In uniform

And this one fell out of the nest ...

June 3, 2008 Alexander Golts

Outwardly, this dismissal, as it was opened in Putin’s times (which seem to continue), happened quite decent. The President said that he decided to transfer Yuri Baluevsky, who had headed the General Staff since 2004, to another high position - Deputy Secretary of the Security Council. And on the recommendation of the Minister of Defense (Dmitry Medvedev emphasized this), General Nikolai Makarov, who had previously held the position of Deputy Minister for Arms, will now.

In fact, we are talking about the completion of one of the rounds of the undercover struggle, which during the period of interrescence were covered by various power and law enforcement agencies. When the first leaks about the conflict of Serdyukov and Baluevsky appeared in the press, I wrote in the “hedgehog” that the basis of the conflict is the fact that the functions of the military department and the General Staff itself are still intelligible. Therefore, whenever the Minister of Defense tries to introduce some innovations (I will not risk calling this reforms), dissatisfied with the natural way are grouped around the head of the General Staff. So it was, for example, when Marshal Sergeyev proposed creating a united command of strategic nuclear forces, which instantly restored the commander -in -chief of the Navy and the Air Force, which united around Anatoly Kvashnin, who headed the General Staff. It can only be added here that the new chief of the “army of the army”, apparently, was not yet aware of the need to become “only” by the military adviser under the president and the Minister of Defense. When appointing, he promised the head of state to "work together with the Minister of Defense."

Meanwhile, the resignation of Yuri Baluevsky indicates, first of all, to the scale of the conflict and, accordingly, the magnitude of the “protest” potential within the Arbat Military District. Just a few months ago, Putin extended the Baluevsky military service for three years. If he planned in advance to transfer the general to the apparatus of the Security Council, there would be no need for this. It is also difficult to imagine that those decisions of Anatoly Serdyukov, who, as reported in the press, caused a conflict, were in reality. I will never believe that Yuri Nikolaevich Baluevsky would have gone to the conflict with the Putin's appointment, disagreing with the transfer of some services of the Main Staff of the Navy to St. Petersburg, as well as with the translation of the couple of academies from Moscow. For many years of service in the highest staffing positions, he justified that.

Merdyukov’s other innovations that directly hurt the interests of the Russian generals are much more serious. First of all, this is a directive about the possible replacement of officer positions (mainly doctors, rear citizens, lawyers and journalists) civilian specialists. Indeed, today there are 400 thousand officers in the Russian army with the total number of armed forces of 1.1 million military personnel. It turns out one officer for two soldiers. In the normal armies of officers - no more than 16 percent of the total number of military personnel. At the same time, the structure of the officer corps resembles an inverted pyramid - colonels are slightly smaller than lieutenants. But a completely reasonable measure to reduce officer posts means a significant reduction in the number of generals.

Another decision seriously hit the capabilities of the senior military leadership. Since the beginning of the year, a new system of distribution of finance in the Armed Forces has been operating. According to Deputy Minister of Defense for Finance Lyubov Kudelina, instead of six levels of finance distribution, there are now three. In practice, this means that the army commander can still make decisions on the conduct of exercises (if it is allowed by the limits allocated to him). Only now the money for these purposes will not be transferred to him, but directly to the brigade or regiment where the exercises are planned. The commanders did not lose money, but the opportunity to dispose of it uncontrollably, transferring expenses to another from one article.

At the same time, Minister Anatoly Serdyukov himself does not get tired of repeating: “There is no reform, we are elementarily trying to lead to some normal logical order, that’s all, there is no reform.” In one of his speeches, the head of the military department even recommended not to use the word “reform” at all. “We are not going to break anything, rebuild. We just put the armed forces in order, ”the minister insists.

I do not presume to judge if he believes in it himself. It is possible that, being an experienced official of Putin’s hardening, Serdyukov understands that a prematurely raised noise can cost him a ministerial chair. The last president has repeatedly stated that he was completely satisfied with the state of affairs in the military department, and Serdyukov was sent there not at all for the indigenous breaking. Indeed, back in 2003, military reform was declared successfully completed, without starting. And this was a direct consequence of the rapid growth of oil prices. Money unexpectedly became enough to contain a reduced four -four -time and completely ineffective copy of the Soviet Army.

However, as the prices for energy are growing, and military spending grew with them and GDP growth. If in 1999 109 billion rubles were spent on the army, then this year - more than 860 billion. And gradually the Kremlin began to understand the peculiarity of the financial structure of the mass mobilization army-it absorbs any amount and any resources without any positive result. Obviously, at some point Putin began to annoy the presence of this “black hole” in public finances.

The thing, however, is that an attempt to rationalize some kind of privacy in the principle of the irrational system inevitably leads to fundamental problems.

After all, the generals will not openly say that they want to maintain their positions, dispose of finances and real estate. They will push that Serdyukov’s innovations undermine the foundations of the armed forces, which formally remain a mass mobilization army. But the fact of the matter is that all the absurdities that Serdyukov is trying to eliminate are quite easily explained in the logic of preserving the mass mobilization army. There are more colonels than lieutenants? So someone should stand at the head of the reservist divisions. Gigantic property, which is many times higher than the needs of the armed forces? But in case of mass mobilization of the needs of the army, ten times will grow.

So the conflict is not exhausted at all with the dismissal from office. And the fact that the current minister himself chose the head of the General Staff means only that the conflict moves to another, lower level. And sooner or later he will make itself felt again.