What should be done with the Russian Army, how can it escape crisis, and what is real reform? These were the subjects of Expert’s conversation with Alexander Sharavin, the Director of the Political and Military Analysis Institute. In September, the Institute began a serious campaign by releasing its “Armed Ideas,” in essence an alternative project for reforming the Russian Army.

- What contradictions do you see in the Defense Ministry’s Urgent Tasks, which spells out potential threats to Russia?
- This document was drafted by people with absolutely differing political views, education, and analytical skills. For example, on the one hand, it states that the outcome of armed struggle is determined, mainly, in the air and at sea. On the other hand, later it focuses exclusively on the combat training of land forces. The air force is covered in one small paragraph, and the navy is not mentioned at all. You get the feeling that completely different concepts have been pasted together. For example, at the political level, we declare that we do not regard the US and NATO as military enemies, whereas Urgent Tasks states that we may be confronted with an adversary possessing long-range, high-accuracy weaponry which will act mainly in the air. Who else, apart from the US, has high-accuracy, long-range weapons? The French and the British do but they have very few.
Another example: the report states that in the Far East Russia should concentrate mostly on anti-assault landing operations. Who will land in the Far East? Again, only the US and perhaps Japan one day. In some nightmare scenario, it could also be Australia, although what on earth would Australia want in the Russian Far East? As our giant Far-Eastern neighbor – China –needs no landing operations whatsoever. It has vast land borders that, incidentally, have not been agreed upon so far. There is not a single word about this potential threat in Urgent Tasks.
- Yet, this very conceptual development will be taken as the basis for reforming the Russian Armed Forces and on the basis of this very concept potential threats to the country will be determined, right?
- Thank God, the Defense Ministry’s Urgent Tasks is by no means the new Russian military doctrine. A military doctrine is an official document that must be approved by Presidential Decree.
- As I see it, to begin with, we must determine what to do with the Defense Ministry and the General Staff. What’s in store for them once reforms finally start?
- The Defense Ministry’s central machinery and the General Staff consist of thousands and thousands of people. When I came to the General Staff in the late eighties, it was made up of 25,000 generals and officers. Today, the General Staff controls everything. We need a different governing body, which is compact, up-to-date, and able to exercise real control rather than work everything out to the smallest detail. The hierarchical system watches over a commander from the top to the very bottom. As a result, a general works for a colonel, the colonel – for a major, the major – for a lieutenant, the lieutenant – for a sergeant who acts as a private soldier. It is accepted as normal that there are no sergeants in our army at all. This is one of the most important problems. In our opinion, sergeants should be engaged on a contractual basis. The junior officer staff should be restored and strengthened.
- Everyone chants that word – contract, contract—like a mantra. Has anybody made a realistic estimate about what is behind the contractual system and whether it is acceptable for a country like Russia?
- The active creation of myths is currently underway. The myth of the contractual army says it will solve all the problems. The military, too, has let this myth push them around, by and large. First, many think that with a contractual army we’ll be able bring the Armed Forces to full strength, but this isn’t necessarily so. Furthermore, I believe that the transition to the contract system poses a serious threat to the country. While today we have an army of workers and peasants (those who are unable to pay their way out must serve), with the transition to contracts, we’ll get an army of marginal people, which will pose a considerable threat to the country, as a whole, and to those people who support such an army.
I’d like to repeat: the Russian Armed Forces should be rebuilt from scratch.
- Do you mean that a new army should be founded and exist in parallel with the current one?
- Yes, I do, and there is nothing exotic in this proposal. There is simply no other way. When a socio-economic formation undergoes change, all power structures have to be created anew. The Bolsheviks demonstrated this. The people have always acted this way. Take, for example, Napoleon who created the most powerful army in the world on the basis of the Royal Army and conquered Europe.
- But how will these two armies co-exist? Isn’t that a frightening thought?
- No, it isn’t. The old army will exist for some time anyway. It won’t disappear, and we should not simply break it down. It will be disbanded in time. We should have a careful attitude toward those officers who have dedicated their entire lives to the army. Soldiers could be enrolled in the new army for no more than one year via competition. This system would ensure that a military caste alienated from society does not form. But in the first of place, we must emphasize reform of the junior officer staff. Sergeants in the new army should be professionals. They, first and foremost, should move to contracts. We have good material resources and personnel. We have excellent officers and excellent sergeants. Thus, the very best officers should be gathered in so-called “points of growth.” We must form basic units in the new army, say one formation per each type of armed forces. The new formations should also have new relations, service regulations, procurement procedures, command, and military ranks.
We must introduce competition and promote people in their military careers. Civilians should take posts not directly concerned with command activity or the maintenance and use of military equipment. The feeling inevitably arise that we are creating elite units. However, we are creating them so that they will not remain elite for good. Rather they should be used to form more and more new units to replace the old army.
A new system of objective and territorial commands – South, West and East—needs to be established. It should not copy our present military districts, which are yet another bureaucratic structure inherited from the last century. We propose new principles of objective divisions in the Armed Forces. They should consist of a nuclear triad: strategic command (intercontinental and ballistic missiles, missile carriers, and strategic submarine cruisers and strategic aircraft), general forces command (land troops, the Air Force, Air Defense Force, and Navy) and special operations command (Special Forces, intelligence, and, probably, the foreign legion). Incidentally, the Defense Ministry says nothing about intelligence. The intelligence personnel should be enrolled from among highly qualified psychologists, journalists, experts, political scientists, software specialists, translators, and hackers. These troops should have their own mass media and address both foreign and domestic audiences. Intelligence largely tips the scale in a military conflict today.
- Will only officers and sergeants be enlisted on a contractual basis? Will privates be enlisted via conscription?
- Under present circumstances, I reiterate, a contract army will turn into the army of marginals. Soldiers will be bullied and even killed by their own mates. Yes, a soldier who serves in the army under conscription should be paid decently and feel that he is a fully valued citizen. He will, but in time.
At the first stage, we must provide him with the guarantee of free higher education. We suggest that the whole system of conscription should be altered. We believe that local draft boards rather than military registration and enlistment offices should deal with it. Properly speaking, draft boards will be responsible for ensuring that invalids and drug addicts will not be drafted. That is to say, civil agencies should be responsible for manning the army.
I believe that an excellent soldier can be trained in nine months. From the military point of view, in the foreseeable future, we won’t escape the principle of a draft army, nor will we be able to manage without the exterritorial principle of service, as Russia is populated very irregularly. Practically all our population is concentrated in the European part of the country and very few people live beyond the Urals. By the way, population is rapidly declining there.
- Several military conflicts have occurred in the world in the last four years, first of all, US operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and Russian operations in Chechnya. What lessons should we learn from these very different wars of the new era?
- The American operations in Afghanistan gave rise to the myth of zero-contact combat that will allegedly be waged in the near future. I think that this myth will remain a myth. Land troops occupy territory all the same, and land troops still consolidate the success achieved in the air, space, and at sea. Today, we can see that main forces of an enemy really can be defeated from the air, but it is not that simple to exercise control over a territory even with super-powerful modern units and formations. This can be seen in the dramatic situation currently developing in Iraq. The main lesson we must learn from the Iraq war is, in my view, that we should change our attitude towards the value of a soldier’s life, be he a general, a private soldier, or an officer. The Russian army is still a cannon fodder. The value of human life should be made the top priority when forming a new Russian army.

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