushed the French government into abolishing the draft.

290 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA The demographic situation has changed radically. For a mass mobilization army to function more or less successfully, a country needs steady population growth. Prussia’s population doubled over 40 years, between 1819 and 1859. The population growth rate in Russia was approximately the same in the 1870s, when Milutin’s reforms created a mass mobilization army. At the present time, the situation is very different—Russia’s population is shrinking. Comparing Russian reforms to those in Prussia, it becomes clear that, in itself, the concrete method of manning the Armed Forces is not that important, even though it has been the cause of bitter fights between the modernizers and the conservatives. In both cases, however, the method of manning forces was directly connected to the hopes that, once the purely military objectives of reforms have been achieved, political emancipation would follow. In Prussia, such hopes were openly voiced by the reformers. In Russia, they have been formulated by a few observers (including this author). In both cases, the military objectives were eventually achieved. But this did not lead to the establishment of democratic principles. In fact, the opposite occurred—successful military reforms brought about a complete rejection of democratic norms. There is no agreement among scholars of Prussian military reforms as to why the hopes of the reformers did not materialize. Gordon Craig believes it was due to an unfortunate concatenation of events. Others, such as Samuel Huntington, ascribe it to the breakdown of the high principles of military professionalism. I see it differently. Historically, a precondition for military reforms has been the establishment of normal civil-military relations in the wake of the general democratization of society. The reason why military reforms, as a rule, lag other democratic reforms is obvious: Military organization is conservative by definition. It is based on a strict hierarchical subordination and, thus, is often openly hostile to anything that has to do with democratic freedoms. In authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, the army is the buttress of those in power. The collapse of such a regime is usually perceived as an everlasting tragedy for the armed forces.

The Prussian Case | 291 We can surely discern some general democratic elements in any military reform of the past 200 years. All military reforms are in one way or another connected to the method of raising an army and, due to technological advances, have a tendency to lighten the population’s burden in maintaining the armed forces. Yet this alone is not sufficient to claim that a military reform, in itself, could become an engine for general democratization. “Military reform has not proved itself a sufficient cause for democratization,”222 Everett Dolman says. There is also a popular, but problematic, to say the least, theory that a democracy and army are inseparable. Proponents of this theory claim that, as soon as man is given a weapon, he also acquires rights. In this sense, the Prussian military reforms of the early 19th century seem to confirm this theory. The reformers insisted that universal military service can only be introduced if serfdom was abolished. To some extent, the same argument could be applied to Russia, in that Milutin’s reforms and the introduction of universal service occurred only after the abolition of serfdom. On the other hand, this theory cannot explain how Peter I was able to arm hundreds of thousands of serfs who enthusiastically served the autocrat without demanding their freedom. What are the political implications of a successful modernization of the armed forces in an authoritarian society where no other reforms take place? Obviously, having a modernized army at his disposal, an authoritarian leader considers it an instrument to consolidate his power. The modernized army wins victories over external enemies, allow the authoritarian leader to consolidate his power internally. In the process, modernized armed forces become an ideal institution in the eyes of the country’s population. Amid an “upsurge of patriotism,” representative bodies do not have the slightest chance to control power structures and the army becomes a tool for solving an ever greater number of problems. Eventually, people in uniforms become the leading powerbrokers. The problem is they can only offer 222

Dolman, p. 213.

292 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA solutions they know—military ones. This is what is called a militarist state (the subject of the next chapter). Paradoxically, the greater the perfection of the armed forces, the faster the country moves toward a catastrophe. Solutions are proposed without ever factoring in the economic and social situation. This was the road Germany traveled. These days, Russia has chosen it.

Chapter 5: The Country of Victorious Militarism We can state with certainty that the successful, though interrupted at the stage of “qualitative” changes, military reform carried out in Russia has not become a vehicle for the country’s general modernization. The increased effectiveness of the Russian army and its military successes—the annexation of Crimea and the air operations in Syria—have led to an upsurge of military hysteria, whipped up by the state propaganda. The consequence of this hysteria has been a totally uncritical appraisal of the highest authority, President Vladimir Putin. A system of views, according to which Russia represents a military fortress surrounded on all sides by enemies, has taken root. Naturally, all international and most internal challenges are met with military solutions. All disagreements in the international arena are viewed through a prism in which the West is accused of trying to gain military superiority over Russia. The Russian government, for example, justified its annexation of Crimea and its secret war in Donbass by saying it was working only to prevent NATO from implementing its alleged plans to set up bases in Ukraine. Even amid an economic crisis, every fifth ruble of the Russian federal budget is spent on the military. Contrary to world experience, the government claims the development of military programs will lead to technological progress. The suppression of civil rights and freedoms continues under the guise of the war against foreign spies. Russian failures are portrayed as devious military victories by the

293

294 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA forces of Russia’s enemies, the USA in particular (and the West in general). In this way, any defeat is interpreted as a proof of an external threat, even if it is caused by internal factors (such as the inefficiency of the “vertical of power”). Russian citizens, including those who count themselves among the intellectual elite, get teary-eyed when they watch the parade “boxes” marching in Prussian goose-step. Like a character from the movie Interventsiia, they still enthusiastically believe that “the regular army is sorta special.” But far worse is the fact that most citizens are convinced that the state has a right to expect huge sacrifices from them to strengthen defense capabilities. We can state that Russian militarism, which seemed near death in the 1990s, has recently been revived. And it is exerting its influence not only in the military sphere, but also on Russia’s political life, its economy and social conditions. What Is Russian Militarism? The term “militarism” was first used in mid-19th century in reference to the regime of Napoleon III of France.223 One of the founders of the science of sociology, Herbert Spencer, in his Principles of Sociology, spoke of two types of states: the “militant,” where everything is organized to prepare for war with other countries; and the “industrial,” whose norms, laws and institutions are designed to promote peaceful economic development for the good of all citizens. At the end of the 19thcentury, Spencer cited examples of militant societies: “Modern Dahomey and Russia, as ancient Peru, Egypt and Sparta exemplify the owning of the individual by the state in life, liberty and goods, which is proper for a social system adopted for war.”224 During that same period, Marxists began to study militarism. Friedrich Engels wrote in Anti-Dühring (1877) that “the army has become the main purpose of the state, and an end in itself. Militarism 223 224

BSE (Bol’shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia), v.16, p. 256. Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology, New York, 1895, v. 2, p. 602.

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 295 dominates and is swallowing Europe.”225 Engels was the first to establish a connection between militarism and the changing nature of war. “Competition among the individual states forces them […] to resort to universal compulsory military service more and more extensively, thus in the long run making the whole people familiar with the use of arms.”226 In the second half of the 19th century, it became clear that an era of mass mobilization armies had arrived. Scientific-technical progress, which found its expression in the rapid development of railroads, allowed general staffs to carry out mass mobilizations in a short time. Gigantic armies were raised and maintaining them required the reorganization war ministries and the state itself. Drawing huge masses of the population into the development of the military unavoidably required that the people believe that turning the country into a military camp was necessary to defend it from “hostile states.” If strengthening a militarist state is not accompanied by effective militarist propaganda, then the scenario Engels predicted becomes reality. Its essence is that the people familiar with the use of arms are able “at a given moment to make their will prevail against the warlords in command. And this moment will arrive as soon as the mass of the people, town and country, workers and peasants will have a will. At this point the armies of the princes become transformed into armies of the people; the machine refuses to work and militarism collapses by the dialectics of its own evolution.”227 What is fundamentally important here is the fact of the militarization of the state’s population. These ideas were further developed by Karl Liebknecht in his Militarism and Anti-Militarism (1907), perhaps the only classic Marxist work devoted exclusively to this topic. “Militarism makes its appearance first as the army itself and then as a system which projects itself beyond the army and clasps the whole society in a network of 225

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Sochineniia, v. 2, p. 175. Ibid. 227 Ibid. 226

296 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA militaristic and semi-militaristic institutions,” he writes. “Militarism also makes its appearance as a system that saturates the whole public and private life of the people with the militaristic spirit.”228 In the period preceding the WWI, the prevalent view of militarism was as a system characterized by excessive military efforts of the state. The definition of militarism in Malyi entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ Brokgauza i Efrona reads: “The prevalence in the state of military interests over all others, the drive to indefinitely increase ground and naval forces without any regard for expenses which may be a burden to the national economy. Is typical of European countries; especially after 1871, the numerical strength of the European armies and size of military budget have grown exponentially and are anywhere from 1/4 to 1/3 of the general budget.” 229 WWI led to radical changes in the state and societal organization of most European countries. It made war general and global. It required militarism to be redefined. Marxism offered its understanding of militarism: It is the product of capitalism. Marxist scholars have not challenged Vladimir Lenin’s maxim that “Contemporary militarism is a vital manifestation of capitalism: as military force, used by the capitalist states in their external conflicts […] and as a weapon in the hands of the ruling classes for suppressing every kind of movement, economic and political, of the proletariat.”230 For obvious reasons, Soviet social scientists considered militarism as exclusively engendered by “exploitative states.” A quintessential example of this approach is the definition of militarism in the

228

Karl Liebknecht, Militarism i antimilitarism, М.1960, p. 58. Malyi entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ Brokgauza i Efrona, SPb, 1900, v.3, p. 101, https://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/ percentD0 percent9C percentD0 percentAD percentD0 percentA1 percentD0 percent91 percentD0 percent95/ percentD0 percent9C percentD0 percentB8 percentD0 percentBB percentD0 percentB8 percentD1 percent82 percentD0 percentB0 percentD1 percent80 percentD0 percentB8 percentD0 percentB7 percentD0 percentBC. 230 Vladimir I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 5 izd., v. 17, p. 187. 229

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 297 Bol’shaia sovetskaia entsiklopedia: “In the broad sense, the building up of the military power of an exploitative state for the purpose of carrying out a policy of predatory war and suppression of the resistance of the toiling masses within the country. A permanent phenomenon in society divided into antagonistic classes, militarism took shape as a system of economics, politics, and ideology under capitalism.”231 The few Soviet scholarly works where the word “militarism” figures prominently deal primarily with the West’s military-industrial complex and the influence of military expenditures on the economy of the capitalist countries. This is not an accident. Any more or less serious study of other, “non-economic,” aspects of militarism inevitably would have brought to light analogies with the USSR and Soviet society. Mikhail Romm’s film Obyknovennyi fashizm (Ordinary Fascism) unexpectedly brought to life similarities between the fascist and the Soviet regimes, especially in their propaganda, cultural policies and aesthetics. In contrast, Western political scientists have studied the phenomenon of militarism quite extensively. Between the 1920s and 1940s, US political scientist Harold Lasswell wrote his famous essays on the “garrison state.” His main hypothesis was that, in response to achievements in military technologies and the onset of the era of global wars, the specialist on violence will ascent to political power: “In the garrison state the specialist on violence is at the helm, and organized economic and social life is systematically subordinated to the fighting forces. This means that the predominating influence is in the hands of men who specialize in violence.”232 I believe German scholars have most fully explored militarism as a phenomenon. Historian Gerhard Ritter, describing the 231

BSE (Bol’shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia), v. 16. p. 327. Harold Lasswell, Essays on the Garrison State, edited and with an introduction by Jay Stanley, preface by Irving Louis Horowitz, Imprint: New Brunswick, NJ; London: Transaction Publishers, 1997, p. 12. 232

298 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA characteristic features of German militarism, states that all political decisions are based on military-technical calculations rather than a multifaceted analysis of state interests. He believes the public mind is shaped by military considerations as well.233 Another German scholar, Wilfried von Bredow, says military relations and military values define all spheres of society’s life.234 One of the most prominent modern sociologists, Anthony Giddens, defines militarism as the tendency of the elites in some societies to seek military solutions for political conflicts, and of the lower strata to accept such solutions.235 It should be noted that prominent American scholar Samuel Huntington offers a fundamentally different interpretation of militarism as a phenomenon. For Huntington, “professional militarism” and “military professionalism” are one and the same. He believes that a professional military’s approach,236 which demonstrates both caution and responsibility in dealing with issues of using military force, is a deterring factor in making political decisions. This approach allows Huntington to claim that the relationship between the German military and the Kaiser in the 19th century was close to ideal.237 But even if I were to admit that it is possible to use the term “militarism” to describe a positive influence of professional military on political leadership and society, I need to emphasize that 233

The Political Role of the Military: An International Handbook, Greenwood Press, 1996, p. 143. 234 Ibid. 235 See: A. Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence, Vol. 2 of A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1985, p. 80. While Giddens quite justifiably points to the impact militarism has upon social and economic processes, I do not agree with his claim that militarism is not the consequence, but rather one of the preconditions, for the rise of industrial capitalism. 236 This is entirely different from the Russian understanding of the concept of a professional military. Huntington believes that a military professional serves higher ideals than money, which distinguishes him from a mercenary. 237 Huntington, p. 98.

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 299 this phenomenon is the direct opposite of what I discuss in this chapter. In our case, the source of militarism is not only, and not primarily, professional military. Alfred Vagts argues there is a fundamental difference between the drive to strengthen defense capabilities, to prepare the army for possible war, which is natural for any country, and militarism: “The distinction is fundamental and fateful. The military way is marked by a primary concentration of men and materials on winning specific objectives of power with the utmost efficiency, that is, with the least expenditure of blood and treasure. It is limited in scope, confined to one function, and scientific in its essential qualities. Militarism, on the other hand, presents a vast array of customs, interests, prestige, actions, and thought associated with armies and wars, and yet transcending true military purposes. Indeed, militarism is so constituted that it may hamper and defeat the purposes of the military way. Its influence is unlimited in scope. It may permeate all society and become dominant over industry and arts. Rejecting the scientific character of the military way, militarism displays the qualities of caste and cult; authority and belief.”238 Vagts points to the most dangerous source of militarism: “Civilian militarism might be defined as the unquestioning embrace of military values, ethos, principles, attitudes; as ranking military institutions and considerations above all others in the state; as finding the heroic predominantly in military service and action, including war—to the preparation of which the nation’s main interests and resources must be dedicated… With the soldier militarist, the civilian shares the contempt for civilian politics, parliamentarianism, parties, the hatred of civilian supremacy, of trade, of labor, of diplomacy.”239 The military component of the state structure has had a significant impact on the sense of national identity of Russians. Somewhere on the subconscious level, most Russians are stuck on the 238 239

Vagts, pp. 13–15. Ibid, p. 453.

300 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA myth that the army is the foundation of the state in our huge country. This, despite the fact that doubts about it had been expressed as early as the mid-19th century. “It is quite true that armies guarantee security of the states,” wrote Nikolai Obruchev, the future General Staff chief and a prominent military reformer, “but the claim that they are the pillars of their identity is a pure sophistry. The identity of a state is rooted in and develops along the lines of its civilian life, not military, otherwise the empires of Genghis-Khans, Tamerlane, and others would be everlasting, and Mongols would still rule over Russia.”240 The official propaganda incessantly spreads the myth that Russia has defended itself from countless external enemies for centuries and, therefore, the drive to defend the Fatherland (and, hence, the respect for the army) is simply about an innate quality of every self-respecting citizen.241 In reality, Russia, like every big country, has conducted both defensive and aggressive wars. Simple logic would point to the fact that a country that has expanded its territory must have been successful not only in self-defense. In its report to Alexander II, the General Staff proudly informed the tsar that between 1700 and 1870, Russia had fought 38 wars and, moreover, with the exception of two of them, all of these wars had been those of aggression.242 How did the perception develop that the army is the most important state institution in Russia? This question preoccupied the historians of Vasily Kluchevsky’s school. They pointed to a direct connection between the development of the Russian state and its military needs. “Maintaining the service class,” Alexander Kornilov wrote in discussing the events of the 17th century, “became the preeminent concern for the Muscovite state, overshadowing all other interests of the country… The population was forced to bear a heavy 240

Cited from: Gosudarstvennaia oborona Rossii: Imperativy russkoi voennoi klassiki, p. 83. 241 See, for instance: Na sluzhbe otechestvu: Kniga dlia chteniia po obshchestvenno-gosudarstvennoi podgotovke soldat (matrosov), serzhantov (starshin) Vooruzhennykh Sil Rossiiskoi Federatsii. 242 N. N. Sukhotin, Voina v istorii russkogo mira, Spb., 1898, pp. 113–114.

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 301 burden of various taxes. In the process of searching for new payments, a peculiar financial system is created and takes roots, based on the concept of a universal taxation.”243 Peter the Great increased manifold this centuries-old tradition of “tax.” In essence, all of Peter’s reforms had one main objective: to create and maintain a huge army. The reforms themselves, which later on were recognized as great, at the time were often of an improvisational nature dictated by the daily challenges of the 20-year Northern War. “Military reform […] played an important role in our history,” Vasily Kluchevsky writes. “It was not simply the issue of defending the state: the reform left a distinct and deep impression on the social and intellectual composition of all Russian society and even influenced future political events… War was the driving force behind Peter’s transformational work, the military reform was its starting point… The work began with transforming national defense and proceeded toward transformation of national economy.”244 The great reformer was building a new state like a huge military barrack. “Peter’s ideal were institutions resembling barracks and civil servants resembling soldiers, carrying out orders with the same rigor with which soldiers and officers follow field regulations,”245 writes prominent scholar Nikolai Pavlenko. “When you analyze the development of Peter’s ideas concerning state and government reforms, you notice his conscious orientation on military models, on shaping the state like one giant military mechanism,” Evgeny Anisimov points out. “The country itself and her people were no more than the source of human and financial resources for maintaining the gigantic for that time armed forces.”246 “The reorganization of the entire state is a product of the military-financial demands of the state,” Pavel Miliukov observes in his State Economy of Russia in the First 243

Aleksandr Kornilov. Kurs istorii Rossii ХIX veka, М. 1992, p. 20. V. O. Kliuchevskii, Sochineniia, M. 1958, v. 4, pp. 64–65. 245 Nikolai Pavlenko, Petr Pervyi, М. 1975, p. 276. 246 Evgeniy Anisimov, Vremia petrovskikh reform, Leningrad, 1989, p. 261. 244

302 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA Quarter of the 18th Century and the Reform of Peter the Great. “Its implementation was dictated by the circumstances of the Northern War.”247 Military service in Russia became a tiaglo, a heavy burden, for all estates from the moment a Western-style regular army was created. According to the theory forwarded in A History of Russia: The End or a New Beginning? by Alexander Akhiezer, Igor Kliamkin, and Igor Iakovenko, 248 the militarization of Russia occurred much before Peter the Great, perhaps as early as the rise of Muscovy. These authors believe our country’s history consists of several cycles of militarization (peaking under Ivan the Terrible, Peter I, and Stalin), followed by periods of demilitarization. On the whole, I agree with most of what they are saying, except that, in my opinion, militarization (defined as “organizing life according to the army model and using militarymobilizational methods for solving non-military problems”249) is not the same as militarism. To organize something “according to the army model,” one needs, at a minimum, to have such a model. But this model, with its unquestioning subordination, strict hierarchy and absence or lack of freedoms appears only with the rise of a regular army. Peter made service in the army obligatory for all nobility. In 1705, he began to raise an army relying exclusively on recruitment. Every twentieth peasant household was supposed to provide one recruit to serve for 30 years, which, for all intents and purposes, meant lifelong service. This recruiting system, which Peter borrowed from Sweden, gave Russia two centuries of what the rulers believed to be an inexhaustible source of manpower. At a time when other European monarchs maintained mercenary armies the size of which was determined by what the treasury could handle, the Russian emperors 247

Pavel Miliukov, Gosudarstvennoe khoziaistvo Rossii v pervoi chetverti XVIII veka i reforma Petra Velikogo, SPb, 1905, p. 303. 248 A. Akhiezer, I. Kliamkin, I, Iakovenko, Istoriia Rossii: konets ili novoe nachalo? М.: Novoe Izdatel’stvo, 2008. 249 Ibid. p. 136.

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 303 were able to maintain gigantic armed forces by the standards of the time. In an era when a greater numerical strength was the decisive factor in achieving victory, it guaranteed absolute superiority over any enemy. All that was needed to reinforce the armed forces when necessary was the emperor’s signature. This system survived for 170 years because it was perfectly aligned with the existing social and economic structure of the state. It was born of serfdom. It is telling that successful military reforms went practically hand-in-hand with the process of the gradual enslavement of peasants. For nearly three centuries, Peter’s victories and reforms have been held up as an unsurpassed example for the Russian military. “Peter the Great was the first to succeed in finally creating a happy army,” prominent Russian pre-revolutionary publicist Mikhail Menshikov proclaimed.250 But this has very little to do with reality. It is unlikely that a recruit, whose family wept and mourned him as a dead man, was happy. The rate of desertion from the Petrine army was very high. According to data cited by US historian William Fuller, more than 10 percent of recruits escaped from the “the happy army” between 1703 and 1706.251 The new recruits were shackled and branded with a tattoo on the arm. To prevent desertions, every third captured deserter was executed and the other two sent to labor camps. Statements to the effect that “Russian military doctrine has always built the Armed Forces on the principles of quality and selection,” and that it was Peter the Great who began building his army according to the principle of selection,252 may be not that far from the truth. However, it was not the selection of those best fit for military service, but rather natural selection in the Darwinian sense: Those few who

250

Gosudarstvennaia oborona Rossii. Imperativy russkoi voennoi klassiki, p. 490. 251 William C. Fuller, Strategy and Power in Russia 1600–1914, New York: Free Press, 1992, p. 47. 252 A. A. Kresnovskii, Cited from: Gosudarstvennaia oborona Rossii, Imperativy russkoi voennoi klassiki, p. 549.

304 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA managed to survive, indeed, became the best soldiers in the world. The rest were doomed to perish. Soviet historian Boris Urlanis cites statistics showing that only 40,000 of 120,000 Russian soldiers who died during 1700–1725 were killed in action or died of wounds. 253 It is possible casualties were even greater. Historians agree that, by the end of Peter’s rule, the Russian army was 210,000 men strong.254 Yet between 1705 and 1725, more than 50 recruitments had been carried out to provide the Armed Forces with 400,000 men.255 The army that Peter created put the male population of the empire through a meat grinder. However, the tiaglo was not limited to that. Practically all taxes collected in Russia were spent on maintaining the armed forces. Peter perfected the system: The army itself collected the taxes meant to support it. “And the result of this necessity,” wrote Alexander Kornilov, “was that the army was quartered all over Russia, for which purpose the entire country was divided into seven guberniias. And the sole purpose of the administration of each guberniia was to satisfy one single need, the need to maintain the army.”256 The army was thus performing one of the main functions of the state: collecting taxes. “It meant that a regimental commander and his subordinates took part in all stages of tax revenue apparatus work,”257 Evgeny Anisimov observes. In addition, that same colonel had to perform police functions. Finally, with the Northern War over, Peter immediately put the army to use in construction, building fortresses and canals and widening harbors. The history of the construction battalions in the Russian Armed Forces thus goes back to the time of Peter the Great. The tradition of appointing guard officers as the highest-ranking administrators in the provinces also dates back to Peter’s time. Officers of the guards conducted investigations in response to 253

Fuller, p. 49. Gosudarstvennaia oborona Rossii, p. 490. 255 Istoriia voennoi strategiiv Rossii, Moscow, 2000, p. 47. 256 Kornilov, pp. 20–22. 257 Anisimov, p. 365. 254

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 305 complaints from financial officers and prosecutors against highranking officials. They were also given authority to control the Senate and “watched that the senators conducted their business properly; and, if they saw something contrary to that, “they could arrest the culprit and take him to jail.”258 Foreigners were puzzled by the fact that members of the Senate, the highest government institution, “rose from their seats when a lieutenant walked in and groveled before him.”259 James Cracraft writes that it was Peter who introduced the concept of generalitet, that is, generals as a separate group within the hierarchy of authority.260 Even Peter’s famous decrees that demanded citizens shave their beards and wear European clothes were presented as something that was necessary “for the glory and beauty of the state and military control.” Actually, this would apply to all of Peters reforms—all of them were carried out in order to guarantee military control over society. The huge army Peter created, considering the size of the population, “was three times bigger than the proportion which was an accepted norm of what a European country of the 18th century could afford to maintain,” according to Richard Pipes.261 In an era when victory depended mainly on numerical superiority, this guaranteed an advantage over any opponent. “Russian backwardness could be the font of tremendous military power,” says historian Fuller. “The very things that made Russia backward and underdeveloped by comparison with Western Europe —autocracy, serfdom, poverty— could paradoxically translate into armed might. The ruthless application of autocratic power could mobilize the Russian economy for war. The result may not have been a cornucopia of foodstuffs and

258

M. N. Pokrovsky, Izbrannye proizvedeniia v 4 knigakh, Moscow, 1966, book 1, p. 613. 259 Ibid, p. 613. 260 James Cracraft, The Church Reform of Peter the Great, London: The McMIllan Press, 1971, pp. 6–7. 261 Richard Pipes, Rossiia pri starom regime, Moscow, 1993, p. 162.

306 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA goods, but it was just enough to sustain protracted war. Similarly, because rural Russia was so unfree it 'could be tapped for money and, most important, for men. It did not matter that the recruits were raw, that rations were short, that equipment was missing. The peasant conscripts were already inured to hardship, and there were more where they came from.”262 This system, in which backwardness and oppression served as a source of military might, accounts for Russian victories over many great commanders of the 18th and 19th centuries. The battle of Poltava, where Karl XII suffered defeat, opened the golden century of Russian military history. This was followed by the Seven-Year War’s victories over Frederick the Great. And finally came the crushing defeat of Napoleon. While giving due to the talents of commanders like Apraksin, Rumiantsev, Potemkin, Suvorov and Kutuzov, we should not forget that the sacrifice of soldiers’ lives was the foundation of Russian military art. Without it, Suvorov’s famous crossing of the Alps, during which a significant part of his men perished, would not have been possible. Neither would his famous tactics during the Italian campaign have been possible. He “renewed his attacks 10 times in a row and each time forced the enemy to extend, while he himself still had soldiers, however few, standing shoulder to shoulder,” Rostislav Faddev, whom Dostoevsky called a “general-thinker” exclaims ecstatically. He adds that, by the end of the victorious campaign, only 12,000 of the original 40,000 soldiers remained.263 It is possible that, if not for Peter’s system of recruitment, Kutuzov’s famous Tarutino maneuver would not have made sense. Napoleon knew that the Russian army was getting reinforced. But he never thought recruits would be thrown into a battle without serious military training. “The conscripts of 1812, however poorly drilled, were equal to the task of harrying Napoleon’s forces all the way back

262

Fuller, pp. 82–83. Cited from: Gosudarstvennaia oborona Rossii: Imperativy russkoi voennoi klassiki, p. 136. 263

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 307 to the Polish frontier,” writes Fuller.264 The recruiting system that Peter created enabled him to defeat the Swedes. It also guaranteed Alexander’s triumph over Napoleon. But that was the last time. As the 19th century wore on, the Russian elite, blinded by the brilliant victory over the greatest commander, was unable to perceive that the Industrial Revolution would deprive the military of the source of its superiority. Pre-revolutionary and Soviet historians and publicists are practically united in their critique of the military policies of Nicholas I, whom they have accused, quite deservedly, of “paradomania” and the drive to replace the heroic nature of the Russian army with regimentation. They chose not see that Nicholas’ army was just as much a child of Peter’s reforms as Catherine’s—it was only a late child and, therefore, sickly. Relying, as before, on numerical superiority required the maintenance of huge armed forces. In the absence of a major war, the troops were kept busy with senseless drills. Nicholas understood that this burden was exhausting Russia’s resources. So, in a purely Petrine manner, he tried to use troops to build roads and bridges. Between 1825 and 1850, 2,500 regular battalions were used for state construction work. Actually, even the infamous military settlements represented an attempt to break out of this vicious circle (these settlements, however, turned out to be unable to feed themselves). In the end, the tsar was forced to increase the number of recruitment campaigns, on the one hand, and on the other, to limit the term of service. After 15 years, soldiers were considered to be on leave, but eligible to be recalled if necessary. This system was completely discredited during the siege of Sebastopol. The Russian army suffered a humiliating defeat. It was defeated on its own territory by the enemy’s naval assault force. It has been pointed out that the main cause of the defeat was that the Russian army, as opposed to the enemy’s, had not been able to use the achievements of the Industrial Revolution, such as rifled firearms and steam ships. More importantly, however, having mobilized a huge 264

Fuller, p. 199.

308 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA army, the government was not able to deploy it to the area of combat. The troops in Sebastopol also lacked food and ammunition. It took almost 20 years before the tsar decided it was time for military reform. Peter’s recruitment system lasted until 1877. It is no coincidence it was abolished after the emancipation of serfs. After all, it was Peter I who, guided by the needs of his armed forces, imposed the serfdom on the Russian peasants. But now the old system was replaced by the universal military service obligation. The government was not moved by humanitarian considerations. “The FrancoPrussian War made a huge impression,” wrote Dmitry Miliutin, the war minister and author of the reforms. “The gigantic size of the army Prussia deployed, the rapid strikes against its powerful enemy, were mind-boggling.”265 Russia, first and foremost, wanted to follow the Prussian model of creating a mobilizational reserve. Surprisingly, Miliutin’s reforms, however progressive, did not deliver victory. Indeed, the move to build the armed forces on the basis of universal military service was followed by two terrible defeats, in 1904–1905 and 1914–1917. Each of these defeats was followed by a revolution. The last one, as we know, destroyed a three-century-old empire. However, it would not be fair to blame the tragic events on Miliutin’s reforms. The reforms were in keeping with worldwide trends. The era of mass armies was about to arrive. These modern forms of military organization were not compatible with the intellectual level of Russian military thinkers and rulers, or, most importantly, with the level of development of society at that time. “I think that Russians are worse than they usually have been, they adopted the system of universal military service for which they are not sufficiently civilized and, in addition, they don’t have enough good officers,”266 Engels aptly pointed out. In the second half of the 19th century, the prevalent view in the Russian army was that of General Dragomirov, who applied Suvorov’s maxim that “bullet is stupid, bayonet is smart” literally. In the era of machine guns and 265 266

Gosudarstvennaia oborona, p. 505. Marx and Engels, v.37, p. 28.

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 309 heavy artillery, Russian generals continued to rely on hand-to-hand combat and bayonet attack, which had certainly had been effective against Turks in the 18th century. But in the 19th century, this simply turned into senseless frontal attacks on the enemy. Despite radically changed conditions of combat, Russian generals, just like 100 years earlier, preferred to fight without any regard for losses (being certain these losses would be replaced). And it never occurred to them that Russian soldiers, armed people, could rebel against their commanders. Many years of drilling had inculcated in Russian soldiers the necessity of unconditional obedience to their officers. This is the only possible explanation for the fact that, unique for Europe of the 18th and 19th centuries, Russian emperors were not afraid to arm their slaves. “At the time of Pugachev, it was still possible to crush [a rebellion] because the standing professional army that Peter I had created isolated soldiers from the population for the rest of their lives,”267 wrote Akhiezer. A draft-based army lives according to different laws. While it is true that German and Japanese militarists pursued their own interests, they managed to infect soldiers with their ideas. The German draft-based army was built on the idea of a “citizen-soldier” who desired the unification of the fatherland. The foundation of such armies were professional officers who continuously improved their education and military expertise. Vitaly Shlykov, drawing on the book The Soldier and the State by Samuel Huntington, writes that the authority of the higher-ranking officers should be based on a higher professionalism. He adds that “if this is not the case, then the hierarchy of command is prostituted for nonprofessional reasons.”268 Alexander III halted Miliutin’s efforts to educate professional officers. The Russian officers of the early 20th century proved not to be ready to turn thousands of peasants into true soldiers. Partially, this 267 268

Akhiezer, p. 303. Cited from: Vitali Shlykov, “Ne remeslo i ne iskusstvo,” Itogi, 2000, № 23.

310 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA was the result of a wider problem: the failure of attempts at the general modernization of Russia. Once again, the hideous process of natural selection took place—the survival of the fittest in the meat-grinder of WWI. As soon as the authority of officers began to waver, the soldiers swept across Russia and handed power to those who promised to stop the war. Initially, the Bolsheviks, in keeping with socialist ideals, tried to raise a militia-type volunteer army. But as soon as the issue of the very survival of the Soviet system arose, they announced a mass mobilization. One of the Bolshevik leaders, Grigory Zinoviev, put it plainly: “We must act as a military camp… If we do not increase the size of our army, the bourgeoisie will tread us to pieces. We have no other options. We cannot live with them on the same planet. We need our own Socialist militarism in order to defeat our enemies.”269 As early as May 29, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee passed a resolution entitled “On the Compulsory Draft into the Workers and Peasants Red Army.” In 1925–1935, shortly after the Civil War was over, there were two entities functioning simultaneously, a small professional army and a territorial militia. Even at that time Mikhail Frunze believed “each worker, each peasant, each Red Army soldier, and, in the first place, every member of the Communist Party that is in charge of the state must keep in mind that our country is still a fortress under siege, and that this situation will not go away as long as capitalism rules the world; that therefore the energy and the will of the country must be, as before, directed toward the creation and strengthening of our military might; that the state must propagate the idea that the active struggle with our class enemy is inevitable and must create that psychological environment of the nationwide attention, affection and understanding of the army’s needs which alone can assure that our Armed Forces successfully

269

Ernst Nolte, Evropeiskaia grazhdanskaia vona 1917-1945: Natsionalsotsializm i bol'shevizm, Logos 2003, p 461.

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 311 develop.”270 Frunze then came to a logical conclusion: “It is our responsibility to place all of the nation-members of our union under arms, to transform the union into a military camp. This must not be the objective of the military department alone, but also of the civilian apparatus, the soviet, professional, and political.”271 By the second half of the 1930s, the transition toward draft-based Armed Forces was set in motion. In 1939, universal compulsory military service was signed into law, allowing a massive army to be raised rapidly as the World War II approached. Simultaneously, the regime restored a semi-feudal system—peasants lost the right to leave their villages and enjoy the fruits of their labor. It made sense because a compliant peasant made an ideal soldier for an army that values human life very little. Victory over Hitler’s Germany, the greatest achievement of the Russian military school paid for by millions of lives, blinded the Soviet military leadership for decades. For more than half a century it maintained the army structure of the Great Patriotic War. It never occurred to the military that it was necessary to change the system of manning the Armed Forces and the military organization of society. For all intents and purposes, the Soviet Union under Stalin, and after his death, functioned as a huge military camp that lived according to military laws. Education and indoctrination were meant to mold not free men and women but soldiers. It is not a coincidence that such upbringing was and still is referred to as “military-patriotic.” A person who was not able to quickly assemble and disassemble a Kalashnikov was said to be unable to love his motherland. The entire economy was directed not toward satisfying the needs and wants of the people, but toward producing armaments. Due to the system of mobilization preparation, fuel and energy, metallurgy and machinebuilding were oriented toward military needs no less than the 270

M. Frunze, Edinaia voennaia doktrina i Krasnaia Armiia, http://lib.rin.ru/cgi-bin/load/docs.pl?open=37688.txt&page=0. 271 Ibid.

312 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA industrial complexes of all nine defense ministries. It went as far as creating mobilization capacity for producing parts for intercontinental ballistic missiles and atomic submarines at civilian industrial production facilities. In the opinion of Vitaly Shlykov,272 this orientation toward universal mobilizational preparedness predetermined the collapse of Soviet industry. Thus, over the course of almost three centuries, with a few breaks in-between (1860–1880, 1905–1914, 1925–1935, 1987–2014), the primary, if not the only, objective of the Russian state was to maintain a huge military machine. The state regulated everything and everyone, cutting down to the minimum, or even to zero, the role of civil society and private life. There is no way to hide from the fact that Russia held on to these characteristics much longer than Prussia/the German Empire, a classic example of a militarist state. For three centuries, Russia knew only one method to concentrate state resources: military mobilization. The genetic bond between Peter’s decrees, Alexander’s military settlements, Trotsky’s worker armies and the Soviet construction battalions is obvious. For three centuries, the state was interested in the man first as a soldier and second as a means of maintaining the army. It was in the USSR that Lasswell found examples of his concept of a “garrison-state.” “In countries like Russia, long the domicile of Oriental despotisms, progress in the direction of a free man’s commonwealth has been proclaimed, then slowed down, and finally brought to a full stop. Accentuating the danger of war, Russian elites reinstate the methods of despotism in the name of protecting the freedom which they have learned to postpone indefinitely.”273 Lasswell’s hypothesis that countries turning into garrison states would become a global tendency has not been confirmed. However, one can unmistakably recognize characteristics of the USSR, with its super-centralization, in Lasswell’s description of a garrison-state, with 272

Vitali Shlykov, Chto pogubilo Sovetskii Soiuz: Genshtab i ekonomika, М. 2002. 273 Lasswell, p. 119.

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 313 its unlimited concentration of authority in the hands of a few administrators at each level of the vertical of power. “Not only will the administrative structure be centralized, but at every level it will tend to integrate authority in a few hands,” Lasswell wrote.274 The US sociologist and historian Charles Tilly examines the process of formation of modern states through the prism of continuous struggle between two tendencies, the concentration of capital and the concentration of violence. For Tilly, the Russian Empire was an obvious example of a state where the concentration of violence proceeded faster than the concentration of capital. Tilly suggests that preparations for wars and conducting wars had a decisive impact on the structure of the state power. Looking at European history from 990, he divides it into four periods: 1. Patrimonialism (up to the 15th century in much of Europe): Tribes, feudal levies, urban militias, and similar customary forces played the major part in warfare, and monarchs generally extracted what capital they needed as tribute or rent from lands and populations that lay under their immediate control. 2. Brokerage: An era (from roughly 1400 to 1700) when mercenary forces recruited by contractors predominated in military activity and rulers relied heavily on formally independent capitalists for loans, for management of revenue-producing enterprises and for installation and collection of taxes. 3. Nationalization: A period (especially from 1700 to 1850 or so in much of Europe) when states created mass armies and navies drawn increasingly from their own national populations. Sovereigns absorbed armed forces directly into the state's administrative structure and took over the direct

274

Ibid, p. 67.

314 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA operation of the fiscal apparatus, drastically curtailing the involvement of independent contractors. 4. Specialization: An age (from approximately the mid-19th century to the recent past) in which military force grew as a powerful specialized branch of national government, the organizational separation of fiscal from military activity increased, the division of labor between armies and police sharpened, representative institutions came to have a significant influence over military expenditures and states took on a greatly expanded range of distributive, regulatory, compensatory, and adjudicative activities.275 If, as Tilly wittily suggests, we were to represent this period in pictures, the king in the first picture would be depicted in full body armor, sword in hand, commanding his own army. In the second picture, he would still be in a full body armor, but negotiating with the commander of the mercenary army. In the third picture, the king would be wearing a luxurious military coat, obviously not meant to be worn in a battle, and holding a council with his generals and ministers. In the last picture, the king (who could be a president or a prime minister) would be wearing plain clothes and talking to not only his ministers but to those who represent the interests of the civil population.276 I believe that, for a whole set of reasons (each of them representing a topic for separate research), Russia made an effort to transition to the fourth stage only in the 1990s, but quickly stepped away from it. Russia has remained an authoritarian state. The state structure of the country still carries an imprint of the third stage. For example, the Russian Cabinet of Ministers is divided into two unequal parts. Some ministers obviously play a less prominent role in the bureaucratic hierarchy. These are subordinate to the prime minister and are 275

Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States AD 990–1990 AP, pp. 28–29. 276 Ibid, p. 206.

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 315 responsible for the social sphere. The leaders of a dozen of the military and paramilitary ministries are members of the Security Council and are subordinate directly to the president. The only other cases of “twotiered” cabinets existed in Prussia and the German Empire. There is a concept of “national military culture” that is widely used by Western specialists in political science. It refers to the sum total of historical, social, and economic factors that shape a particular type of military thought and approach to military affairs.277 At the foundation of Russian military culture lies the idea that wars are won thanks to, firstly, the existence of a multimillion-man peacetime standing army; secondly, to inexhaustible human reserves that allow the continual replacement of fallen and wounded soldiers; and lastly, to the ability of the state to concentrate all available resources for the purpose of defense. This explains why Russian generals claimed until very recently that they intended to fend off a large-scale aggression using mass mobilization. For more than three centuries, the central element of the Russian army has been not the officer corps, but rather badly trained masses of recruits. This has undermined the ability of officers to show initiative because it is hard to do so when you command hastily 277

The American scholar Elizabeth Kier argues that, during the interwar period, the generals of France and Britain, countries whose economic and political situations were very similar, were guided by different, and at times diametrically opposite, approaches in their decision making. The major factor in adopting the defensive doctrine in France was the decision by parliament to reduce the term of obligatory service to one year. French officers were convinced that one year was not sufficient to train soldiers to be effective in an offensive operation. British ground forces also adopted a defensive doctrine, but their point of departure was that an offensive operation, with its wide use of tanks, was simply alien to the views held by the British officer corps. See: Elizabeth Kier, Imagining War: French and British Military Doctrine Between the Wars, Princeton University Press, 1997. While one could disagree with much in Kier’s statement, the idea of a specific military culture in each country is worth pursuing.

316 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA trained new recruits or reservists. This is also why officers have been educated and trained not to “manage violence,” to use Samuel Huntington’s terminology, but only “to use violence.” They are but military tradesmen, familiar with no more than one or two weapon systems. The leaders of the military establishment do not regard a good liberal arts education as useful, and yet, such an education represents the only possibility for developing a professional set of values and professional ethics. Of course, such things only get in the way when one is commanding a mass army whose functions are guided exclusively by the principle of unconditional obedience to the orders of senior commanders. Russian military culture has defined Russia’s political culture. Richard Pipes points out that Nicholas II sent his manifest of abdication not to the Duma, which was where it was supposed to go, but to the chief of the Russian Army Staff. In the tsar’s mind, the generals were the bearers of sovereign authority. “The army was the creator as well as embodiment and legitimacy of Russian Empire in the eyes of all of Nicholas's predecessors as well,”278 writes the American military historian William Odom. In the last century, Peter Struve wrote, without a hint of irony, that “the army is an embodiment of social life in Russia.”279 Our contemporary, Gleb Pavlovsky, during his time as the Kremlin’s political adviser, repeated Struve’s statement nearly word for word: “What is Russia, if not the army and the Russian language?”280 For the leaders of today, just as for the tsars and general secretaries, control over the army and so-called power structures represents the most important attribute of authority. I have discussed above how unwise was the use of the Armed Forces in the late 1980s 278

William Odom, The Collapse of the Soviet Military, Yale University Press, 1998, p. 63. 279 Kakaia armiia nuzhna Rossii? Vzgliad iz istorii, М. Voennyi universitet, Assotsiatsiia “Armiia i obshchestvo,” 1955, p. 3. 280 “Rossiiskaia armiia i politika: Materialy kruglogo stola,” Krasnaia Zvezda, October 26, 2002.

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 317 and early 1990s. At the core of the mistakes committed by Gorbachev and Yeltsin was this strange idea that the Armed Forces are some kind of panacea capable of quickly resolving any conflict. In the minds of Russian politicians, the ability to give orders to the army has acquired a certain mystical meaning. The events of September 1998 bear witness to this fact. During an unprecedented financial crisis that metamorphosed into an acute political crisis after Prime Minister Sergey Kireenko was fired, a bizarre incident occurred that all its participants were eager to forget. Representatives of the president’s administration were conducting interviews with two candidates for prime minister, Yuri Luzhkov and Viktor Chernomyrdin. Key issues, such as the conditions for redeeming State Treasury bonds, or methods to protect payment systems, or emergency economic powers, did not come up during those interviews. Instead, the participants of the short but brutal fight over the post of prime minister were concerned with something totally different. According to highly placed sources, Luzhkov agreed to accept the post only under the condition that he would have the right to make his own appointments of leaders of the ministries of Defense, Internal Affairs, Emergency Situations and Special Services. Supposedly, it was this condition that the president refused to accept, though Yeltsin had already agreed that Luzhkov would simultaneously retain his post of Moscow mayor if he became prime minister. Shortly after Chernomyrdin had been appointed acting prime minister, Ekho Moskvy radio, citing a source from Viktor Stepanovich’s closest circle, reported that he, too, had insisted on “complete personal control’ over appointments to the power structures. This information was confirmed by ITAR-TASS. In the end, Yeltsin gave Chernomyrdin rights he had denied Luzhkov. This struggle for complete control over power structures might have been logical if either of the contenders planned to use force to quash possible rebellions by ordinary people angered by the worsening economic situation, or if they planned to seize presidential power. In

318 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA the fall of 1998, neither of these possibilities was entirely out of the question. The secretary of the Security Council, Andrei Kokoshin, a political ally of Luzhkov, wrote a report to the president in which he warned that any attempt to use the Armed Forces for resolving this internal crisis would lead to a breakdown of the army, which would refuse to carry out orders. Luzhkov and Chernomyrdin, therefore, despite their usually practical minds, were fighting a fierce political battle for the right to be in control of a phantom—of a weapon they could never use. Another example of this are games played around the infamous “nuclear suitcase,” a portable control panel that the president can use to order a nuclear strike. In winter 1991, immediately after signing the Belovezha Accord, Boris Yeltsin took the defiant step of taking the suitcase away from Gorbachev. In the fall of 1996, after open heart surgery, Yeltsin, as soon as he woke up in the recovery room, took the suitcase away from Chernomyrdin. There is no reason to believe Yeltsin was afraid that Gorbachev or Chernomyrdin would start a thermonuclear war. The truth is that the suitcase is a material symbol of the highest power, simultaneously serving as orb and scepter. In 1998, the competitors for the post of prime minister clearly understood that they were also competing to be Yeltsin’s successor. But Boris Nikolaevich had tempted and given hope to a number of people before. Chernomyrdin and Luzhkov wanted some guarantees that Yeltsin would not fool them. Control over the siloviki was the “holy of holies,” something the president could transfer to the prime minister as a bond guaranteeing he meant what he said. Yeltsin knew very well the symbolic meaning of such a decision. This is why, immediately upon Chernomyrdin’s appointment, Yeltsin called up the generals in the power structures and told them that only the president can give them orders. At the end of 1999, Yeltsin transferred this right to give orders to the generals to the man who he, in fact, decided would be his successor: Vladimir Putin. The peculiar characteristics of Russian military culture that have penetrated every segment of our society probably also account for the

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 319 ambiguous attitude of the Russian people. On the one hand, no one contests the state’s right to draft people into the army and handle peoples’ lives as it sees fit (without ever taking serious responsibility for them). Indeed, the Russian military establishment considers it an innate quality of the Russian people.281 On the other hand, society does not condemn those who find a way to dodge military service. Paradoxically, one could say today with confidence that the “old” militarism, based on draft slavery, is dead due to the objective processes of the country’s development. It has lost its main source of survival—the ability to use an ever-renewable human mass. The demographic situation in today’s Russia is such that the total number of 18-year-old men is practically equal to the officially designated number of positions for rank-and-file men and sergeants in the Armed Forces.282 This means that the concept of a mass mobilization army cannot be realized: There are not enough men to raise it. It is also obvious that industry will never again be able to start the mass production of weapons in an amount sufficient to arm and equip a multimillion-strong army. In the first 18 years after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, “the old militarism” built on a mass-mobilization army was dying a painful death. It seemed that in a few years, the leaders of the military establishment, sickened by the poison of militarist propaganda, would be gone. A new generation would replace them, and the ugly phenomena would simply disappear. But then, miraculously, militarism rose again. Sadly, it was brought back to life by 281

During his time as chief of the General Staff, Anatoly Kvashnin wrote: “The Russian people has its own traditional system of worldviews, priorities, moral values and even a militarized conscience… Russian values differ substantially from those of the civilized West.” “Geopoliticheskoe polozhenie Rossii i ee natsional’nye interesy,” Vestnik Akademii voennykh nauk, 2003, No. 4, p. 7. 282 V. Tsymbal, N. Kardashevskii, Sotsial’no-ekonomicheskie aspekty voennoi reform, “Mnogourovnevyi analiz problemy prizyva na voennuiu sluzhbu v Rossii,” Voprosy ekonomiki, 2006, №1, p. 74.

320 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA “progressive” military reform. Just as in Prussia in the 19th century, Russian military reform, not supported by democratic reforms, brought about not the general modernization of the country but the rebirth of militarism. Without doubt, this militarism, a concentration of the most conservative trends, has become the major obstacle to Russia’s modernization. The Militarism of the Russian State The president of Russia, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, fits remarkably well Alfred Vagts’ description of a “civilian militarist.” It would not be hard for an objective observer to discover in Putin “the unquestioning embrace of military values, ethos, principles, attitudes,” as well as “the contempt for civilian politics, parliamentarianism, parties, the hatred of civilian supremacy, of trade, of labor, of diplomacy.” Essentially, it was the war that propelled Putin to the height of power. Russian voters, terrified by the Chechen militants’ invasion of Dagestan followed by terrorist attacks in Moscow and Volgodonsk, hurried to support the man who promised security. He promised to achieve it by a method they could easily understand, that is, by using military force. The annexation of Crimea, the “hybrid operations” in Donbass, and the air assaults in Syria, also gave a boost to Putin’s popularity. The Russian president, in fact, genuinely loves the showy-heroic aspect of military life. He has been aboard a destroyer and inside a submarine. That creates an impression that he has tried to escape the hostile and corrupt world of politics and plunge into the pure, simple and honorable idealized world of the military. Literally on his first day in the Kremlin, Putin began to build the state he saw as ideal for governing. He began creating the infamous vertical of power. Putin imagined the best system for governing Russia was a strict hierarchy, similar to a military structure. On the top of this pyramid is he, the president, the commander-in-chief. Below are several levels of efficient and loyal bureaucrats able to carry out the will of the highest authority to every corner of this huge country. The

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 321 result of this system is that state power in Russia, once again, is built according to the military-feudal principle. This power, in the minds of Kremlin leaders, is monolithic. Its parceling is considered a heresy. The principle of unity of command is carried over to the political system of the state. It is worth noting that other Russian rulers, from Peter I to Josef Stalin, had unsuccessfully tried to create a “vertical of power.” Today’s regeneration of this approach is partially due to Vladimir Putin and his FSB colleagues’ somewhat romantic notion of the effectiveness of the army command and control system. If Putin were in the professional military, he would certainly know that, within the gigantic structure of the establishment, the ideal execution of an order is an exception rather than a rule. In reality, having removed all checks and balances, having concentrated immense power in his hands and taken upon himself the responsibility of making every more or less important decision, the leader becomes hostage to the information he receives—which means he becomes a hostage to his own secretaries and confidants. Putin has repeated for years the story that the United States is endeavoring to establish ballistic missile interceptors close to Russia’s borders so that Russian missiles can be shot down in their launch phase. In reality, the conception of the American missile defense system is built on a very different idea: Hostile warheads are supposed to be destroyed in midflight. As early as 2009, work on the missile interceptor in the launch phase of trajectory was judged to be impractical and lawmakers decided to close down such work. However, there were bureaucrats who did not want this known. As a result, the participants of negotiations on that topic (if we assume that both sides conduct them in good faith) ended up talking past each other. It is hardly a surprise that this vertical modeled on the army structure stops functioning when even a somewhat serious crisis arises. Take, for instance, the 2004 tragedy in Beslan. As soon as information about the seizure of the school was received on September 1, the president returned from Sochi to Moscow. At the

322 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA airport, he held a meeting with his closest ministers, after which it was announced that the director of FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, and the minister of Internal Affairs, Rashid Nurgaliev, flew to Beslan. Obviously, they could only head there if the president had given them an order to do so. And this is what the president’s spokesperson announced.283 However, as the Duma Committee learned a year later, neither of them had actually been to Beslan. They chose to sit it out. As of today, it is still not clear who exactly was in charge of the operational staff. It is quite telling that Putin’s response to this obvious failure of the “power vertical” was to demand that elections of governors be abolished and, thus, strengthen the system of direct subordination to the president of everyone and everything. This “vertical” itself has become a source of crises. This is because any idea by the leader is perceived as something to be realized without the involvement of any serious experts. Today, those close to Putin do not even deny that the decision about “bringing Crimea home” was the president’s alone. The same is true of the decision to break out of the international isolation in which Russia found itself in the wake of the annexation of Crimea and the “secret” war in Donbass, by embarking upon military operations in Syria. As a result, Russia got involved in a conflict of which it had little understanding. Putin said “I don’t know” 11 times when asked about the military operation in Syria during his press conference on December 17, 2015. Q: “Did the third party benefit from Turkey shooting down the Russian fighter jet?” A: “I don’t know.” Q: “Does Russia need a military base in Syria?” A: “I actually don’t know if we need a base there or not.” Q: “The relationship with Turkey has soured. So what’s next?”

283

O rabote parlamentskoi komissii, Sovet Federatsii, March 9, 2005, http://council.gov.ru/events/news/24840/.

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 323 A: “I don’t know how we are going to get out of this situation…”284 He also did not know that Russian jets were bombing ethnic Turks in Syria. What it means is that the man who singlehandedly, without any institutional oversight, makes decisions about the use of the Armed Forces has neither exhaustive information nor the necessary competence. Another consequence of the deeply militarized minds of today’s Russian leaders is their obvious absolutization of military power. Putin and those in his circle have, on various occasions, blamed their failures on the lack of military force. The clearest example was Putin’s reaction to Beslan: “We have stopped paying proper attention to issues of defense and security.. . In addition, our country, which in the past had the most powerful system of defending its borders, all of a sudden turned out to be unprotected either from the West or from the East… To sum up, we need to acknowledge that we have not demonstrated that we understand the complexity and danger of processes taking place in our own country as well as in the world. In any case, we have not been able to adequately react to them. (We) demonstrated weakness. And, if you are weak, they beat you. Some want to snatch from us ‘the tastiest piece of pie,’ others help them. They do so because, knowing that Russia is one of the world’s major nuclear powers, they think that she is a threat to others. So this threat has to be removed. And, of course, terrorism is only an instrument of achieving these goals.”285

284

Bol’shaia press-konferentsiia Vladimira Putina, Kremlin.ru, December 17, 2015, http:// http://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/50971. 285 Obrashchenie Prezidenta Rossii Vladimira Putina, Kremlin.ru, September 4, 2004, http://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/22589.

324 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA In 2004, which now seems to be the distant past, this mention of the nuclear factor was perceived as a carryover from the time of the Cold War. In reality, it was a harbinger of a new Cold War. The same logic was at work here: Whatever the West does, it wants to gain superiority over Russia. This logic came out loud and clear in one of Putin’s best known speeches, at the Munich Security Conference in 2007: “Yes, the United States supposedly is not developing offensive weapons. In any case, not to the public’s knowledge. Although it, of course, is. But we won’t even ask about it right now. We know that it is. Let us, however, pretend that we don’t know that. But what do we know? We know that the USA has been actively developing, and actually, has already put in place a missile defense system. Yes, today it is not effective, and we do not know for sure if it ever will be effective. But in theory, this is what it is meant to be. Which means, again hypothetically, that a moment could come when a potential threat from our nuclear forces will be completely neutralized. Today’s Russian nuclear forces, that is. And if this is so, the balance absolutely will be upset, one side will begin feeling completely safe and free to get involved in local and, possibly global, conflicts.”286 Putin, in fact, proclaimed that a new era of confrontation with the West had arrived. The interesting thing here is that the view of the military threat is formed on the basis of two theoretical suppositions: the USA may be planning to build up its nuclear arsenal; Washington is apparently creating a system of anti-missile defense to deliver the first strike against Russia. As the years went by, the necessity to confirm suspicions about the intentions of the West has disappeared. “I myself think sometimes: maybe our bear needs to calm down, stop chasing piglets and boars all over the taiga and be content with berries and honey,” Vladimir Putin reasoned at an-end-of-the-year press conference of 2015. “Perhaps they will leave him alone? Nah, they won’t because they will always 286

Vystuplenie i diskussiia na Miunkhenskoi konferentsii po voprosam politiki bezopasnosti, Kremlin.ru, February 10, 2007, http://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24034.

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 325 strive to chain him up. And once he is chained, they’ll pull out his teeth and claws. In today’s understanding, these are nuclear deterrence forces. But as soon as this happens and the bear is not needed, they will start grabbing the taiga right away. After all, we have heard it from various officials many times that it is not fair that all of Siberia and its immense riches belongs to Russia alone. What do you mean it’s ‘not fair?’ Was it fair to chop off Texas from Mexico? And when we are working on our own land, that’s not fair. Have to give it away. And then, after they pull out the bear’s teeth and claws, they will no longer need the bear at all. They’ll just make a stuffed bear out of it, and that’s it.”287 The only basis for such suspicions is a specious quotation attributed to Madeleine Albright, the former US secretary of state.288 But it clearly reflects the worldview of the Russian president. He is convinced that military might is a defining factor of the country’s power and influence. He knows very well that even reformed Russian conventional forces are not sufficient as an instrument of global influence. The 1,500 nuclear warheads Moscow has at its disposal today become, in Putin’s mind, the only factor that makes Russia equal to the USA, the most powerful country in the world. The Kremlin believes that nuclear parity strengthens Russia’s position on issues far removed from those of nuclear deterrence. This explains why, for over 15 years, the head of the Russian state has not been able to reconcile himself with the fact that the Americans pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Putin insists that Washington quit the treaty to break strategic parity—that is, to 287

Bol’shaia press-konferentsiiaa Vladimira Putina, Kremlin.ru, December 18, 2014, http://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/47250. 288 There is a quote, wrongly attributed to Albright, arguing that it is not fair that Russia has sole possession of Siberia with its vast natural resources, and that Siberia needs to be placed under international control. This quotation is regularly cited by the secretary of the Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin, Aleksei Pushkov, chair of the International Relations Committee of the State Duma, and others.

326 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA create a situation when America, using its superiority, would deliver the first nuclear strike on Russia and then, with the help of its strategic missile defense system, intercept Russian missiles. It remains a mystery why, knowing about these insidious plans, the Kremlin signed not one, but two strategic arms reduction treaties. Because these treaties, if we were to follow Putin’s logic, legitimized America’s superiority. Another mystery is why the United States, which has onethird more strategic launch vehicles than Russia, has not yet attempted to use this superiority.289 It is not an accident that before the Ukrainian crisis, the issue of anti-missile defense had been the central point of Russian-American disagreement. It is unlikely that Putin seriously believes the USA would deliver a first strike if it was certain it would not be punished. That is not the point. The point is that the Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense Treaty was a unique international document that postulated that there was a country that could destroy the United States and that, by signing the treaty, the USA acknowledged that it would have to live with this idea. Because of the Kremlin’s obvious desire to “militarize” every conflict, its main phobia, the fear of the so-called “colored revolutions,” was destined to acquire a military dimension. Russian leaders consider any attempt by any people to get rid of their authoritarian leaders to be the result of a conspiracy inspired by Western special services. Speaking in 2014 at an international conference sponsored by the Defense Ministry, Sergey Shoigu said: “Colored revolutions increasingly acquire the characteristics of armed

289

The ABM Treaty was signed in Moscow in 1972. It is no longer in force because the US unilaterally withdrew from it in 2002. The treaty included the obligation not to deploy ABM systems over the territory of one’s country and not create the basis for such a defense. It also limited the number of regions for deployment of an ABM system for each side as well as limited the quantity of launchers deployed in the region. The sides were obligated not to create, test, or deploy systems or components of naval, air, space, or mobile land-based ABM system.

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 327 conflicts. They are planned according to the rules of military art, using all available tools.”290 An attempt to represent colored revolutions as a new form of armed conflict also appears in a new version of the Russian military doctrine that the head of state signed in late 2014.291 In the section entitled “Major Internal Military Threats,” the authors warn of the threat of the spread of “information that impacts the public, especially young citizens of the country, with the goal of subverting historical, spiritual and patriotic traditions in the sphere of defense of our Fatherland.” The authors describe contemporary military conflicts as “a complex combination of military force, political, economic, informational and other means of a non-military character, with the wide use of the protest potential of the population and special operations forces.” The latter is particularly notable. The protest potential of the population is placed here in the same category as the special operation forces of an enemy state. That is, citizens who protest against something they do not like in their country are lumped together with special forces of an enemy state! The absolutization of military force led to the two largest military catastrophes in the history of Germany. Today, this same absolutization has returned Russia to a Cold War with the West. Yet Moscow does not have the kind of arsenal of means and resources the USSR had. The demographic situation does not allow the mobilization of a five-million strong army. There are practically no allies and the economic situation is not exceptional. What is left? Nuclear arms. But nuclear weapons are an effective tool of political pressure only if supported by the recklessness of their owner. The Soviet nuclear arsenal was an important tool of the state’s foreign

290

Aleksandr Tikhonov, “Tsvetnye revoliutsii – ugroza miru,” Krasnaia Zvezda, May 23, 2014. 291 Voennaia doktrina Rossiiskoi Federtscii. Sovet bezopasnosti RF, December 30, 2014, http://www.scrf.gov.ru/security/military/document129/.

328 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA policy because Washington considered the Kremlin’s old-timers mentally unstable and unpredictable. Vladimir Putin built his reputation as a fully rational person, but then began to fight against it, hinting at his willingness to “push the button” if necessary. For instance, in the telefilm Crimea: The Road to the Homeland, Putin says Russia could have put its nuclear forces on high alert during the military operation in Crimea. “We were prepared to do it,” the president says. “I talked to my colleagues and told them that (Crimea) was historically our territory, Russian people lived there, they were in danger, we could not leave them behind.”292 In another propaganda film, The World Order, Putin said Russia’s Kalibr winged missiles proved that Moscow has powerful weapons and that “Russia has the will to use it, if it is in the national interests of our country and the Russian people.”293 One more sign of the militarist mindset of the Russian state is what I would call “securitization.” The main profession of the president and his team defines how they process the information they receive. They have a professional bent for secrecy, a perception that secret, opaque activities are of primary importance (perhaps the only ones of importance). On the other hand, information that is easily accessible is always suspect and often perceived as purposeful disinformation. In this situation, it is inevitable that, at best, the channels of information are minimized and, at worst, perceived as inadequate. As a result, unverified rumors, passed on under dubious circumstance, are served to the top leader of the country, while objective processes that take place before our own eyes are neglected. This is how specters, like how the Americans “could” deploy cruise missiles on ABM launchers in Romania and Poland, gain credence in the minds of some. 292

Putin: my mogli privesti v boegotovnost' iadernoe oruzhie, zashchishchaia Krym, Vesti.ru, March 15, 2015, http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=2427105. 293 Interv’iu Vladimiru Solov’evu, Kremlin.ru, October12, 2015, ttp://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/50482.

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 329 Exaggerating the importance of secret methods of governing usually leads to disdain for transparency. There is nothing more at odds with Putin’s method of governing than open and honest statements about the goals and objectives of the government. According to Putin, anything that is stated openly is a lie and disinformation: “I don’t look at the statements that our partners make to the press. I rely on the information that comes up in the course of our face-to-face discussions.”294 In general, Putin understands international relations as primarily “the king’s business,” that is, personal secret relationships between leaders of states. The essence and limitations of such a policy was clearly demonstrated by the incident in which a Russian bomber was shot down by the Turkish Air Force. Putin expressed sincere indignation that his Turkish counterpart had not secretly contacted him about the incident: “Why was it so hard to make a phone call beforehand or use the established channels of cooperation between the military and say: you know, we talked, but had not talked specifically about this section of the border, and we have our interests here. So keep this in mind: We ask you to do this or that, or simply, do not strike there. But no one even said anything!”295 However, shortly before the incident, the Russian ambassador had been summoned to the Turkish Foreign Ministry and was told about Turkey’s concerns about violations of its airspace. It thus appears that normal diplomatic channels are dismissed altogether. Putin believes a head of state who makes public statements about his or her plans is like a general who informs the world about an upcoming operation. The president will never do something so foolish. The government, politicians and television channel managers

294

Anatolii Papp, “Poslanie Prezidenta Putina k Federal'nomu sobraniiu: otkliki i kommentarii,” SOVA, May 12, 2005, https://www.sovacenter.ru/democracy/publications/2005/05/d4571/. 295 Bol’shaia press-konferentsiya Vladimira Putina, Kremlin.ru, December 17, 2015, http://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/50971.

330 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA instead receive confidential orders from the Kremlin. There is no need for the political opposition to know the state leadership’s plans. According to this approach, any address to lawmakers, any public speeches or press conference, is nothing more than skillfully created disinformation. The objective is to deceive and disorganize the opponent. In essence, the Russian state leadership resembles a man who refuses to take off his night vision goggles during the day. Even on a bright, sunny day, it sees the world as greenish-grey. Finally, the belief that military organization is ideal for society as a whole has brought into the government a disproportionally large number of retired military and retired special services members. Today’s militarism is not the militarism of the military, but the militarism of a police and feudal elite. The source of militarism in Russia is not military and police personnel trying to find their place in civil society, but rather making their careers in government. Militarism and Public Opinion It must be acknowledged that Russian society today shares the militarist prejudices of the Kremlin. Public opinion polls clearly point to this fact. According to polls, the number of positive answers to the question “Does Russia have enemies?” has grown from 65 percent in 1999 to 80 percent in 2015.296 Moreover, 54 percent of those polled believe in the existence of a worldwide conspiracy against Russia, while 30 percent do not.297 In the opinion of 68 percent of those polled, Russia currently faces a military threat from other countries.298 A full 25 percent of respondents are not alarmed by Putin’s statements of willingness to use nuclear arms, while just 16 percent say they are

296

“Obshchestvennoe mnenie -2015,” М. Levada-Tsentr, 2016, p. 247. Ibid, p. 247. 298 Ibid, p. 244. 297

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 331 frightened.299 And a majority of the population considers the Armed Forces the third most important state institution.300 It would appear there is every reason to agree with Anatoly Kvashnin’s opinion that the spirit of militarism is an intrinsic quality of Russians. Like their leaders, they are willing to believe that the country is surrounded by enemies and that only a powerful army can defend Russia. They regard the military as something sacred, holy, as a “state-forming” institution that has everlasting and self-sustaining value. Polls show that during the past decade, popular attitudes toward the Armed Forces and military service has changed dramatically. In 2000, 60 percent of people believed the army was capable of defending Russia in case of a real military threat. In 2015, this number was 82 percent. Half of those polled support preserving universal compulsory military service (compared to the 30 percent in 2000).301 Polls show that 47 percent of people approve of Russian secret military operations abroad, while only 29 percent disapprove. Sociologists have argued that even during the somewhat “peaceful” post-Cold War period, the dislike of militarist mobilization by the Russian population did not represent evidence of mass pacifism or a conscious desire for peace, tolerance and a more rational approach to politics. Instead, Russians were resigned to the idea that more powerful states had humiliated a militarily “weak” Russia. But now, in the light of visible, however modest, achievements in modernizing the army, an active militarist mobilization is taking place. Polling data suggests that the end of the Cold War, the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, the general demilitarization of society and greater freedoms are perceived by Russians as the most important 299

Ibid, p. 261. Aleksei Levinson, “Armiia kak institut socializatsii,” Levada –Tsentr, № 4, 2004, http://www.levada.ru/press/2004092702.html. 301 Ibid, p. 138 300

332 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA changes that occurred at the end of the 20th century. But Russians are currently torn. On the one hand, they are prepared to share their leadership’s militaristic attitudes. On the other hand, the instinct of self-preservation is still at work. A majority of Russians thus wholeheartedly support the Kremlin’s actions in Ukraine. At the same time, 55 percent are worried about a world war.302 Moreover, 39 percent said they would not support the government in case of an open military conflict with Ukraine. Alexey Levinson and Stepan Goncharov concluded that “Over the period of many decades, the Russian public mind has never reflected such a fear of war and has never gone so far in playing with it with abandon.”303 While approving the expansionist actions of the Kremlin, the average Russian would like to just watch the show from the safety of their couch. And they are not prepared to make financial sacrifices for the sake of increasing the state’s military power. Nearly three-quarters of those polled would prefer the government to direct its attention toward the welfare of Russian citizens.304 Alexey Levinson, the leading poll data researcher at the Levada Center, explains that Russian citizens do not fully understand Kremlin’s intentions, something that the public mind longs to be able to do. Thus, before the secret war in Donbass, those polled did not object to the deployment of Russian troops to Ukraine. Ambiguity is also present in public attitudes to the Syrian campaign. Before it started, public opinion was against sending Russian troops to Syria. But as soon as the Russian military presence became an established fact, polls showed that the public approved of it. It is possible we are witnessing a unique type of militarist mindset. It represents not an ideological rationale to justify military efforts, but rather indicates a base of national identity and self-identification. This is why the mythologized and idealized history of the country has 302

Ibid, p. 229. Aleksei Levinson, Stepan Goncharov, “Voina vmesto budushchego: reshenie dlia anomicheskogo soznaniia,” Vestnik Obshchestvennogo Mneniia, 3-4, 2015. p. 46. 304 “Obshchestvennoe mnenie,” p. 137. 303

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 333 gained greater significance and Russians hear a lot about “our heroic past” and “the great power.” The key here is that the attributes of the heroic, of what has been referred to as “Russia’s glory,” are found exclusively in “Russian military successes.” This is fully in keeping with the militarist mindset pointed to by Alfred Vagts. In the Russian collective consciousness, the army is an embodiment of important national symbols and values, a pillar of identity. The defeat that history delivered to the USSR was a painful blow to the national psyche. This, combined with the sense that Russia has recently been humiliated, have persuaded many Russians that strengthening the state is in the national interest. Militarism in Russia today manifests itself not in claims to imperial world domination or ideological influence. Nearly half of poll respondents disagree with the statement that Russia must keep control over former Soviet republics by any means, including force if necessary, while 35 percent say Russia should.305 This ratio has not changed since 2009. Today’s militaristic mindset of the majority of Russians manifests itself in their sincere adherence to what is referred to in Russia as “geopolitics.”306 They believe that all countries are predators, but some are stronger and enforce their will on the weak. 305

Ibid, p. 211. In reality, this is much larger than what is traditionally considered within the framework of “geopolitics” as a political theory. In my opinion, it is rooted in the fact that Marxism considered international relations from the point of view of realpolitik of the 19th century, that is, exclusively as the struggle among the imperialist states for spheres of influence. As a result of this struggle, some states and alliances gain power while others lose power and influence for various reasons. In any case, according to this theory, international relations are what is called a zero-sum game—one of the gamblers wins, the other one loses (see, for instance, Vladimir I. Lenin, “On the Slogan ‘The United States of Europe’” and “Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism”). And because Marxism-Leninism was the only sociopolitical theory used for indoctrinating Soviet citizens, they became followers of realpolitik in its most primitive form, without ever realizing it. 306

334 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA This is an update of the mindset of 19th century imperialism. In this, Russian citizens agree with the president, who is convinced that all other great powers are lying in ambush, waiting to damage Russian interests one way or another. A similar phenomenon occurs in Muslim countries, where citizens interpret globalization as a premeditated attack by “infidels” on the values of Islam. The militaristic mindset of Russian citizens allows Putin’s regime to address several interrelated problems. It allows Putin to present the Russian people with a simulacrum of a national idea. In essence, this simulacrum consists of just one principle: Russia is doomed to confront a multitude of enemies alone. To persevere in this struggle, any means are acceptable. The notion that all kinds of enemies desire to harm Russia somehow elevates the country in our own minds. After all, if Russians are an object of “desire,” the subject of cunning plans, there must be something truly attractive about the country. In this context, evoking the glorious history of Russia’s military victories, first and foremost the victory in the Great Patriotic War, is logical. It remains the central event in the nation’s historical consciousness, even a justification for the excesses of the Soviet regime. This victory has steadily grown in importance, pride in it expands year to year— mostly because the nation cannot find any other positive events to raise its self-esteem. The purposely cultivated nostalgia for the Soviet time,307 to a great extent, hinges precisely upon the glorification of the Great Patriotic War. Its forced sacralization prevents the perception of a more realistic picture of the contemporary world. The dominant argument here is that our foes strive to diminish the historic role of the USSR in destroying fascism. The militarization of national consciousness allows Putin to legitimize his regime. The Kremlin’s political strategists have managed to convince Russians that the key lever of the state’s influence is its military might. If the “might” of the state is the only 307

In his “Message to the Federal Assembly of 2005,” the president of Russia referred to the disintegration of the USSR as the “largest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.”

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 335 important factor, any comparison with other countries is based exclusively on this factor. It permits the government to remove from the agenda any debate about sociopolitical inequality, civil rights and democratic protections—granting authoritarianism and the police state the upper hand. It is all very simple, pro-Kremlin political scientists explain: All states, politicians and parties pursue their own interests, often at odds with each other. And each of them has the “right” to pursue power politics. The only point is to have enough power. Weak countries, as well as “weak” players of internal political struggles, find themselves merely pawns on the battlefield of powerful forces. Power is the only argument in “such a dirty business as politics.” Apologias for the internal administrative abuse of power are carried over to political, including international, relations. Society accepts this presentation of reality because neither the masses nor the elite have any other version of what is going on. It is quite telling that Putin’s political opponents in Russia, in keeping with traditions of mobilizational rhetoric on “the necessity of struggle” with visible and invisible enemies, are labeled “fifth columnists.” According to Putin: “It is obvious that we will have to face external conflicts, but we also have to decide for ourselves: Are we prepared to be consistent in defending our national interests, or will we continue to cede them, to retreat into the unknown? Some Western politicians have already threatened us not only with sanctions, but with the prospect of imminent internal conflicts. It would be interesting to know what they have in mind. Is it activities of a certain fifth column, of all types of ‘traitors to our nation’? Or are they counting on worsening our economic situation and hence provoking people’s discontent?”308 In the absence of any obvious evidence that the Kremlin’s political opponents act in the interests of those infamous external forces, the

308

Obrashchenie prezidenta Rossiiskoj Federatsii, Kremlin.ru, March 18, 2014, http://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/20603.

336 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA activities of nearly every foreign organization not specifically approved by the leadership are labeled subversive. The third important function of militarism in Putin’s Russia is to keep alive the perception of the army as a model state institution. In the opinion of provincial groups, the army’s regimentation represents the “discipline” that Russia so dearly needs. In reality, however, it represents the experience of getting accustomed to the “order” (poriadok) of a repressive society—or the “equality” of all before the command regime. This is the conservative, fundamentally archaic institution that today’s Russia inherited from the Russia of Peter I. A significant portion of today’s Russians regard the army as an ideal model for life organization—similar to how communist society was viewed in the past. In summary, militarism is unquestionably a component of the nation’s public mind. It is an expression of nostalgia for the good old days. At the same time, the militarist stereotypes that play such a major role in the national identity also prop up Putin’s regime and block anything that would contribute to the positive development of the country. That which the Russians value and take pride in, what lies at the foundation of national identity—the heroic past as a great power, a strong state, the immensity of the territories won in the course of countless campaigns and so on—today prevents Russians from understanding the trap of history in which our country is caught. The sacralization of the Great Patriotic War and its victorious outcome stands in the way of a rational approach to our past and, hence, prevents us from understanding the nature of Russian society and the features of current social organization. A passive population is the result of focusing exclusively on the heroic past. Militarist stereotypes convince citizens that the “little man” cannot do anything, that the authorities do not listen to the public, that nothing can be done. The average “Soviet” man believes that positive solidarity in society is impossible and that there is no chance anything will change for the better. The negative impact of militarization on public consciousness goes even further. Alexei Levinson’s and Stepan Goncharov’s article

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 337 “War Instead of Future—a Way out for Anomic Conscience,” 309 points to a horrifying turn in the mindset of Russians. “In the public mind, the idea of a possible or even already existing war is present,” they write.310 The consciousness of Russians is irritated by the complexities of the world and the objectively existing rules of behavior. In this situation, “War is perceived as a means of ending this lawless time, when the nation shakes off the burden of norms and rules imposed from without.”311 The conclusion is shocking—doubly shocking because we are talking about a nation in whose historic memory war was the worst catastrophe of all: “The public mind is expecting war; that is, it does not actively desire it, but it is expecting it with a certain hope. War has that which is necessary to escape the oppressive, even though lived with excitement, present—it is, like death, a great equalizer.”312 It is not out of the question that at some point public opinion will demand new military victories. And the Kremlin, wishing to hold on to its universal approval, will take the risk of new military adventures. Militarism and the Army The militaristic stereotypes in the minds of Russian leaders has inevitably led to ubiquitous military preparations and excessive expenditures on the army. Even as the economic crisis continues, the government insists on huge military expenditures, amounting to more than four percent of Russian GDP. Serdyukov’s reforms stipulated the creation of effective Armed Forces that have a clear purpose. They were meant to deliver victory in a quick local conflict. Abandoning the concept of mass mobilization meant abandoning the idea of winning a large-scale war 309

Aleksei Levinson, Stepan Goncharov. Ibid. p. 58. 311 Ibid, p. 63. 312 Ibid, p. 62. 310

338 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA without resorting to nuclear arms. Yet Russia’s actions in Ukraine have led to confrontation with the West. As a result, the army is faced with problems it cannot resolve. A military conflict with the West, as I have already mentioned, would require many more troops than Russia has. Not a day goes by without Moscow announcing the deployment of new formations. But the demographic situation does not allow them to be fully manned. Therefore, the Defense Ministry is doomed to return to the practice of skeleton units. This essentially means destroying Serdyukov’s achievements. It is obvious that Russia does not have the military potential of the Soviet Union. The only resource that could compensate for this unbalance is the nuclear arsenal. At the same time, the traditional deterrence of the previous Cold War, mutually assured destruction, is no longer sufficient. We are instead witnessing the revival of an extended nuclear deterrence doctrine that was discussed in the 1990s. It proposes that nuclear potential plays a defining role in finding solutions to international problems. Russia threatens to use nuclear arms any time it believes its interests are negatively affected. This is why Putin claimed that, during the annexation of Crimea, he considered putting nuclear forces on high alert. Such a policy requires that the state continually stress its willingness to use nuclear arms. Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu thus promises that Russian strategic bombers will regularly carry out “combat air patrol,” even in the Gulf of Mexico. The darkest scenarios of the previous Cold War have been revived. Judging by media reports, the Kremlin is presently enamored with a system called “Perimeter” that is supposed to automatically launch Russian missiles even if a surprise attack has already destroyed command and control centers. In the West, this system is called “Dead Hand.”313 The 313

A. Valagin, “Garantirovannoe vozmezdie: kak rabotaet rossiiskaia Sistema ‘Perimetr.’ ” Rossiiskaia Gazeta, January 22, 2014, https://rg.ru/2014/01/22/perimetr-site.html (accessed August 12, 2016). It was precisely this article that the TV host Dmitri Kiselev referenced when he promised to turn the USA into radioactive ashes.

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 339 Kremlin purposely allowed “the leak” of information about the “top secret” work on a project called “Status-6.” A couple of video clips “accidentally” shown to the public on two federal television channels showed a meeting at the president’s office in which the project was discussed. Its goal is “destroying the enemy’s vital economic centers in the coastal area and causing unacceptable damage to the country’s territory by creating zones of significant radioactive contamination, rendering them unusable for military, economic or any other activities for a long period of time.”314 The descriptive data on the “slide” explains that this secret weapon is a type of a torpedo that can reach a speed of 100 kilometers per hour at a depth of 1,000 meters. More likely than not, in a bid to intimidate Washington, the Defense Ministry pulled from the shelf and dusted off blueprints from the 1960s, when work was being done on delivering a strike on the coastal USA with megaton warheads. It is clear the state’s military machine is now working on issues far removed from actual defense. But these projects create new threats. A catastrophic event may result not from a deliberate intent to commit aggression, but from trying to intimidate the opponent. This is how World War I started. Pursuing political goals, hostile countries announced general mobilizations. This immediately triggered processes of escalation. Military calculations replaced political will. Each country was afraid to be late, to allow a potential opponent to deploy troops faster. Something like this could occur now, during an acute political confrontation. Striving to demonstrate the seriousness of its intentions, Moscow could announce it is putting its nuclear forces on high alert. Paradoxically, after raising expectations of the effectiveness of the Armed Forces, the Kremlin has not been able to provide a clear delineation of functions between the political leadership and the 314

“V Kremle prokommentirovali kadry telekanalov s zasekrechennoy sistemoy ‘Status-6,’ ” Lenta.ru, November 11, 2015, https://lenta.ru/news/2015/11/11/oops.

340 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA military command. A document entitled “The Ministry of Defense Issues” states that the ministry represents “an organ of command and control of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.”315 Yet the “Directive on the General Staff” assigns to it “the organization of the centralized combat command and control of the Armed Forces.”316 This means that the General Staff carries out both strategic planning and operational command and control of the Armed Forces. It is also in charge of the so-called “military trunk” of the Defense Ministry, meaning it is in charge of everything concerning combat training and the use of troops. This would appear to be a logical attempt to bring all resources under a single leadership. In reality, it is a serious blunder of military development, characteristic of militarists. In countries commonly referred to as “civilized,” the functions of general staffs are strictly limited to military planning and making recommendations to the top leadership. This is not an accident. On the eve of WWI, the general staffs of the major powers unified under their commands both strategic planning and operational command and control of their troops. In other words, the general staffs did their own planning as to when to begin combat actions and how they were supposed to be conducted. They also commanded their troops in the course of war. As the result, both monarchs and presidents found themselves hostages to their military planners. As soon as the assassination occurred in Sarajevo, the mechanisms of universal mobilization were set in motion. Military actions were defined not by the will of any rulers, but by railroad schedules since reservists had to be moved by rail to areas of deployment. In the course of the WWI, the general staffs always insisted that a military solution to any problem was

315

Ukaz prezidenta Rossijskoi Federatsii. Voprosy Ministerstva oborony Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Konsortsium Kodeks, http://docs.cntd.ru/document/901905920. 316 Polozhenie o General'nom Shtabe Vooruzhennykh Sil Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Konsultant.ru, http://www.consultant.ru/cons/cgi/online.cgi?req=doc&base=LAW&n=165 107&fld=134&dst=100015,0&rnd=0.9450666440983865.

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 341 always the best. The German General Staff subverted several attempts to begin negotiations between the opposing sides. A general staff that takes upon itself the entire command and control of the armed forces inevitably serves as a source of militarist influence upon all spheres of society. Russia is obviously returning to this century-old model. This kind of expansion of the “brain of the army” is extremely dangerous. In a crisis, it will likely propose only those solutions it can enact itself, that is, military solutions. Militarism and Russia’s Ability to Compete In this book I have attempted to show the ruinous impact of Russian militarism on state governance, including decision making, the public mind, and indeed, on the country’s defense capability. But does this necessarily mean that militarism can never be a serious moving force in a country’s modernization? The answer is not clearcut. There is no way to hide from the fact that the most significant attempts to modernize Russia, and which unquestionably brought results, have been carried out under the banner of the complete militarization of society. While building his empire, Peter I strove to turn the country into barracks as much as possible. Stalin’s rationale for modernization was marked by an even more pronounced militarism than Peter’s: “We are lagging behind developed countries by 50 to100 years. We need to cover this distance within 10 years. Either we do it, or they will smash us.”317 For centuries, Russia knew no other method except military to mobilization to concentrate state resources for the purposes of modernization. Some today hold the view that, precisely by concentrating its economic potential, Russia can overcome, or “cover,” the technological gap with leading industrial countries. After all, was it not the arms race that made the USSR a superpower? Was it not the development of the military 317

Joseph Stalin, Voprosy leninizma, Izd, 11-е, М. 1947, p. 329.

342 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA rocket programs that brought the triumph in airspace? Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin insists: “If we do not solve the problems of modernization of our country, Russia will become the booty of the global players. Thus, it is our responsibility to do it before 2020, or else they will just smash us.”318 He repeated Stalin’s speech almost verbatim. And the recipe for the country’s salvation is completely Bolshevist: “Today, it makes no sense for us to catch up with the West in the area of building weapons and military technology. In some aspects, we are behind. But what does make sense is something else— we need to understand the tendency in the development of weapons and military technology and methods of conducting armed struggle and then ‘cut the corners.’”319 If we are to believe the statements of Russian leaders, our defenseindustrial complex (OPK) already has some “breakthrough technologies.” It would seem, then, that all we have to do is to provide Russian scientists who are developing advanced technologies with money accumulated from oil sales. Russia will then stop being an outsider and automatically join the leaders of the scientific-technical revolution. This, in turn, will guarantee Russia’s ability to compete— the realization of what Vladimir Putin has long proclaimed to be the national idea. It is difficult, of course, to believe in such brilliant perspectives. To start with, several known attempts to use the OPK as an engine of modernization during the past 30 years ended up in complete failures. It is enough to mention Gorbachev’s conversion program, which is famous for producing titanium shovels and cooking pots. There were attempts to switch the OPK to “the peaceful tracks” in the 1990s, which also failed. So we are left to wonder whether there is something in the very nature of the Russian military-industrial complex (VPK)

318

Oleg Falichev, “Kak ne stat’ dobychei global’nykh igrokov.” VoennoPromyshlennyi Kur’er, № 6, February 15, 2012. 319 “Zhdem pomoshchi ot voennoi nauki i ‘oboronki,’ ” VoennoPromyshlennyi Kur’er, № 5, February 8, 2012.

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 343 that stands in the way of using its spectacular achievements to improve Russian competitiveness. It is important to keep in mind that those scientific-technological breakthroughs have been achieved thanks to concentrating all state resources in one particular area. Presentations of their breakthrough character, at least for the past 40 years, have been somewhat exaggerated. Major-General (Ret.) Vladimir Dvorkin headed the 4th NII (Scientific Research Institute) of the Defense Ministry for many years. He spent more than two decades developing and using a system to analyze the level of technical excellence of everything that had to do with space rocket technology. It is here that the USSR had maximum achievements and results. “The whole system was premised on first analyzing the level of technical excellence of the element base, materials, all precursor products that would go into the building of the rocket,” Dvorkin explained at seminars organized by the Liberal Mission Fund. “Next, we evaluated the level of technical excellence of individual systems, aggregates, engines, control systems. Then the level of the whole rocket launcher. Then we examined the entire system, including performance characteristics. In the end, an ideal model emerged, formed on the basis of our conceptualization and knowledge of all modern research achievements. Finally, Soviet rockets were compared to this ideal model. At best, our launcher, in its characteristics, came 15 to 20 percent short of the level of the most advanced model, as a rule American. But in the majority of cases we were behind by a large factor. And that because of the elemental base, because we did not have high-precision technical instruments. For instance, the precision of the American rockets was two times higher, while the mass of the system control was two-an-a-half times lower.” This is a sober and fair assessment. There were times when something “unique,” without any analogues, was produced because the “normal” could not be made. For instance, Russia inherited from the USSR the unique, largest in the world submarine rocket cruisers of Project 941. These submarines were actually catamarans. But the reason was quite prosaic: Because they lagged in terms of composite

344 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA materials, the Russians were not able to produce compact rockets. As a result, in order to place on their submarines the same number of rockets as the American “Ohio” type submarines, the Russians had to build a rocket carrier that was two times larger than the American one. A well-known OPK entrepreneur, Dmitri Zimin, who spent more than three decades working in the Soviet radio-electronic industry, offered an even more sober assessment: “The Russian engineering complex was excluded from competition. Everything was defined by decrees of the Central Party Committee and the Department of Defense orders, especially where we dealt with the systems that basically cannot be tested, for example, the anti-missile defense system. Whether the project would end in success or failure was defined mostly by the signatures of customers, that is, representatives of industries and the military who had been participating in this for decades. In other words, we worked according to the saying ‘Take it easy: we’ve got the directive—we are doomed to succeed.’” On the other hand, there is no denying that whatever in Soviet science and technology was modern, albeit not unique and the most advanced, concentrated on solving military problems. The same applies to today’s Russia. If this is so, could the new militarization lead to a breakthrough? I believe that the answer is found in the theory put forward by prominent military and economic expert Vitaly Shlykov. It reveals the militarist nature of the Soviet economy. According to Shlykov, it makes no sense to argue about what percentage of Soviet industry worked for the military because 100 percent of the Soviet economy was, in one way or another, involved in preparations for war. Shlykov called this phenomenon “structural militarization.” The industrialization of the country in the 1930s had one major objective: to reorient industry toward war preparations. Stalin did not hide it. Manufacturing “peaceful” goods, whether pasta or railroad cars, was a secondary objective. The main goal was mobilizational preparation for producing war-related goods. The data for the production of tanks in the USSR is telling. During the 1930s, the Soviet Union produced more tanks than the rest of the world, 2,000–3,000 annually. However,

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 345 the mobilizational capacity that was supposed to be created during the second five-year period had to be ready to produce up to 70,000 tanks per year. Resources directed toward building up mobilizational production plants were by far greater than those that were allocated for the development of the actual military industry branches. In addition to VPK No. 1, which, according to Shlykov, included the complex of plants that produced weapons, there was also VPK No. 2—a monstrously outsized raw material sector of primary industry. It produced far more oil, metals, and chemicals than industry needed. All of it was for weapons production during wartime. “The country’s entire economy was built on the premise that in peacetime such resources were not necessary for war, therefore they were moved back into the civilian sector in order to maintain at least some balance,” Shlykov observes. Under this system, the civilian sector was needed only to switch to military production on a whim, and in peacetime, to consume the surplus resources that the war economy did not need. The USSR, for example, produced 4.5 million tons of aluminum annually. However, there was no use for it. Around 10 percent of it went into military production; they did not know what to do with the rest except make spoons and plates (by the way, the Soviet Union was the only country that came up with the “smart” idea of making dishes of aluminum). Shlykov points out that, according to the General Staff’s blueprints for mobilizational deployment, two to three months after the start of war the Soviet Union was supposed to reach the peak of industrial production. Instead of 1,000 aircraft, for example, workers were expected to produce 30,000. In this way, both immense reserves of materials and huge production plants were created. Approximately the same thing happened with titanium, coal, rolled steel and a large part of machine manufacturing. Obviously, this was an economic system fallacious by its very nature. It not only disregarded the welfare of citizens, but actually impeded quality of life in every possible way. But at least it was a balanced economy. The balance was achieved by simply taking a huge part of GNP out of the economy. This prevented the so-called planned

346 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA economy from falling apart. Culture specialist Igor Yakovenko accurately defined this phenomenon as the “strategy of pyramid building.” In his opinion, this strategy guaranteed the homogeneity of Soviet society by equalizing all its members via forced across-theboard poverty. Yet this kind of economy could only exist under the conditions of complete isolation and autarky (i.e., an economic regime of self-sufficiency that minimized international trade). That system was doomed to fall apart as soon as economic goals became something different from war preparations. Shlykov insists that the balance was upset when Khrushchev suddenly decided to purchase grain from the West, paying gold for it, when the country faced famine. When the gold ran out, the government began to export oil in exchange for grain. Oil, however, was one of the most important components of inter-industry balance and it could not be exported without upsetting the balance. It caused inflation. Gorbachev increased the economic crises manifold when he attempted the conversion of military production to the production of consumer goods. According to this logic, the 1991 collapse of the economy was not caused by excessive military production alone. The USSR collapsed due to the overproduction of raw materials intended for the mobilizational economy. Exports, for which Russia opened the gate in 1991, saved the economy. The country’s surpluses flooded Western markets. In Shlykov’s opinion, today’s Russian economy represents the remnants of the structurally militarized economy of the past. Paradoxically, the structural militarization of the Russian economy has increased lately due to the significant shrinkage of industrial production output and the expansion of raw materials production. Could these remnants of the structurally militarized economic system be of use to the general modernization of Russia? A situation where modern technologies are transferred to the civilian sphere from the military, something that has occurred in Russia during the past 30–40 years, is not characteristic of developed countries, which are now going through another scientifictechnological revolution. In developed countries, the process is

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 347 reversed: Breakthrough technologies first appear in the civilian sphere and their development is guaranteed by investments that are much larger than the government can provide. Only later do these technologies find their way to the defense sector. However, let us take for our point of departure the fact that Russia has to play the cards it has. The best specialists and relatively modern technologies are currently in the defense industrial complex. In addition, the state is currently willing to finance military programs. It is possible that Vladimir Putin, inspired by the examples of Peter I and Stalin, has been trying to revive the application of the structural militarization of the country as a whole. The problem is that this is virtually impossible in a market economy, even such a unique market economy as Russia’s. Military production in the USSR was based on the so-called planned economy and autarky. The bulk of components for military production were made at civilian production plants. Stalin’s conception of industrialization was precisely that—to build industrial production plants supposedly meant to produce consumer goods. But weapons were also produced there. In wartime, all production plants would shift in a very short time to defense needs. This, of course, could not but affect the quality and prices of consumer goods (which did not bother the leadership). When Soviet consumers bought slacks made at the “Bol’shevichka” factory or “Minsk” refrigerators, they financed the production of components for missiles and atomic submarines. That is why it was important for the regime to prevent other, cheaper and better quality products from entering the domestic market. It is obvious that the Soviet “defense industry” could only survive under the all-powerful Gosplan (State Planning), which allocated all funds and set all prices, whether for raw materials or components, thus guaranteeing the necessary cost-effectiveness. But in the 1990s, the largest part of Soviet industry died. The smaller part reoriented itself to the production of different goods. Today’s owners of the enterprises that did survive do not need the defense sector as their customer because working for it would inevitably make their primary

348 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA goods more expensive and, thus, render them less competitive. Every now and then, the government comes up with the idea of introducing into the economy something similar to the infamous prodrazverstka, a surplus appropriation system, in this case an obligation imposed on private entrepreneurs to produce military goods (which the entrepreneurs evade as much as they can). In this context, betting on the impetus for modernization coming from some magical technologies created at the military industrial production plants is not terribly realistic. Even if these technologies are developed, under the existing OPK system they cannot be brought to fruition. That is why all previous attempts to shift defense-oriented production to consumer-oriented production, which implies mass production, have failed. A clear example of that was the story of the GLONASS global navigation satellite system). Russia was able to launch into orbit a satellite group. But the receiving devices had to be made in China and Taiwan. If it is not possible to “cut” technological “corners” with the help of OPK, then perhaps efficient military production could become an economic engine. Deputy Defense Minister Tatyana Shevtsova has claimed: “The breakdown of Defense Ministry expenditures by economic sectors indicates that defense procurement and acquisition interacts with nearly all existing economic sectors, for instance, airspace, aviation, shipbuilding, automobiles, as well as education, civil engineering, and healthcare. In real terms, when OPK enterprises increase their output, it increases demand for metals, energy, transportation, and so on. That, in turn, results in economic growth, which after a certain period of time will bring about a greater demand for other economic sectors’ products compatible with the structure of their expenditures.”320 In principle, this approach has a right to exist. Suffice it to remember how defense-related industrial production in the USA during WWII brought about a great economic boom. However, this 320

Dmitri Semenov, “Voennyi biudzhet bez tain,” Krasnaia Zvezda, March 6, 2015.

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 349 theory has not been confirmed by Russia’s experience. Thus, if we were to believe official pronouncements,321 Russia is successfully carrying out a super-expensive (more than 23 trillion rubles) program of rearmament. But the supposedly successful completion of government defense orders has not impacted general industrial production, which continues to decline. It is possible to assume that “growth” may indeed occur, but it is reflected in increasing expenditures, not increasing output. Most military technology is manufactured by enterprises that have a monopoly on it, and they have no scruples about overpricing. It should be mentioned that, just before Serdyukov was dismissed from his post, the Defense Ministry refused to finance orders that would be fulfilled by defense corporations which had unexpectedly raised prices for their products (something that visibly irritated Putin). All Serdyukov wanted at that point was to figure out the mess with prices. He had every reason to suspect that manufacturers were brazenly hiking prices to compensate for their inefficiency. If a submarine made by Sevmash takes nine years to make, the minister argued, all expenditures, including pig farms, children’s summer camps, resorts and health clinics must be included in the price of this wretched submarine. Such a submarine used to cost 47 billion rubles, said the indignant minister, but now this production plant is proposing to build it for 112 billion. “Guys, show us all these costs which you are including into your price, make them transparent, and we will be willing to throw in 20 to 25 percent more so that you can make a profit,”322 Serdyukov said. But when manufacturers made their prices

321

I must point out there is not a whole lot of systematized information publicly available on the current state of the OPK. Every now and then, the Kremlin and Defense Ministry make public the data on completing a defense procurement order, but do not take the trouble to make sure the numbers are even partially reconciled. 322 Viktor Litovkin, “S ‘Bulavoi’ napereves,” Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie, July 8, 2011.

350 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA transparent, the price “immediately falls 20 to 30 percent,” Serdyukov complained. Serdyukov’s seemingly legitimate demand that prices be made transparent enraged the captains of the VPK. Academic Yuri Solomonov articulated the anger: “Our Defense Ministry has turned into a tax inspection?! But the taxmen have a different psychology, their brain is different.”323 Solomonov scornfully labeled as a “taxman” anyone who was so boring as to attempt to find some justification for jacking up prices. But the reason for price hikes is quite obvious: Because there is no established chain of industrial cooperation, missile manufacturers are not able to start serial production. Solomonov added: “The orders are too small. Cost effectiveness—zero. Manufacturers are not interested in such small orders. And on top of all that, the machinery is outdated and they don’t make this kind any longer. It’s going to end badly, unless some extraordinary measures are taken.”324 This prominent scientist was dreaming about a new Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria. Not the NKVD butcher, but the curator of the “atomic project” who held all of the country’s resources in his hands. The stern comrade with pince-nez on his nose, who was interested in one thing, and one thing only, that the party’s directives be carried out without fail, no matter the price. A new Beria would always give the Designer General whatever amount he asked for. And such trifles as why he needs precisely this amount and not 30 percent less - well, the leader would not worry about that. Such a system could never be economically efficient, because economic efficiency is not the goal. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that during the previous decade, no modernization of the defense industry occurred. Under the leadership of Putin and Ivanov, a parody of the Soviet VPK was created. The branch ministries of the USSR (the famous “nine”) were revived as united corporations of 323

Aleksandr Stukalin, “Goszakaz 2011 goda uzhe sorvan—on uzhe vypolnen ne budet,” Kommersant, July 6, 2011. 324 Ibid.

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 351 aviation, shipbuilding, and so on. These are very similar to kolkhozy (collective farms), where one efficient enterprise feeds a dozen others that are on the verge of bankruptcy. The money that keeps them alive is included in the price of the military technology they manufacture. The bureaucrats who are in charge of those corporations are eager to include as many enterprises as they could without ever considering their efficiency and their ability to participate in producing arms. The main thing was to have a maximum number of employees, which would allow them to demand direct financing from the government (and to threaten possible social protest). Thus, Sergey Chemizov put together in his “Rostechnologiia” almost 1,500 enterprises, of which at least one-quarter were on the verge of bankruptcy. The effectiveness of this type of organization was well described by Igor Ashurbeli, the former head of Almaz-Antei, one of the most successful groupings of military industry enterprises. “I no longer have any desire to work in this aggressive environment, when the government’s sole objective is to create defense-industrial state capitalism,” Ashurbeli said. “Private enterprises have no business to be in such an aggressive environment, whose goal is to either swallow you up, or take away contracts, or squeeze you in one way or another.”325 Reports periodically appear in the press about delayed wages, personnel cuts, reduced workweeks and forced furloughs. Such events have occurred at the conventional weapons storage and destruction facility Shchuch’e in the Kurgansk oblast; the Ural transportation engineering factory in the Sverdlovsk oblast; the Ural factory in the Chelyabinsk oblast; the Novouralsk instrument factory; Uraltransmash in Ekaterinburg; the Ural railroad car building factory and other enterprises in the Lower Tagil; the Tambov explosives factory; Revtrud; the Sretensk shipyard; the Kazan helicopter factory; the Izhora factories; the Dzerzhinsky machine building factory in Perm; the Bryansk metal works and heavy equipment plant; 325

“Iz oboronki – v kosmos i politiku,” Argumenty Nedeli, July 7, 2016.

352 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA enterprises of the Almaz-Antei concern; the Avtokran plant in the Ivanov oblast; the Roslavl automatic assembly plant in the Smolensk oblast; the Alexandrov TV engineering research institute Rekord; the Pacific bridge-building company (contractor at space launch site Vostohnyi). Particularly difficult situations were experienced by Chelyabinsk’s Polet, Vladivostok’s Radiopribor, Dormash in Orlov, and Kurganmashzavod.326 It turns out that even the most successful industrial groups, such as the United Aircraft Corporation, which seems to successfully complete state defense orders each year, have been in the red.327 It goes without saying that attempts to recreate the Soviet system of military production in the absence of total control has led to unprecedented corruption. The leadership has tried to apply every conceivable bureaucratic measure to reduce the level of theft. Two federal agencies were created to oversee defense orders and defense procurement. In 2015, there was a proposal to create an extremely complex system of control. Under that proposal, all links in the chain of payments in the production of a concrete type of armament would have a single number assigned to that specific state order to control its overall price. All participating suppliers would open separate bank accounts in designated banks (which would become full-fledged participants). The goal of this mechanism, according to Deputy Defense Minister Shevtsova, was to “assign color” to the flow of money for a concrete order to separate it from the general budget of a participating enterprise and make transparent all financial transactions. The reasoning behind the law about the “coloring” of funds allocated for state defense orders is clear. Within the past several years, the government has often faced a situation where money allocated for the production of armaments disappeared without a trace after the enterprise that executed the final assembly distributed the funds 326

Sergey Matiushkin, “Kuratory v osobo krupnykh razmerakh,” VoennoPromyshlennyi Kur’er, № 28 (643), July 26, 2016. 327 Ibid.

The Country of Victorious Militarism | 353 among producers of different components. State corporations that integrate hundreds of factories are similar to gigantic collective farms—it is as if they were designed to make funds disappear without a trace. The new laws specifically prohibit the use of “numbered” accounts to purchase bonds or precious metal bars, contribute to charities or make payments to individuals. As is typical of Putin’s Russia, special attention is paid to control. Thanks to a unified information system, these days the Defense Ministry and the Industry and Trade Ministry control the fulfillment of defense orders. The Audit Chamber conducts “risk assessment for the non-targeted use of allocated funds.” The Federal Antimonopoly Service conducts “preliminary risk assessment for hiking up prices.” There is also a financial intelligence squad to nip in the bud any suspicious operation. But there is one problem: Under this system, enterprises were not able to function. A package of amendments had to be introduced and, as a result, the system of control was weakened. And so, the war on corruption entered a new cycle. It would appear that a complete revival of the structural militarization of the economy, with its perpetual commodity shortages, universal poverty, and complete economic isolation from the rest of the world, is unlikely. However, the de-specialization of military industry, its transformation into a sector of industry that lives according to the same economic laws as other industries (this was the path the United States chose in the 1980s), is just as unlikely. The real wealth Russia inherited from the USSR was the human capital accumulated by the Soviet OPK: an educated population capable of reeducation; engineering designers capable of finding original engineering solutions to compensate for the general scientific-technological backwardness. However, this was the kind of capital you could not use instantly or put in your overseas bank account. Thus, it was simply ignored. And it is still ignored by the current administration. For all the talk about reviving the OPK, its deprofessionalization continues: Young people refuse to join. The

354 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA average OPK employee is quickly approaching retirement age. This precludes a rational use of the Soviet heritage. Russia’s modernization based on militarization looks unlikely. The Kremlin has been wasting money as it seeks to win over a maximum of the military and people working in the OPK. In V.V. Shlykov’s opinion, the idea of turning the country into a primary commodities superpower will inevitably bring about a new form of militarism (a primary commodities militarism). The leadership intends to use mobilizational resource raw materials, which it inherited from the USSR, as a source of enrichment for the “new” post-Yeltsin elite that consists primarily of representatives of the power structures. The army, law enforcement and special services will concentrate on securing for this elite continuous access to primary commodities. Russia may turn into a wild police state, similar to Latin American banana republics. But it will not survive beyond the next economic crisis.

Conclusion: Is Catastrophe Inevitable? Modernization of the Russian military machine failed to become (and never had any chance of becoming) an engine for large-scale institutional changes. The success of military reforms in Russia in the 21stcentury, like in Germany in the 19th century, resulted in the rise of militarism. If we try to extrapolate the German experience to the nearest future of Russia, the perspectives look sad both for Russia and the rest of humanity. Germany was cured of militarism (which, I repeat, is an inevitable result of a successful military reform in an authoritarian state) by going through two military catastrophes. But a nuclear Russia (along with the rest of the planet) has no chance of surviving a world war. Yet the Kremlin has embarked on a road that may lead to one. The country’s leaders, when presented with problems, treat them every time as a military threat or a challenge. And professional military personnel, in a drive to increase their influence, rush to present the Kremlin with interpretations that conform to this worldview. This means that Russian responses to most challenges will be military (this is what militarist states do). The Russian population, brainwashed by propaganda, will push the Kremlin toward new military escapades. It is not out of the question that the object of the next “little victorious war” will be the so-called “Russian regions” of Kazakhstan. The Kremlin could also try to repeat its Syrian “war on terrorism” experience in Libya or Iraq. This would lead to its complete isolation internationally, and intensify the new Cold War. It is little comfort that this new Cold War does not look like the old one, when hundreds of thousands of troops confronted each

355

356 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA other. However, the source of these wars is still the same: an irreconcilable conflict between superpowers that cannot be resolved by military or diplomatic means. If the previous Cold War was caused by the collision of two sociopolitical systems, the new one is the result of Putin’s understanding of how the world works (a perspective shared by most Russians). The Russian leader periodically organizes a fieldtrip into his world for members of the Valdai Club. This world has nothing to do with reality, only of Realpolitik. But it is not the refined world of modern Realpolitik a la Henry Kissinger, where a balance of interests of the leading world powers is achieved through a complex process of taking into consideration not only military interests, but first and foremost economic interests. In contrast, Putin’s world is the simple (if not primitive) Realpolitik of Bismarck, Metternich and Stalin. The power players sit around the table and endlessly gamble, with no one winning. It is revealing that Putin’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly in 2015 became a paean to the “Yalta system.” Putin was completely honest at a November 2016 meeting with the leaders of the Armed Forces and the OPK: “The strategic balance of forces, which was created in the late 1940s and early 1950s, has allowed the world to avoid major armed conflicts.”328 In this system, the militarily and economically weaker countries are merely pieces on the world chess board, doomed to bow to the will of the superpowers. It is no coincidence that, when he wants to sting European countries, the Russian leader periodically begins to talk about their “limited sovereignty.” These are the kind of views that led to the Ukrainian crisis and the annexation of Crimea. Putin is convinced that any popular movement anywhere is a plot by foreign intelligence. In his opinion, the Euromaidan crisis was an attempt by the West to push him away from the “Yalta table,” around which sit the “rulers of the world.” And the Russian president responded in his own way. 328

“Soveshchanie po voprosam sozdaniia novykh vidov vooruzhenii,” Kremlin.ru, November 18, 2016, http://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/53268.

Conclusion | 357 It is not possible to resolve this kind of crisis by diplomatic means. Putin will never trust his Western “counter-partners.” If they try to explain to him that the time is long past when Churchill and Stalin could cut and paste the borders the way they saw fit, Putin will accuse them of hypocrisy and trying to remove him from world affairs. It is not possible to resolve this kind of crisis by military means because the two opposing sides possess weapons that could destroy the planet. At the same time, Russia no longer has the resources the USSR possessed during the first Cold War. It has virtually no allies. The Collective Security Treaty Organization is simply not in the same category as the Warsaw Pact, and most European countries are now NATO members. Russia has an aging population and there is no way to raise a five-million-man army. If the Soviet military was effective only when it operated with gigantic masses of troops, today’s Russian Armed Forces are effective only when they operate with small forces. Russia’s economy is weak. Its industry is not able to handle the serial production of a full range of weapons. So how can Russia stand up to the West? A gigantic nuclear arsenal. Putin’s worst nightmare is that the hypothetical aggressor would somehow deprive him of his nuclear power. This explains why the Kremlin has been carrying out an accelerated nuclear rearmament. But even having nuclear arms does not provide Putin with the authority to solve global problems. The only way to turn nuclear weapons into an effective political tool is to prove to the West that people in the Kremlin are not quite sane. They are capable of “pushing the button”—and not only in response to nuclear aggression. The provocative statements about putting “nuclear forces on high alert” during the Crimean events, and about mysterious “combat patrols” over the Gulf of Mexico, are aimed in this direction. This concentration on nuclear blackmail becomes particularly dangerous if we take into account that the use of military force has become Putin’s main means of communication with the rest of the world. Seeking to pull Russia out of its international isolation following the intervention in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, the

358 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA Kremlin got involved in the civil war in Syria. It is quite possible that, in keeping with its militaristic convictions, the Kremlin will respond militarily to all future crises. This makes the years ahead very dangerous. Being much weaker than its hypothetical opponent, the Kremlin is doomed to act recklessly, continually raising the stakes and balancing on the verge of military confrontation. New military adventures will always be accompanied by nuclear threats. Under these circumstances, any incident on the sea or in the air (and the number of potentially risky situations will inevitably grow as NATO expands into the Baltic and Black Sea regions) could potentially have catastrophic results. When talking about the first Cold War, it is important to remember that, at least in the 1970s and 1980s, the rules of the game were clear and both sides understood the “red lines” that could not be crossed. All efforts were made to avoid war on European territory. In the current decade, Moscow did not think twice about redrawing European borders and conducting military operations in the center of the continent. When we try to extrapolate the experience of the first Cold War to today’s situation, we realize that we are certainly not in the 1980s. We are in the early 1950s. The Korean War and the Caribbean crisis are still ahead of us. It is no coincidence that Putin points to the 1940s and 1950s as the period when the balance of power was established. Some scholars believe that under Stalin’s rule a nuclear conflict between the USSR and United States was possible. Are we back to the past? During a conflict like the Korean War or Cuban missile crisis, the planet could be turned into ashes. But the Soviet leaders who ruled after Stalin’s death had gone through a terrible war. In fact, they feared war. When there was real potential for military conflict, they raised the stakes only to a certain level. After that, they backed down, even when it meant an obvious humiliation. This is what Khrushchev did. When he realized that the USSR and USA were on the verge of a nuclear confrontation, he withdrew Soviet rockets from Cuba. Brezhnev abandoned plans for a first strike on China. As for today’s leader, he apparently is not aware of what his endless game of escalating nuclear threats could potentially lead to.

Conclusion | 359 We can assume that another process will continue simultaneously. In keeping with the laws of the militarist structure of the state, the Russian Armed Forces will be presented with new tasks. Responding to every challenge by military means will exhaust the country’s resources. Today’s army effectiveness has been due to the limited character of the tasks that it has faced. It has delivered victories in brief localized conflicts. But as soon as Russia enters into a direct confrontation with NATO, its leaders will see no option but to return to the mass mobilization that led to the collapse of the economy and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. There are two competing future scenarios for a militarized Russia. One is unimaginably horrible, while the other is very bad. The horrible scenario would be a direct confrontation with the West, beginning with a mutual escalation of threats and inevitably concluding with the destruction of all life on this planet. The bad scenario is the new Cold War, which will inevitably lead to Russia’s involvement in military adventures like the one in Ukraine. An arms race will pressure Russia’s resources. The resulting economic problems will be accompanied by increasingly harsh suppression of protests, political and social. The consequence will be the gradual disillusionment of the population. Another “Soviet-style” disintegration contains huge risks: social upheaval, perhaps even civil conflict. Still, this is better than a nuclear catastrophe. It is good to remember the positive aspect of the previous adversarial relationship between Russia and the West: peaceful coexistence. There is a pressing need to sit around the negotiation table and start work on new treaties and measures for military trust. Of course, it is not so simple when the Kremlin handles its international obligations so cavalierly. Today, mutual trust is simply absent. Experts will have to find new methods to verify compliance with the terms of future treaties and agreements. Obviously, new measures for establishing military trust must take into account the revolution in military affairs. In particular, limitations must be imposed not only on arms and the numerical strength of ground

360 | MILITARY REFORM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA forces and aviation, but also on air defense capabilities and the ability to wage cyberwar. It would be foolish to expect quick results from negotiations about such complex issues. Political factors will also influence negotiations. The West will do whatever possible to make sure—in view of the annexation of Crimea and the covert war with Ukraine—that military-security contacts with Moscow do not resemble a normal relationship. The Kremlin, on the other hand, will set conditions aimed at signaling a return to relationships as they were before the crises.329 Nevertheless, such negotiation must begin. As long as the relationship between the two sides is so confrontational, negotiations will be important simply for the sake of having negotiations. Conducting them creates space for an informal exchange of opinions and information, which could be vital during future crises. Engaging in a Cold War inevitably leads to the tightening of the screws in domestic politics. The parties currently represented in the Duma, in keeping with the Soviet tradition, enthusiastically embrace Putin’s military adventures. The same could be said about the Russian media. If a miracle was to occur and someone loudly criticized the regime’s military policies, such criticism would not find any support among the Russian people. The nation’s sobering up will not come any time soon, but when it does, it will be extremely painful. What is the responsibility of today’s liberal analysts (and this author counts himself among them)? The fact that neither the regime nor the public will listen to us must not stop our analytical work. We must carry on as long as possible. Our work must serve two extremely important objectives. The first is to provide the future leaders of democratic Russia with a clear plan for military reform that would allow a painless transition to civilian control. This work cannot be 329

It is telling that when, in 2016, proposals were made to begin consultations on measures toward mutual trust in the military sphere, the Kremlin demanded that these consultations take place in Moscow. This was rejected by NATO, which had earlier decided to limit all contacts to the NATO-Russia Council, headquartered in Brussels.

Conclusion | 361 limited to written texts. It is necessary to begin the process of preparing college students (via special courses and seminars) to become future civilian specialists who will have knowledge and understanding of the specifics of military organization, culture and economy. Such knowledge will be vitally important to preventing future national leaders from being misled by conservative generals. Let us not forget the zigs and zags and somersaults of the military reform of the 1990s, when power was, it seemed, in the hands of democrats. Our paramount objective must be to counter reaction with clear plans of reform and the education of those who will implement them. The second objective, perhaps even more difficult, must be to enlighten Russian citizens about what the army and other “power structures” of a modern state should be like and why civilian control over them is absolutely necessary. We need to begin this conversation with society by demythologizing their perception of the Armed Forces as some kind of special institution, an embodiment of all that is heroic in the Russian character. We need to start writing an honest account of our history, an account that will not focus exclusively on the brilliance of military victories but also tell the story of how the burden of militarization hindered the country’s development for 300 years. I am certainly not so naïve as to believe that books and articles, however informative, can achieve some critical change in the brains of Russians intoxicated with the heroics of militarism. No, the change will be caused by socioeconomic factors. And when it occurs, it will be, I repeat, very painful. It is precisely at that moment that our citizens inevitably will want to learn about alternative views on how the most important state institutions, including, of course, the Armed Forces, must be organized. I hope this book, among others, will be helpful to them.

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About the Author Aleksandr Golts was born in 1955. In 1978, he received an MA in journalism from the Department of Journalism at the Moscow State Lomonosov University. From 1980 until 1996, he worked with the Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) editorial board, a Soviet and then Russian military daily based in Moscow. In 1996–2001, Mr. Golts served as military editor of Itogi (Moscow), a premier Russian news magazine. In 2001–2004, he worked for the Moscow-based magazine “Yezhenedelnyi Journal” (“Weekly”) as deputy editor-in-chief. He currently works as a deputy editor for the website EJ.ru and is a regular contributor to The Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Daily Monitor, where he writes on Russian military reform and defense issues.

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