Russia To Reform Military

[Sionnach Glic]

19:4314/09/2009
Leading Russian military expert Vitaly Shlykov spoke during one of the sessions of the Valdai Discussion Club last week about the sweeping reform of the country's armed forces, which begins in December and will cut the number of tanks from 20,000 to 2,000 and reduce the number or reservists to just 100,000. The reform, which Shlykov described as nothing short of a revolution, will significantly affect the Kremlin's approach to the composition of and future cuts to the country's military arsenal.

Shlykov, who heads the Security Policy Commission of the Defense Ministry's Public Council, is a former deputy minister of defense and a retired colonel of the GRU military intelligence service. He is also one of the authors of the reform plan. On the margins of the conference, RIA Novosti's Andrei Zolotov Jr. spoke to Shlykov about the upcoming drastic changes in the military.

Q. What are the components and the significance of the military reform that is underway in Russia?

A. It's very broad, with dozens of ways in which what is going on can be understood. But the gist of it, the reason why the chief of the General Staff has said that it is the biggest reform in the last 200 years, is that Russia is giving up the mass army preparing for a large-scale war. That old system was introduced by War Minister Dmitry Milyutin in 1874. The purpose was to have a rather small regular army for peace time and a huge pool of reservists, five or six times the size of the regular army. And that was followed for almost 150 years. That explains the existence of so many divisions, so many tanks which were a part of so-called "empty divisions." The majority of Russian divisions consisted of a couple of hundred officers of different ranks, a small company of soldiers, and lots of equipment stored at the base. And in the case of war, conscripts would be called up and the division would be considered to be combat ready.

Q. And what comes instead?

A. Instead comes a much smaller army if we consider the reserves as a part of it. The reserves are gone. The General Staff thinks that it is sufficient to have about 100,000 reservists and 1,000,000 strength of a regular army.

Q. So, basically, there is no more mobilization?

A. No mobilization, no large-scale war, no threats from NATO. Why was the threat of the NATO so popular with the military? Because it allowed them to keep up the old system, this mobilization system, and consider themselves useful, though the regular officers of those divisions have been doing nothing for the last 15 years -- no military training, no re-education. We had 20,000 tanks, now 2,000 tanks will be left. The rest will be turned into scrap.

Q. And what kind of effect is it going to have on Russian nuclear arsenal?

A. Well, the military ought to be not necessarily prepared for a large-scale war, but certainly ought not exclude it completely from its planning. And for the time being nukes are the replacement - and mostly tactical nukes, because strategic nukes are a political weapon. The tactical nukes are actually the replacement for those reserves, dozens and dozens of reserve divisions in case of something happening. It is not considered a real threat at the present time. But when they speak about Chinese spread or NATO spread, you cannot just dismiss it as something impossible. Still, in the planning and they ask: "Are you ready to respond to a large-scale Chinese attack?" Of course, those small brigades of 3,000-4,000 men would not be serious force compared to the Chinese. So what about the nukes?

That's the old tactic of NATO against the Soviet Union, when it had an overwhelming conventional power in Europe. NATO was relying on nukes. That's not a new project, just takes over the old NATO approach to

Q. The Soviet army?

A. Well, yes, there is nothing new under the moon

Q. And what about the sergeants?

A. Lots of experts - and I was pretty vocal about this - were saying that an army cannot exist without professional sergeants - sergeants who stay with soldiers beyond the time of their compulsory service. But the Russian sergeants were conscripts, they were serving among the people the same age. And with this hazing, with the two years of service, the soldiers of the second year of service, the so-called "old soldiers," consider themselves superior to regular sergeants. So, an army was existing without sergeants, and officers were taking over for them. That is intolerable! But it was tolerated for more than 20 years.

Now, from December 1, we are starting to educate regular sergeants, prepare them at special schools, with the length of studies from two and a half years to three years. They will be well paid even when studying. They are promised to get at least 35,000 rubles -- that is more than $1,000 per month - after graduating from those schools. And they are eager to serve!

Well, it is a step forward. It is not a solution, because we do not have a real hierarchy of sergeants as most armies have. But still, it's a start, it's a step in the right direction.

Q. But there has been a lot of talk about a need for military reform and announced reforms over the past 15 to 20 years, most of which do not seem to have come through. What makes you believe that this one can go through?

A. Because it is not really a reform. Not many people remember that President Vladimir Putin said in 2003 that the reforms were finished. There will be no reforms, there will be modernization, he said, because the word "reforms" had been used by different defense ministers in uniform coming from different services. Under the cover of the term "reform" they were settling their accounts with competing services. The paratroopers would start reducing the infantry, when paratrooper Pavel Grachev was the minister. When the minister was Marshal Igor Sergeyev from the Strategic Missile Forces, he wanted to unite under him all nuclear forces with naval submarines, strategic bombers, and everything, taking all the money for the strategic service, and so on. That made everybody unhappy and brought clashes. Actually the service chiefs were destroying each other using the term "reform."

That is why "reform" is not the term, it is not applicable actually to what is being done. It is a revolution actually, which Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov has launched. He said it is a "new look" army. Well, December 1 will be the point of no return: Russia, unnoticed by most observers, will have a new army. Only 100 percent strength in all the brigades, divisions, army corps. Reserve regiments are gone. It is certainly a revolution! And it is difficult to accept with the military mind, that is why lots of officers are unhappy about what is going on. But it should have been done, in my opinion, five, 10 - maybe even better - 15 years ago. What's being done is overdue. But it's painful.

[Mikey]

Wow. That's absolutely phenomenal. I have a nagging doubt, with Putin still pulling the strings, that we're hearing the whole story...

[Monroe]

Interesting this comes within days of the missile defense shield being scrapped...

[sunnyside]

Interesting this comes within days of the missile defense shield being scrapped...

While I'm guessing that's just a coincidence. It is kind of funny that days after we announce we're removing the things that could shoot down tactical nukes that they're restructuring their military to be based around using tacnukes to prevent "NATO expansion".

Actually that does present a scary scenario.

Nukes are horrible weapons when used against cities of civilian structures. And they can contaminate an area so it's unlivable for decades. However we've found that they're actually not so great against heavily armored military vehicles. I mean yes, if you strap a nuke to a tank and detonate the thing the tank is done for. However the tank a mile away is fine. So if you're trying to use nukes to take out advancing armor that's deliberately spread out, you're maybe getting 0-2 tanks killed per nuke, fewer if they're supported by anti missile systems.

What I'm saying is that when considering some proxy states like Georga or Iran, we could have commanders that figure their forces can handle a tacnuking with acceptable losses, and so move in. Putting Russia into a position where their choices are to have their bluff called or to actually detonate some nukes, which would surely cost them any political or moral high ground they had.

Although that's hypothetical. Both sides seem primarily interested in avoiding major conflict. Russias thing is probably more adapting to the modern age so they aren't wasting cash on forces they wouldn't really use, and restructuring so they can go galavanting about if they feel like it.

[Captain Seafort]

It is kind of funny that days after we announce we're removing the things that could shoot down tactical nukes

No, you're not - that was designed to counter much longer range weapons. It would be useless against CAS, artillery and tactical BMs, which would be the favoured method of deployment for tac nukes.

Nukes are horrible weapons when used against cities of civilian structures. And they can contaminate an area so it's unlivable for decades.

No, they won't. There'd be higher than normal incidences of cancer, but once the initial fallout has settled the physical damage to the infrastructure would be a far more serious problem than radiation - Hiroshima was well on its way back to normality by the end of 1945.

However we've found that they're actually not so great against heavily armored military vehicles. I mean yes, if you strap a nuke to a tank and detonate the thing the tank is done for. However the tank a mile away is fine. So if you're trying to use nukes to take out advancing armor that's deliberately spread out, you're maybe getting 0-2 tanks killed per nuke, fewer if they're supported by anti missile systems.

You're looking at it the wrong way - tactical nukes remain very effective against dispersed armoured formations, even through they're pretty poor at hard killing them. The problem is that infantry have to either a) stay buttoned up inside their vehicles or b) fight in NBC gear - which would be difficult to put it mildly. Of course that's assuming the nukes were even used against armoured formations, rather than their support elements.

What I'm saying is that when considering some proxy states like Georga or Iran, we could have commanders that figure their forces can handle a tacnuking with acceptable losses, and so move in. Putting Russia into a position where their choices are to have their bluff called or to actually detonate some nukes, which would surely cost them any political or moral high ground they had.

Which would the Russians waste nukes on the Georgians? 58th Army thrashed them last year without any such help. The tac nukes are being held in case they have to take on the Chinese.

[sunnyside]

No, you're not - that was designed to counter much longer range weapons. It would be useless against CAS, artillery and tactical BMs, which would be the favoured method of deployment for tac nukes.

I'm not so sure about the SRBMs. But my understanding was that those installations would be protected by the Patriot system.

But in any case yes, that's not what they're made for.

No, they won't. There'd be higher than normal incidences of cancer, but once the initial fallout has settled the physical damage to the infrastructure would be a far more serious problem than radiation - Hiroshima was well on its way back to normality by the end of 1945.

The key word there was "can". While an airburst isn't so bad, when you start detonating on the ground/in the water things are much worse for long term radiation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_ ... ioactivity

While I won't claim to know tacnuke tactical docterine, it would seem if you're going after tanks or ships than lower detonations would be in order.

And even then you'd have to use quite a few to make something "unlivable".

You're looking at it the wrong way - tactical nukes remain very effective against dispersed armoured formations, even through they're pretty poor at hard killing them. The problem is that infantry have to either a) stay buttoned up inside their vehicles or b) fight in NBC gear - which would be difficult to put it mildly. Of course that's assuming the nukes were even used against armoured formations, rather than their support elements.

Armored infantry are supposed to stay buttoned up until they're near the enemy anyway.

Against supply convoeys they could be quite effective.

I'm not so sure about bases. Not that they wouldn't wreck a base, but bases tend to have air cover, be outside artillary range, and be near population centers such that the tactical/strategic difference gets blurred.

Which would the Russians waste nukes on the Georgians? 58th Army thrashed them last year without any such help. The tac nukes are being held in case they have to take on the Chinese.

They wouldn't use them against a piddly little country all on its own. No need. It would have to be a situation where an actor that could be victorious gets involved, like China, NATO, the US. Or I suppose if Russia feels a critical need to bail out a country that it can't sufficiantly support with it's conventional forces due to distance. I.e.if it decides to protect Venezuela if somebody goes after them.

Still, I doubt any of that would come to pass. Mostly I just think they don't want NATO thinking they can win anything anywhere.


More worrying and practical would be if Russia uses the savings and restructuring to make a force that starts meddling in world affairs.