Bektas Baktybayev
Russia and the USA have the strongest armies in the
world. That’s why it would be interesting to compare the military power of these
two states. The aim of this blog is to analyze the recent changes in the US and
Russian armies related to the officer personnel, which is responsible for army
management.
According
to Kapp, who is a specialist in the military manpower policy, the number of the
most senior military officers (often called GFOs) and other officers in the USA
decreased compared to the period of the heat of the Cold War. Surprisingly, the
proportion of officers to the total force is increasing despite the decrease in
the number of officers. Kapp came to that conclusion based on the statistics of
the Defense Manpower Data Center. Kapp claims that the share of the GFOs and
officers increased by approximately 40 % during the period 1965-2015. Kapp
explains this constant tendency with the following four reasons.
First of all,
the enactment of the Goldwater-Nichols Act (GNA) requires the creation of more
joint GFOs positions. Officers are motivated to serve high ranking positions
due to the new institutional arrangements.
The second reason comes from the
security issues. The US military often organizes coalition operations with
their allies in order to enhance their military capabilities. The experience
and authority of the GFOs are necessary to carry out complex contingency and
coalition operations. The third factor leading to the increase in the officers’
proportion to the total force was a significant decrease of the Armed forces.
During the same period of time (1965-2015) the total force in the US army was decreased
twice from 2,655,389 to 1,313,940. Finally, the advanced technology development replaced the manpower which resulted in
the decreased need for human resources.
In
contrast, the number of officers in Russia has been increasing in recent years.
It was due to the failed attempt of the ex-minister of defense Anatoliy Serdyukov to
reorganize military affairs. During his period of rule, the number of officers
significantly decreased from 335 000
to 150 000. The main reasons for this significant reduction were the
optimization and restructuring of the armed forces of Russia. However, Russia
faced serious problem of an acute shortage of staff due to the unsatisfactory
results of Serdyukov’s
reform. The thousands of experienced and skillful officers were expelled from
the army and were forced to hold
the position of reserve officers or vacant positions of sergeants.
At this moment Russian army under the direction of new
minister of defense Sergey
Shoygu needs seriously trained
commanders in order to organize strong professional army. It will take several
years to restore the former condition of the Russian army. The reason for this
is that the necessity for 5-6 years to train enough amount of officers, who are
professionals of military affairs and are able to use modern equipment.
Currently, the 24 % of armed forces in Russia are holding officers’ positions
which is higher compared to US army, where this number is 17,5 %. Many officers-sergeants
in Russia reassigned to officers’ position because of shortage of officers
resulted from the previous reform. However, there is a still need for 50 000 soldiers and contract sergeants in Russia.
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