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Russia to fire a high percentage of it's officer cadre.
The proposed reorganization would eliminate 20 percent of the generals, 65 percent of the colonels, 75 percent of the majors, and 55 percent of the captains. The number of lieutenants would increase 20 percent. The number of military organizations (about 2,500) would also be cut (by 80 percent) over the next four years.
Compared to Western militaries, the Russian military is horribly top-heavy. I haven't kept up with the subject since the Soviet Union went out of business, but given the performance we've seen in Georgia and prior to that in Chechnya, I'd guess things haven't changed too very much.
The military's always represented a place to stash younger sons of the aristocracy, whether Tsarist or Communist. There, as dashing young staff officers, they can fill functions such as answering the phone or organizing meetings. Even field grade officers are often found filling functions mid-level NCOs would be tackling in the U.S. There is a much smaller corps of officers who actually plan operations and lead formations and develop doctrine. Because there's no surface difference between the two types of officers -- I don't think there's any kind of formal method of distinguishing between the two -- the dead wood often finds itself in positions requiring more competence than they actually have available. Life at that point becomes tough: the number of empty uniforms the invasion of Afghanistan burned was fairly staggering. Being incompetent in combat situations is often fatal. The Soviets had lots of imcompetence to go around.
Much of the Soviet, and presumably the Russian, army is made up of shells, sort of like NATO's POMCUS concept, with materiel to make up a division, for instance, in a warehouse on a military "base" that's nothing but a few buildings and a telephone, staffed by a few cadres. In time of mobilization these are expected to turn into actual units filled with draftees and reservists. That was what happened in World War II, to the surprise of the Germans. But sitting by the phone for year after year in a garrison consisting of perhaps one live regiment out of an entire division doesn't make for military acuity. And my guess is that in the post-Soviet world at least half of Russian divisions have no active units, nothing but cadres spending their days drinking tea and playing cards. Probably a lot of those cadre divisions are included in that 2500 organizations figure.
Making matters even worse is the pecking order of the services. We used to have something like the same problem when we had the draft, and for the same reasons. The nuclear deterrence triad always got first pick -- you didn't want nuclear submarines or strategic bombers manned by dumbasses, did you? Strategic Rocket Forces formed a separate branch of service, and you sure wouldn't want some dullard screwing around and obliterating Omaha, which would have occasioned a brief but very steep rise in temperatures in Pskov or Sevastopol. After that came the others who had call on warm bodies with 3-digit IQs: KGB, GRU, artillery (gotta be able to add, subtract, multiply, divide), and armor (gotta know how to drive your tank and maintain the engines). Signal corps, naturally. The cream of that non-nuclear crop was further sub-divided into those slated for Europe and those staying within the Soviet Union. Eventually the bottom of the bucket would find its way to performing its military service someplace pleasant like Anadyr in the wintertime -- where they could almost see Sarah Palin's house on a clear day -- under officers and NCOs whose primary quality was a pulse. |
Posted by: 3dc 2008-10-22 |
