The second month of autumn has begun, which means that the presidential decree on the conscription of young men into the army came into force. For the first time in the history of our country, the number of those who will join the ranks of the Russian army is only 135,850 people. This figure suggests that by the summer of next year the quantitative composition of the Russian armed forces will be reduced to about 800 thousand servicemen (together with sergeants, warrant officers, officers, generals and cadets). The Minister of Defense of our country, Mr. Serdyukov, declares that it is not necessary to draw hasty conclusions from the reduction in the number of conscripts that the army is collapsing. According to him, the contracted servicemen will have to compensate for the missing number of servicemen in the near future. He also says that the Russian army should be unobtrusive, professional and mobile.
Such perturbations in the Russian army have stirred up the public and divided it into three main groups, which see the army reform from different angles. The former fully support Mr. Serdyukov and declare that at this stage Russia does not need a huge army, in which soldiers who are not able and do not understand anything in military affairs are in vain. The latter claim that a reduction in the number of conscripts will inevitably lead to the destruction of the army, which means that it will increase the vulnerability of state borders. Still others take the position that reform is an objective necessity for the Russian armed forces, but it must be carried out without, so to speak, "burning bridges."
Of course, you need to understand that the state in which our army has been for the last one and a half to two decades is a real threat to national security. The method of conscription, according to which everyone was drafted indiscriminately into the army, has long outlived its usefulness. For obvious reasons, it is necessary to try to break the stereotype of the modern Russian army as a clumsy, corrupt entity saturated with remnants of the old security system.
The position of many analysts that one should not abandon the old principles of recruiting military personnel is surprising. If the army conscription is attempted to remain at the same level, then the army will either have to recruit disabled people or recruit reservists. Such is the demographic situation in Russia. The monstrously low birth rate in 1993-94 leads to the fact that there is often simply no one to call. Well, who needs such an army, where, in order to maintain the number of one million people, the military registration and enlistment offices will be engaged in registration and call on unhealthy citizens who themselves need to be protected. If today a large-scale audit of the health and educational level of Russian conscripts is carried out, then approximately the following tendency will emerge: the troops are filled with young people with whole bunches of diseases and those for whom even the secondary school program turned out to be too difficult. What kind of modernization of the armed forces with such personnel can we talk about? It's not as easy as buying gold wow.
Therefore, the option of increasing the percentage of contractors is understandable. But in this case, you also need to know how modern contract soldiers serve in the Russian army. From a personal example of communication with contract sergeants, I can say that a certain percentage of these people, when signing a contract, think only of material remuneration. In our time, this is an objective reality, from which it will no longer be possible to get away. And if a person defends the borders of the Fatherland, keeping in mind only a visit to the accounting department at the end of the month, then this is unlikely to benefit the service itself. And is it possible to be sure that such a soldier will fulfill the terms of the contract at the moment when he begins to face real danger?
The Minister of Defense, echoing President Medvedev, declares that in the near future the salaries of persons serving under the contract will amount to about 35,000 rubles. On the one hand, this can be considered a good incentive to sign contractual obligations with a large number of military personnel. However, the Russian army has never been based solely on the material component. Money, penetrating into any sphere of human activity in Russia, can not only stimulate, but also corrupt. And if earlier they went into battle (to certain death) for the Motherland, today it is difficult to imagine that someone would go to death for money.
The government also needs to develop an alternative incentive system: career growth, housing (real provision, not empty words), assistance to the families of young military personnel, social guarantees and, of course, an ideological basis. In other words, everything that had to be abandoned after the collapse of the USSR. An army without ideology is dead.
Recently, one of the Russian TV channels reported rather contradictory information. It turns out that the Ministry of Defense and other departments are recruiting contractors, passing applicants through the crucible of competitive verification. You can treat such words with irony if you look not at the exemplary part with a swimming pool and a gym, but at the most shabby military unit in the Russian hinterland. Fear God, what kind of competition can we talk about if the rotation of contract personnel here reaches 50% per year. Someone quit, someone is transferred to another part. Why? Yes, because all those promises that are spoken about on television are sometimes not fulfilled one iota. They talk about 35,000 rubles, which means that the contractor will receive no more than 20 in his hands. After all, it has long been no secret that the fathers-commanders are setting up real fortified points in their units to extort financial resources. I remember the story of a pilot of one of the elite squadrons, who told President Medvedev about how the unit commander disposed of the payroll in the unit under his control. One can imagine the level of corruption in military units if commanders are entrusted with the right to distribute housing stock among subordinates.
It turns out that the time is ripe for the reform, but it is being carried out without any foundation whatsoever. The call is being reduced, contracts are in no hurry to sign, and a really functioning social mechanism has not been built. But in our country they like to wave a saber, and then try to glue the chopped together again.
Therefore, before reporting on the dizziness of success in transferring the army to a professional basis, you need to evaluate all the pros and cons, on the basis of which to come to a balanced position.
