Serdyukov’s Plan for Russian Military Reform
Ruslan Pukhov
On October 14, 2008, following a meeting of the Collegium of the Russian Defense Ministry, Minister Anatoly Serdyukov announced the launch of a new stage of military reform. If the Defense Minister’s reforms go through as planned, it will mark the most radical transformation of the Russian military system since 1945, touching upon every aspect of the armed forces, including service strength, central command and control bodies, tables of organization, and the officer training system. The reforms were clearly influenced by lessons drawn from the August military campaign against Georgia, even if the strategy had been developed much earlier. Indeed, the general thrust of reform was expected from the moment Serdyukov was installed at the Arbat. Nevertheless, events in Georgia have enabled Serdyukov to act decisively.
The main points of Serdyukov’s plan are as follows:
* Accelerate the downsizing of the armed forces;
* Reduce the number of officers and restructure the composition of the officer corps;
* Establish a non-commissioned officer corps;
* Centralize the system of officer training;
* Reorganize and downsize central command and control bodies, including the MOD and the General Staff;
* Eliminate cadre formations and bring all formations to permanent readiness status;
* Reorganize the reserves and their training system;
* Reduce the number of units, formations, and bases;
* Reorganize the Ground Forces into a brigade system, eliminating the regiment, division, corps, and army echelons; and
* Reorganize the Airborne Troops, eliminating divisions.
Cuts to Personnel and the Number of Officers
According to Serdyukov’s announcements, the planned reduction of the service strength of the armed forces from 1.13 million to 1 million servicemen will be advanced from 2016 to 2012. The number of officers will be reduced radically, from 355,000 positions currently on the books to just 150,000. That said, the actual number of officers to be discharged is less. Some 40,000 positions are currently vacant, and these will be eliminated by the end of the year. Moreover, 26,700 officers are due to be retired, and another 9,100 will have reached retirement age in 2009. In addition, 7,500 serving officers were called up for two years after graduation from civilian institutes of higher learning. They will be discharged at the end of their term, and this category of specialists is no longer being recruited. The remaining 117,500 officers will be discharged over the course of three years. To a large extent, their release will be effected as a result of another reform, announced by Serdyukov in early 2008, concerning the transfer of a number of positions, such as military medics and lawyers, to the civilian public service.
The central command and control bodies also face steep cuts. Serdyukov counted 10,523 people in the central apparatus of the Ministry of Defense and another 11,290 working for the military command bodies of the Ministry; in all, almost 22,000. This total is to be reduced to just 8,500, including 3,500 in the central apparatus of the MOD. In line with these changes, personnel at the General Staff will be reduced by 50 percent by March 1, 2009.
Serdyukov described the current personnel profile of the army as «shaped like an egg, swollen in the middle. There are more colonels and lieutenant colonels than junior officers. By the end of three years we will have built a pyramid, where everything will be clearly structured and proved.» Accordingly, the number of lieutenants and senior lieutenants in the armed forces is to increase from 50,000 to 60,000.
The creation of a non-commissioned officer (NCO) corps, formally lacking in the Soviet Army, is an important element of the reforms. A strong corps of NCOs should serve as the basis for soldier training and military discipline. But the introduction of sergeants into the system will take not three to four years as envisaged, but at least 10-15. This delay could undermine reform by creating problems with management and the manning of those combat arms where a relatively high percentage of officers are involved in the direct operation of military equipment, such as the submarine fleet, air- defense forces, etc.
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