#9
Komsomolskaya Pravda
December 7, 2001
ENOUGH OF CHASING AFTER DESERTERS!
A round-table discussion of the military reforms
Author: Viktor Baranets, Sergei Gerasimenko, Nikolai Yefimovich,
Alexei Makurin
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
MEMBERS OF THE UNION OF RIGHT FORCES AND THE GENERAL STAFF OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION DISCUSS TWO OPTIONS FOR MILITARY REFORMS. HOW LONG WILL ENDING CONSCRIPTION TAKE, AND HOW MUCH WILL IT COST? THESE ARE THE MAIN POINTS OF THE DEBATE.
Recently President Vladimir Putin made a decision: by 2004 the government should work out a program for gradually replacing all conscripts with soldiers serving under contract. However, we do not yet know if the reform, spread out over so many years, will succeed. Will there be enough money for this? Today, on December 7, prime minister Mikhail Kasianov is holding a sitting in the White House on the military reform. And on the eve of it acting head of the General Staff Major-General Valery Astanin, deputy chairman of the State Duma committee on defense Major-General Nikolai Bezborodov, deputy chairman of the State Duma committee on defense, member of the Union of Right Forces Colonel-General Eduard Vorobyov, leader of the Union of Right Forces faction Boris Nemtsov, deputy head of the Major Organization- Mobilization Department of the General Staff Lieutenant-General Vasily Smirnov, and Transition Economy Institute analyst retired Colonel Vitaly Tsymbal gather at our "round table".
Boris Nemtsov: After the meeting of President Putin with Kasianov it was declared that transition to army under contract would take ten years. Let us drop all illusions: programs which require so much time will never be carried out in Russia. Putin may not be the president in ten years. And his successor may reject the reform.
Question: What does the Union of Right Forces suggest?
Boris Nemtsov: the transition to professional army should be started as early as the end of 2002 or spring 2003. We are not going to change the Constitution: universal compulsory service remains. But we suggest reducing compulsory service from 2 years to 6 months. And most soldiers and sergeants will serve under contract. It is necessary to adopt a structure within four months which would involve 400,000 contract servicemen and 150,000 conscripts.
Question: What are the advantages of your plan?
Boris Nemtsov: Firstly: no fights between soldiers in their first year of service and the second year. Secondly: it changes the social and educational level of the Armed Forces. At present mostly boys from poor families serve in the army. Those who are richer try to get rid of the conscription. According to experts, in Moscow parents are ready to pay up to $5,000 for that. Our program will lower the level of corruption in military registration and enlistment offices. Opinion polls prove that 75% of potential conscripts are ready to serve 6 to 8 months, while only 8% want to serve as long as two years.
Question: And why exactly six months?
Boris Nemtsov: This is the term which a conscript spends in preliminary studies. And then he may sign a contract and serve further. Besides, soldiers serving under contract will be picked up by military registration and enlistment offices among those citizens, who already have army experience or are just wiling toi serve. These suggestions belong not only to the Union of Right Forces. The Institute for Economy of the Period of Transition and prominent military experts took part in working out the project, Colonel-General Vorobyov and General Gareev among them. This summer our program was submitted to the President of Russia. The Security Council appraised it pretty well. And only the General Staff took a negative attitude toward out project.
Vasily Smirnov: I am surprised that the Union of Right Forces boasts in stimulating interest toward contract service. This problem has been studies by the General Staff since 1992. Deputies accepted such deferments from the army service that we drafted only 14 boys out of 100 (now 12). That is why we started calling up soldiers and sergeants to serve under contract.
Then, on the eve of the presidential elections of 1996 Boris Yeltsin signed a decree on transforming the army under contract system. Though there was nothing - no money, no reform program. That is why in 1998 Mr. Yeltsin rejected the idea with his own decree. But the General Staff went on working out the conception of the military reform.
The president has accepted our conception. Our task now is to fulfill the president's task as best as we can. Due to the low birth rate until 2012 we will be able to man the army only by 52%. That is why the transition to the service under contract is inevitable. But we suggest doing it smoothly, so that we should not lose alertness of the army under some triumphal reports. Until 2004 we want to make an experiment and man one of the divisions with soldiers serving under contract. As a result, we will find out more exactly how much money we will need; which will help us work out a corresponding federal targetted program. The second step is to increase the number of such soldiers by 2010 and accumulate reserves of professionals who have already served under conscription. And only then we will be able to turn to voluntary recruitment for the army.
Question: Will conscription be totally abolished?
Vasily Smirnov: The conscription will remain in case of general mobilization in the country.
Boris Nemtsov: And what prevented you from starting the preliminary work immediately after the decree of Yeltsin of 1996? Why have we been talking about it for a decade and have not submitted any definite plan?
Vasily Smirnov: The major handicap is lack of money.
Boris Nemtsov: The state has money! Around 1 billion rubles will be necessary for carrying out our program in 2003. This is less than 1% of the whole military budget. In 2004 the expenditure will increase, but not much up to 3 to 4 billion rubles. And then all those serving in the army demobilize after two years, i.e. in 2005-2006, additional expenditure on the contract army will not exceed 10% of the military budget. We have been to the Finance Ministry with our calculations. And we were told that this plan did not have fiscal limitations.
Nikolai Bezborodov: A professional army cannot be created within a short term! Where is the new legislative foundation? Where is accommodation for soldiers serving under contract? More than 100,000 retired officers have no accommodation now!
Vitaly Tsymbal: But it will not make sense to prolong the process for 10 to 15 years for economical reasons. We have thought over different variants of the reform. The best period for this will be until 2005-2006.
We suggest increasing monetary allowances of soldiers and sergeants up to 3,000 to 3,500 rubles a month. These figures were not chosen accidentally. At first, the Institute for Economy of the Transition Period held opinion polls among young people in Moscow and Yaroslavl. After that, under our instructions sociologists of the Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion asked different people within the age range of 18 to 28 throughout the whole country. There were those who have already served in the army among them. The question was as follows, "Non-monetary kinds of allowance constitute around 2,000 rubles a month. Are you ready to serve in the army if you get some other monetary allowance?" And the answer "3,500 rubles" was one of the most popular.
Nikolai Bezborodov: Smart people will not serve in the army for such small money. Who wanted to serve under contract in the mid-80-s? Those who used to be in prison, had nowhere to go. They wanted to have something to eat, not to defend the motherland. And our army needs smart people.
Boris Nemtsov: But even if the salary is only 3,000 to 3,500 rubles there will be a competition to get into the army: two people for one place. Cannot we find guys without criminal past? I am sure we can. And for those who will serve for three years or more we suggest free admittance to universities. This will attract talented guys into the army, who cannot pay for education.
Valery Astanin: I invite you to go to a military registration and enlistment office and pick up people with us. A soldier serving in Chechnya under contract earns 7,500 to 8,000 rubles a month. But nobody wants to go there. In Tajikistan 65,000 people served in the 201st division for this money. Everyone tries to run away from there.
Boris Nemtsov: We should pay much more for participation in military operations. And now we are talking about service under contract at peace.
Vasily Smirnov: If we count expenditure on salaries for professional soldiers - this is not all. People will get married, have children. They will need apartments, schools, kinder gardens. Who has counted how much money we will need for this? Even now we re-build former barracks as apartment blocks, which costs approximately as much as building a new apartment block.
Eduard Vorobyov: And to my mind, the Armed Forces of Russia simply do not want to become a professional army. Many officers are not ready to command professional soldiers, who might turn out to be older and more experienced than their commanders. For example, trainings of the so-called "guerillas", persons liable for call-up. If they are held as they should be - then they are a real torture for officers.
The situation about training junior officers is ever worse. They should be the first to serve under contract. In foreign armies sergeants serve seven, nine, eleven years. And our sergeants are held responsible for lives of their subordinates after six years of studies.
And the third. A professional soldier cannot be made to do anything else but military training. And knowing that they may be sent to military operations any time, they will demand opportunities for improving their skills, since their lives and financial position of their families depend on that.
Vasily Smirnov: And we, in the Defense Ministry, have difficulty trying to find money for training conscripts, who are sent to military operations. We are not given this money.
Boris Nemtsov: And you will never get it if we do not change the attitude of the society toward the army now. We should not grudge money for propaganda. Now you lose more when you pursue those who do not want to serve in the army.
Nikolai Bezborodov: But who prevents us from coordinating the program of the URF with the calculations of the General Staff? Let us do it and see what can be accepted and what not.
HOW TO DRIVE MILITARY REFORM
POSITION OF THE UNION OF RIGHT FORCES
1. Universal conscription should remain. But the term of conscription service
should be reduced to 6-8 months.
2. Professional soldiers should be picked up among those who have already served
6-8 months in the army before.
3. The reform should be implemented within four years.
4. The number of the army in 2005 - 400,000 professional soldiers and 142,000
conscripts, who serve 6-8 months.
5. People will be willing to serve in the army for 3,500 rubles a month.
POSITION OF THE GENERAL STAFF
1. A soldier can be taught only theory during 6-8 months of studies. But this
is a good variant for training those liable for call-up.
2. Here they support the URF.
3. In case of good financing the reform will take ten years.
4. the number of the army in 2005 - 150,000 professionals, and 392,000
conscripts, who serve for 2 years.
5. People will not go to the army for such small money. They should get more,
but there is not enough money for that. (Translated by Daria Brunova)
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