Alexander Golts: One Big Lesson the Kremlin Hasn’t Learned
[Alexander Golts is deputy editor of the online newspaper Yezhednevny Zhurnal.]
It has often been said that defeat is an excellent teacher. But this rarely applies to victory. Perhaps this is true because rather than teaching, victory tends to make the victor dizzy with success. Take, for example, Russia’s victories over Napoleon and Hitler, after which the army’s development and modernization was halted for 50 years. The post-World War II Soviet military strategy, which focused on maintaining tens of thousands of tanks and from 3 million to 5 million army personnel, was a glaring anachronism in the nuclear age.
Considering this historical legacy, Russia’s leaders deserve credit for having drawn certain lessons from last year’s victory over Georgia. Putting a halt to the wave of patriotic chest-thumping and jingoistic cheers following Russia’s victory in the Georgia war, the Kremlin began planning a major restructuring of the country’s outdated, highly inefficient army. This is because Russia’s leaders understood that if the armed forces were to continue in their current state, their so-called victory over tiny Georgia (with an active military of about 36,000 personnel) would have surely been their last.
Most striking was the fact that all of the military equipment Russia used in the conflict — tanks, airplanes and armored vehicles — was manufactured 30 to 40 years ago. The Russian army had practically no modern reconnaissance equipment, such as drones. As a result, military units were caught in ambushes several times during their approach to South Ossetia’s capital, Tskhinvali. What’s more, officers could not even issue basic orders to their subordinates because of their antiquated communications equipment.
To their credit, Kremlin leaders understood that there is a direct connection between the sophistication of an army’s weaponry and the ability of officers and generals to organize and command the armed forces. In other words, the way the army is organized and commanded should be as modern and sophisticated as the weapons it uses. If there is a gaping hole between the two factors, you could equip forces with the most modern weaponry available, but they wouldn’t be able to exploit the hardware.
Until recently, the Russian army was organized based on the mass-mobilization concept. This meant that in the event of a conflict, millions of reservists would be called to active service. Since it was obvious that reservists would not be able to utilize sophisticated weaponry, there was no need to supply them with such arms. That is one reason why there are so many decrepit, rusty tanks on Russian military bases — and why half of the tanks sent to Tskhinvali never made it to their destination because they broke down along the way.
What’s more, many commanders in that war had spent most of their careers in so-called “paper units” that contained almost no soldiers during peacetime. That explains why General Staff chief Nikolai Makarov was so exasperated when he said the commanders of these units turned out to be completely incapable of participating in a real conflict. It is also why the decision was made to cut the number of officers by two-thirds, from 355,000 to 150,000, as well as to eliminate all paper units and divisions.
It is no coincidence that the most radical restructuring of the armed forces started in the aftermath of the Georgia war. The weak performance in the five-day war demonstrated that military divisions designed for large-scale wars were too unwieldy for local conflicts. As front-guard Russian forces entered Tskhinvali, the rear guard of the same division was only just leaving the capital of North Ossetia, 100 kilometers away.
Unfortunately, the ability of the Kremlin leaders to draw objective, rational conclusions — and to admit their mistakes — was confined to military matters only. By contrast, their foreign policy did not undergo the slightest change over the past year. On the first anniversary of the war, President Dmitry Medvedev declared that Moscow’s recognition of South Ossetia’s and Abkhazia’s independence and its stationing of troops there was justified because Georgia had attacked Tskhinvali last August...
Read entire article at Moscow Times
It has often been said that defeat is an excellent teacher. But this rarely applies to victory. Perhaps this is true because rather than teaching, victory tends to make the victor dizzy with success. Take, for example, Russia’s victories over Napoleon and Hitler, after which the army’s development and modernization was halted for 50 years. The post-World War II Soviet military strategy, which focused on maintaining tens of thousands of tanks and from 3 million to 5 million army personnel, was a glaring anachronism in the nuclear age.
Considering this historical legacy, Russia’s leaders deserve credit for having drawn certain lessons from last year’s victory over Georgia. Putting a halt to the wave of patriotic chest-thumping and jingoistic cheers following Russia’s victory in the Georgia war, the Kremlin began planning a major restructuring of the country’s outdated, highly inefficient army. This is because Russia’s leaders understood that if the armed forces were to continue in their current state, their so-called victory over tiny Georgia (with an active military of about 36,000 personnel) would have surely been their last.
Most striking was the fact that all of the military equipment Russia used in the conflict — tanks, airplanes and armored vehicles — was manufactured 30 to 40 years ago. The Russian army had practically no modern reconnaissance equipment, such as drones. As a result, military units were caught in ambushes several times during their approach to South Ossetia’s capital, Tskhinvali. What’s more, officers could not even issue basic orders to their subordinates because of their antiquated communications equipment.
To their credit, Kremlin leaders understood that there is a direct connection between the sophistication of an army’s weaponry and the ability of officers and generals to organize and command the armed forces. In other words, the way the army is organized and commanded should be as modern and sophisticated as the weapons it uses. If there is a gaping hole between the two factors, you could equip forces with the most modern weaponry available, but they wouldn’t be able to exploit the hardware.
Until recently, the Russian army was organized based on the mass-mobilization concept. This meant that in the event of a conflict, millions of reservists would be called to active service. Since it was obvious that reservists would not be able to utilize sophisticated weaponry, there was no need to supply them with such arms. That is one reason why there are so many decrepit, rusty tanks on Russian military bases — and why half of the tanks sent to Tskhinvali never made it to their destination because they broke down along the way.
What’s more, many commanders in that war had spent most of their careers in so-called “paper units” that contained almost no soldiers during peacetime. That explains why General Staff chief Nikolai Makarov was so exasperated when he said the commanders of these units turned out to be completely incapable of participating in a real conflict. It is also why the decision was made to cut the number of officers by two-thirds, from 355,000 to 150,000, as well as to eliminate all paper units and divisions.
It is no coincidence that the most radical restructuring of the armed forces started in the aftermath of the Georgia war. The weak performance in the five-day war demonstrated that military divisions designed for large-scale wars were too unwieldy for local conflicts. As front-guard Russian forces entered Tskhinvali, the rear guard of the same division was only just leaving the capital of North Ossetia, 100 kilometers away.
Unfortunately, the ability of the Kremlin leaders to draw objective, rational conclusions — and to admit their mistakes — was confined to military matters only. By contrast, their foreign policy did not undergo the slightest change over the past year. On the first anniversary of the war, President Dmitry Medvedev declared that Moscow’s recognition of South Ossetia’s and Abkhazia’s independence and its stationing of troops there was justified because Georgia had attacked Tskhinvali last August...