#12
Izvestia
February 6, 2003
SOLDIER IN RUBLES AND ITEMS
A professional military: for and against
Author: Dmitry Litovkin, Svetlana Babaeva
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]

WHILE RUSSIA IS TRYING TO MAKE ITS MILITARY PROFESSIONAL, SOME US POLITICIANS ARE SUGGESTING A RETURN TO CONSCRIPTION. GERMANY, ON THE CONTRARY, INTENDS TO CUT TROOP STRENGTH AND GIVE UP CONSCRIPTION FOR PROFESSIONAL RECRUITMENT. HOWEVER, DESPITE EXTERNAL DIFFERENCES, THE WORLD'S STRONGEST ARMIES ARE BASED ON SIMILAR PRINCIPLES.

The United States has been invited to return to a conscription- based military. Senator Ernest Hollings (Dem.) has tabled a bill in Congress on restoring compulsory military service, suggesting conscription of men and women from 18 to 26. Some other members of Congress back this initiative as well. They believe that the number of poor, Black, and Hispanic American soldiers and officers taking part in military conflicts far exceeds the number of white, high-income soldiers. But everyone would have to serve under a conscription system, regardless of skin color or income.

We decided to examine the principles of recruitment and functioning of the armies that are the best in the world, in the common view of experts. The topic is especially urgent in light of the plans of the Russian Defense Ministry to switch to a contract principle of recruitment for permanent readiness units as soon as in 2004, and gradually give up conscription.

UNITED STATES

The US began to staff the army with volunteers as far back as in the 18th century. However, only in 1973 did it decide to give up universal compulsory military service completely. A motive for that was the Vietnam campaign and the drastic revision of all army approaches and military methods which followed it. Many experts believe that it is the failures in Vietnam that led America to its present possession of most powerful (in figures and habits) army in the world. And even skeptics allocate it at least 15 years of leadership.

A typical contract in the American army is concluded for three to six years on average. However, owing to high wages, benefits, and so on, a very high percentage of military personnel wish to stay on after their contract expires. This helps reduce turnover of personnel and cut training costs.

At expert appraisals, although the transition to a contract army in the US led to a considerable rise in costs of the item "maintenance of personnel", from 5.6% to 19% (cf.: up to 70% of costs is spent to maintain personnel in the Russian Armed Forces), all the same it is cheaper than an army of conscripts. American generals say: the maintenance of Armed Forces of the same level of effectiveness, but formed by conscription, would cost the US $2.5 billion a year more.

ISRAEL

Unlike the Americans, the Israel Defense Forces (tsakhal in Hebrew) is recruited on the basis on conscription of young men and women that reach 18. Exemption from military service is granted only for religious reasons. Young men serve in the army for three years, while women serve for 22 months. After this, every soldier is transferred to the reserve and is attached to a definite unit. Men under 50 serve approximately 30 days a year, under emergency circumstances the term is raised to 60 days and longer. Unmarried women are usually on the reserve list to 24.

In spite of the small numbers, Israel's army is one of the strongest and most expensive armies in the world. The aggregate sum of military costs on it is $8.5 billion a year. However, this money is mainly allocated to buying state-of-the-art arms and materiel, both domestic and foreign.

GERMANY

Like the Israeli army, the German one still retains a conscription recruitment system. However, increasingly frequent appeals are heard in the parliament lately to give it up for completely contract units. More so, that according to the parliamentarians about 45% of young Germans refuse to serve in the army in favor of alternative civil service. At the same time, politicians claim, what use are soldiers who are taught the military profession only 10 months. They say, during that time a soldier can be taught shooting and crawling, but it is not enough in the age of high technologies and high accuracy arms, when equipment determines the outcome of a combat to a greater extent than people.

In part, the German army is currently occupied with the same issues as the Russian one (of course, in different socioeconomic conditions): in the German Defense Ministry they speak about the need for structural, material-technical, and personnel reforms. Planned is also reduction in the army numbers: during four years it is suggested to bring down the Bundeswehr personnel number from the present 338,000 to 282,000 people and make over 50 garrisons and military basis redundant.

RUSSIA

The General Staff view the ideas to create a contract army in Russia with a traditional skepticism. The generals believe that a contract army is a peace time army. In case there appears a large- scale conflict - and no one rule it out taking the length of Russia's borders into account - professionals cannot ensure the country's security, whatever their training, so the issue of universal mobilization will raise itself at any rate. And here it will turn out that the country has no trained soldiers capable of treating up to date arms.

"A quantitative reduction of the conscription to active service can be expected only after the army is staffed with professional soldiers at least by 50-60%," Vasily Smirnov told us, chief of the General Staff Main Organization-Mobilization Administration (GOMU). "In this case the service term can first be cut from two years to six months and then it will be possible to speak about the complete giving up of the conscription system".

The caution in the assessment of the GOMU chief is explained with the fact that the experiment for transferring the 76th Pskov airborne division to a contract recruitment basis, which began on September 01, 2002, so far gives a failure: only half of the required 1,100 people have been recruited.

According to Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov, on January 01, 2004, the Russian army is to start the transition to the contract basis of recruitment to permanent readiness units. Their aggregate numbers currently are about 165,000 people. What exactly the process of army "professionalization" will cost no one can tell as yet - the Defense Ministry is to finish its calculations in spring.

The carefulness of the financial part will also condition another important component of the professional army - its professionalism proper. According to Valery Astanin, chief of the GOMU department for conscription and recruitment, the main contingent of young men recruited to the army do not have secondary technical education, and in some cases even elementary education. Even those combat arms that have always been proud of their being the elite complain of the low professional level of newcomers. For instance, the Space Troops, Strategic Missile Troops, Air Force, etc. traditionally need conscripts with higher or at worst secondary technical education. A ram cannot be admitted to the nuclear button...

Even a professional Russian army is unlikely at once to provide soldiers with such conditions that half of the nation's younger generation would rush into it. Even if the money problem is settled, there is still a need for a system of guarantees and incentives that make service attractive and the army professional. First, an opportunity to receive housing and education, second pensions and benefits (including in case of death of severe injury of a soldier), and finally career promotion and via that a stimulus to raise one's own professional skill level. The aforementioned counties created such systems. And it is the combination of these factors that makes their armies the best in the world.

In Russia such mechanisms have not been created even for "civilians" - and their creation does not only depend on the will and willingness of the Defense Ministry. There are no mortgage or insurance mechanisms, there is no bank loan or credit system, and the education sphere is far from perfect.

Apart from the mentioned factors, there is another one without which a radical reorganization of the military is impossible: the attitude to human life. It is this principal value that Americans place at the top of the list as they healed their wounds after their heavy casualties in Vietnam. It is a soldier's life that is primary in making all decisions, however many barrels of oil or billions of dollars they might cost.

(Translated by P. Pikhnovsky )

BACK TO THE TOP    #243 CONTENTS    NEXT ARTICLE