In the aftermath of
the Russia-Georgia war of August 2008, Russia's political and military elites
embarked on a highly ambitious program to reform and modernize the armed forces
by 2020. That program envisages abandoning the mass-mobilization principle in
favor of forming mobile, permanent-readiness forces, capable of reacting to the
order to deploy within "one hour."
In April 2009, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Denis
Blair said in unclassified written answers to the Senate Intelligence Committee
that the ongoing reshaping of Russia's ground forces will enable it to
"militarily dominate" most of its neighbors.
Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov has been
castigated by some domestic opponents who argue that his reform will destroy
the Russian Army. Yet, dramatically downsizing its oversized officer corps to
maximize efficiency, switching from a division-based to a brigade-based table
of organization, and reforming the General Staff Academy and the system of
military education pale in comparison with the huge challenges involved in
modernizing its aging equipment and weapons inventory.
Many aspects of the reform agenda are so radical,
far-reaching, and multifaceted that Western and Russian commentators have
failed to identify the key elements. One widespread misconception is related to
the affordability of the plan to downsize the officer corps by 205,000 by 2012.
Since doing so will undoubtedly be very costly, especially in light of the
current economic crisis, many dismissed this as another failed bid to reform
the structures.
In fact, Western interpretations of these reforms have
consistently underestimated key aspects of the program, assessing it primarily
in terms of Russian economic potential and stressing the officer downsizing.
Many aspects of the present agenda, currently far advanced,
are thus missed, ignored, or simply ridiculed as signs of impending failure.
They include the speed of transferring to brigade structures; overhauling the
system of military education; radically changing the General Staff Academy;
introducing a civilian chaplaincy; rewriting the manuals on combat training;
and focusing on noncommissioned-officer (NCO) training and testing the new
structures.
'New Look'
By June 2009, the mass mobilization, division-based system
had already largely disappeared. In its place, more than half the required
brigades were already formed and exercises and training were geared to testing
and developing these new structures.
The Russian media coined the phrase "new look" to
describe these monumental changes. However, there appears to be something more
going on than simply concentrating on appearance; this is no public-relations
campaign.
Indeed, it is impossible to understand the ongoing
transformation of the Russian armed forces by measuring it in terms of Western
paradigms, such as its inability to conduct noncontact warfare, or by
emphasizing the armed forces' lack of sophisticated modern weaponry.
The Russian military is changing fast; few are able to
perceive the sheer breathtaking scale of these changes, and the familiar
methods of assessing its conventional capabilities are passing into history.
Analysts, commentators, and decision makers on all sides are unable to fit the
"new look" Russian military into a familiar pattern.
While the main focus of the reform campaign is to produce
mobile, permanent-readiness formations capable of intervention within a
relatively short period, which some might perceive as a Western paradigm, in
reality any improvement to Russia's conventional forces will have implications
for the country's foreign and defense policies.
While it is very likely that the structures that emerge will
still compare unfavorably with Western militaries, they will nonetheless meet
the needs of a modern and potentially resurgent Russia, enhancing its
capability to project power within its "near abroad."
What must be stressed is that the current condition of these
forces is so decrepit and desperately in need of modernizing that the reform
agenda will not contribute to improving "interoperability" with NATO
forces for future peace support operations. Such a benevolent strategy would
require both political will and intensive supporting programs agreed between
Moscow and NATO.
Both are unrealistic given the shift in the geopolitical
landscape after the Georgia war and the ongoing opposition in Moscow towards
any future eastward expansion of the alliance. Moreover, without these
programs, the lives of allied personnel could be potentially jeopardized by any
ill-conceived plan to create interoperability.
Indeed, analyses of the Russian military in the wake of the
Georgia conflict, which exposed many of its conventional failings, concentrated
on its future military requirements in precisely this context. For instance,
although one key feature of the large-scale military exercises Kavkaz 2009 in
late June was to test the new brigade structures under an
"antiterrorist" guise, those exercises appeared to rehearse an
improved version of intervention in Georgia.
Unrecognizable
Much of the reform program also appears hurried, such as
introducing widespread changes within the manning system before a revised
military doctrine (expected in late 2009) is published. On August 10, President
Dmitry Medvedev sent a bill to the Duma that constitutes the legal basis for
future intervention by the Russian military abroad in protection of its
citizens or its national interests. Until the reforms are completed, it is
difficult to extrapolate policy implications, but one thing is clear: By the
end of this year, the Russian Army will be unrecognizable.
The challenges are immense.
For example, can the ailing defense industry, whose
weaknesses have recently been highlighted by the test failures of the new
Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), meet the demands to modernize
equipment and weapons? Those seemingly endless conventional requirements range
from modern communications equipment to new platforms for the air force and
ships and submarines for the navy -- a huge undertaking given the present
severe economic constraints and the shortage of skilled defense industry engineers.
Russia may instead procure some Western weapons and
equipment; it has recently concluded contracts with Israel for Unmanned Aerial
Vehicles and communications technology from the French defense company Thales.
There are evidently other challenges, ranging from
establishing a reformed system of military education, revising combat training,
and decommissioning more than 200,000 officers by 2012. The modernization of
the equipment inventory will almost certainly take longer than planned.
However, one fundamental aspect that may take a generation
to resolve relates to the future role of noncommissioned officers (NCOs). In
essence, the delegation of decision making and a culture of promoting
individual initiative embodied in the NCO concept will take considerable time,
energy, and commitment in the Russian context: it is entirely new and will
unsettle many traditionalists.
It is a truism that generals invariably assume the next war
will be a carbon copy of the last. Since Russia's first military intervention
beyond its borders in the Georgia war last year, the Russian military
leadership has actively pursued an analysis of the "lessons learned"
from that campaign. Granted, this partly fed into the overall effort to embark
on the sweeping reforms now under way. But historically the Russian military
has proven adroit in rapidly assimilating the lessons of previous conflicts or
learning during the course of a larger conflagration, such as the response to
Barbarossa in 1941.
The extent of the changes under way is unparalleled in the
history of the Russian armed forces since the end of World War II, perhaps even
earlier. Western militaries can only now begin to study and monitor these
transformations, while those closer to Russia (in Central Asia, for instance)
are already privately admitting new difficulties in conducting joint exercises
or training. Intentionally or not, this process will undermine most NATO
military training programs in the former Soviet Union.
While any comment on the policy implications is premature,
it is likely that the Russian conventional armed forces will emerge in the next
few years as an unrivaled dominant force within the former Soviet space;
capable of sudden, decisive intervention, with minimal damage to the country's
international credibility.
Meanwhile, the opportunities for the West to take advantage
of this new reality may be limited to the commercial sphere, in the form of
defense contracts. It is highly unlikely that the tumultuous structural shifts
and modernization of the Russian military are in any sense aimed at
complementing Western multilateral efforts: This is an exclusively Russian
venture.
