In the middle of the week, an expanded meeting of the collegium of the country's main military department was held with the participation of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief - President Vladimir Putin. The collegium summed up the results of the reform of the Russian Armed Forces and outlined the priorities for further changes in the Russian army.
During the meeting, various issues were raised related to the acquisition of a new look by the Russian army. As it turned out, both the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and the generals of the Ministry of Defense have answers to a number of questions, but the unambiguity of these answers in certain cases raises certain doubts. These, let's say, dubious theses include Vladimir Putin's thesis that it should take three to five years to bring the army to a fundamentally new level - and not more. Three to five years is actually more than a short period, which shows that it is simply impermissible to drag the reform rubber further. However, the tightness of this period raises certain concerns, which can be characterized by the following phrase: will they have time?..
Moreover, even those people who are behind the reforming machine of the Russian army today, it seems, cannot say for sure themselves, but what exactly is the transition of the Russian army to a new qualitative level? If this qualitative level consists in the ability on the part of the Armed Forces to reflect any modern threat to the security of the country's citizens, then this is one thing, and if the new qualitative level is "correctly verified" paper reports on increasing the army's combat capability and modernizing all spheres of its activity, then this is absolutely other.
Obviously, any person who respects himself and the Russian army as a whole and who is involved in military reform understands that the time frames that Vladimir Putin sets for the Ministry of Defense are too short to implement the idea of a total improvement in the combat capability of army units. Although even the tightness of the deadline is not at all the main problem - in four years the Third Reich was defeated … The fears lie elsewhere.
If at the time of these, the announcement of tight deadlines for the fulfillment of the set paramount task by the head of state led to the beginning of large-scale work and to the fact that subordinates and subordinates of subordinates began to literally dig the ground with a "hoof" in order to meet the deadline, and keep within acceptable quality parameters (otherwise you will go to jail for sabotage or sabotage), today times are completely different. And "other times" give rise to those before whom the tasks are set, roll their eyes and dream: "Maybe those same three to five years will pass, and the Supreme himself will forget about his demands." And after all, oddly enough, dreams of this nature often come true …
I would like to sincerely hope that this time such dreams are not destined to come true, and already in 2016-2018 Vladimir Putin will harshly ask all those who are directly responsible for the reformation procedures in our country. Hard - it will not just say with poorly concealed anger “you are working well…” in the event of a failure to meet deadlines and an increase in the cost of implementation, but it will also help to send those responsible, or rather irresponsible, to the bunk. Although what we are talking about here: we have all questions at the level of "send - not send to the bunk" are in the competence of the third branch of government - the branch of the judiciary …
In general, the terms of the transformation of the Russian army into a completely modernized version, announced by Vladimir Putin, have been announced, which means that it is time to roll up our sleeves and start titanic work. More precisely, to continue the work that was started even before Sergei Shoigu came to the post of Defense Minister. But after all, that "pre-Shoigov" work, it seems, cannot be continued, for it was under the previous leadership of the War Ministry that the most important anti-modernization blunders were made. Among such blunders are the excessive reduction of military universities, and the complete destruction of such a military link as warrant officers and warrant officers, and the disbandment of several thousand military camps, and, most importantly, financial crimes, the perpetrators of which, for some reason, cannot be brought to justice. …
It would seem that it is necessary to move to a sensible policy in terms of bringing the Russian army to a new qualitative level. The President seems to mention this in his speech: "not all decisions on reforming the Armed Forces have justified themselves." However, at the same time he makes a very strange addition: "… there should not be constant shuffling, endless revisions of previously made decisions, especially since now we are entering the stage when precisely fine grinding of all mechanisms of the military machine is needed."
This addition makes it possible to judge that, in principle, the reform itself has already been carried out, and in order to obtain a truly combat-ready and effective army, there is only something to polish … Well, if the Supreme Commander-in-Chief calls what remains to be done before the withdrawal of the Russian army to a new level of quality, fine grinding, then … For God's sake, of course … You can even call it fine tuning or control smoothing, the main thing is that the final result is digestible. But only so far all this reminds of a case from a bearded anecdote, when "after assembly, the product needed to be finalized with a file."
And there is something to "refine with a file" … As this kind of "refinement", the Ministry of Defense plans to start restoring several hundred actually closed military camps, increasing the number of cadets in military universities (up to 15 thousand people), partially restoring the institute of warrant officers and warrant officers, conducting inventory of military property, bringing the volume of defense orders up to 100%.
After the new deadlines for bringing the Russian army into an effective form announced by Vladimir Putin, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov spoke, who simply and to the military said that if the Supreme Commander-in-Chief set a task, then we (the leadership of the Ministry of Defense) will fully implement this task. Plans, judging by the words of General Gerasimov, already exist.
True, in this case, the current leadership of the Ministry of Defense itself will have to work in fine tuning mode. Why? Yes, because the same Sergei Shoigu clearly would like to revise many of his predecessor's “undertakings” in the near future, and have already revised many of them, but after Vladimir Putin's words about “constant shuffling,” Shoigu clearly does not fully understand how to reform further … Indeed, on the one hand, there are obviously counterproductive decisions in a number of areas (from purchases in massive quantities of military equipment to total reductions in personnel), adopted by the past head of the ministry, and on the other hand, there are the instructions of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, according to which, everything seems to be already, and reformed - it remains only to walk on a grinding machine. Agree, the situation for Shoigu is more than difficult.
But Shoigu and Gerasimov, as it should be, do not discuss orders with servicemen, and therefore: it is said - polish, which means they will polish. What kind of marking sanding paper will be applied? - that's another question.
So far, one thing is clear: there will be no "epic" revisions in terms of military reform. In particular, no one is going to cancel outsourcing in the army (from speeches to the same collegium) - once, there will be no changes in terms of conscription either - two, there will be no changes in terms of the quantitative recruitment of contract servicemen - three. And if the first two cases for a certain circle of military personnel may look good enough, then the presented case number three can hardly be called good for the Ministry of Defense itself. After all, the catch so far is that even after a multiple increase in pay for those servicemen who serve under a contract, there is still no impressive influx of people willing to sign a contract. What is the reason for this? It can be assumed that the majority of persons signing a contract with the Ministry of Defense, finding themselves in the army, remain disappointed with what they were offered in the advertising mode and with what they actually have to face. One of the main problems is lack of staffing, which leads to the fact that contractors today have to serve, as they say, for themselves and for that guy … And “that guy” does not want to join the ranks of the Russian army in its contract cluster. This often leads to such a situation, when the signer of the contract begins to think about the expediency of his decision.
Summing up, once again I would like to wish the leadership of the Ministry of Defense productive zeal and success based on it. And I would also like to wish that thoughts about the quality and effectiveness of the Russian army turned out to be embodied in reality, and not remain at the level of thoughts and plans three, and five and fifteen years later.
