Azamat Kabdrash
There were two things on the news that grabbed my attention last month. The first – Putin signed a dismissal of 16 generals. The second – the Armed Forces are going to be increased by 19000 personnel by July this year.
If to consider the first case, in fact, we can observe almost regular dismissal of high ranking military officials over the last two years. Overall number of fired generals this year constitutes 20 people. 16 of them were fired on February and 4 – on January. They served in the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Law Enforcement and in the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) . Last year, Putin fired another 12 generals of the MIA. The latter case was related to the reorganization of several departments of the MIA and their subordination to “Rossgvardia”, a body which was created on April 2016, by the Presidential decree. It now controls OMON, SOBR and other special military forces and is subordinated directly to the president. In addition, Putin dismissed entire fleet of naval commander last summer which counted about 50 people, including generals. The motifs for it were “incompetence and corruption” in the higher echelons of the Navy. In his interview to the Moscow Times, Dmitry Gorenburg, a Russian navy expert told “The Russian leadership is clearly fine with corruption … but if you do that to an extent that combat readiness suffers, there will be consequences.” So these cases with the dismissals of high ranking officers show the readiness of the Russian system of Armed Forces to changes. The question is “are these changes improve the condition of Armed Forces, and particularly the Civil-Military Relations?” I will try to answer this question in the end.
This year Putin increases the military by 19000 people, 13698 of them will be active military servicemen, and 5357 will be civilian workers. Experts suggest that there are two possible reasons for this. First, the situation in Syria; the second, development of legal and organization structure of Armed Forces . It is obvious that it is a part of military reform on the development and modernization of Russian Armed Forces. And I will give justification from our readings that Putin’s action that I have mentioned above will improve military condition in the country.
There are two arguments proposed by Desch which explains Russian case. When external threat is high and internal is low, Civil-Military Relations become healthier. As it was suggested in the news article, the situation in Syria, and increased risk of terrorist attack (my addition) might, in fact, lead to strengthening the organization aspects within the military. As almost one third of recruited military personnel is going to be civilian workers, I think that, it is another step toward increasing the objective control of the military. One of Shvetsova’s argument, mentioned by Desch, was that corruption within the military is one of the sources of decline in the professionalization. The example of the dismissal of the personnel in the Navy is a practical justification that Putin would not tolerate such kind of corruption if it undermines the performance of the military.
Having revised the reading materials and the news I think that it would be just to conclude that Russia is in his way to improve both its conditions in the Armed Forces and the Civil-Military Relations in the country in general.
____________
Novayagazeta.ru, “Путин снял с должностей 16 генералов МВД, СК и МЧС”, 2017, https://www.novayagazeta.ru/news/2017/02/02/128661-putin-snyal-s-dolzhnostey-16-generalov-mvd-sk-i-mchs
Currenttime.tv, “Путин уволил 12 генералов полиции”, 2016, http://www.currenttime.tv/a/28037927.html
Express.co.uk, “Putin fires ENTIRE fleet of naval commanders who refused to engage with West's battleships”, 2016, http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/688775/Vladimir-Putin-purges-entire-Baltic-fleet-officer-class-coverup-claims-submarine-collision,
Rbth.com, “Why is Putin expanding Russia’s armed forces to 1.9 million?”, 2017,
http://rbth.com/defence/2017/03/30/why-is-putin-expanding-russias-armed-forces-to-19-million_730717
ibid.
There were two things on the news that grabbed my attention last month. The first – Putin signed a dismissal of 16 generals. The second – the Armed Forces are going to be increased by 19000 personnel by July this year.
If to consider the first case, in fact, we can observe almost regular dismissal of high ranking military officials over the last two years. Overall number of fired generals this year constitutes 20 people. 16 of them were fired on February and 4 – on January. They served in the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Law Enforcement and in the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) . Last year, Putin fired another 12 generals of the MIA. The latter case was related to the reorganization of several departments of the MIA and their subordination to “Rossgvardia”, a body which was created on April 2016, by the Presidential decree. It now controls OMON, SOBR and other special military forces and is subordinated directly to the president. In addition, Putin dismissed entire fleet of naval commander last summer which counted about 50 people, including generals. The motifs for it were “incompetence and corruption” in the higher echelons of the Navy. In his interview to the Moscow Times, Dmitry Gorenburg, a Russian navy expert told “The Russian leadership is clearly fine with corruption … but if you do that to an extent that combat readiness suffers, there will be consequences.” So these cases with the dismissals of high ranking officers show the readiness of the Russian system of Armed Forces to changes. The question is “are these changes improve the condition of Armed Forces, and particularly the Civil-Military Relations?” I will try to answer this question in the end.
This year Putin increases the military by 19000 people, 13698 of them will be active military servicemen, and 5357 will be civilian workers. Experts suggest that there are two possible reasons for this. First, the situation in Syria; the second, development of legal and organization structure of Armed Forces . It is obvious that it is a part of military reform on the development and modernization of Russian Armed Forces. And I will give justification from our readings that Putin’s action that I have mentioned above will improve military condition in the country.
There are two arguments proposed by Desch which explains Russian case. When external threat is high and internal is low, Civil-Military Relations become healthier. As it was suggested in the news article, the situation in Syria, and increased risk of terrorist attack (my addition) might, in fact, lead to strengthening the organization aspects within the military. As almost one third of recruited military personnel is going to be civilian workers, I think that, it is another step toward increasing the objective control of the military. One of Shvetsova’s argument, mentioned by Desch, was that corruption within the military is one of the sources of decline in the professionalization. The example of the dismissal of the personnel in the Navy is a practical justification that Putin would not tolerate such kind of corruption if it undermines the performance of the military.
Having revised the reading materials and the news I think that it would be just to conclude that Russia is in his way to improve both its conditions in the Armed Forces and the Civil-Military Relations in the country in general.
____________
Novayagazeta.ru, “Путин снял с должностей 16 генералов МВД, СК и МЧС”, 2017, https://www.novayagazeta.ru/news/2017/02/02/128661-putin-snyal-s-dolzhnostey-16-generalov-mvd-sk-i-mchs
Currenttime.tv, “Путин уволил 12 генералов полиции”, 2016, http://www.currenttime.tv/a/28037927.html
Express.co.uk, “Putin fires ENTIRE fleet of naval commanders who refused to engage with West's battleships”, 2016, http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/688775/Vladimir-Putin-purges-entire-Baltic-fleet-officer-class-coverup-claims-submarine-collision,
Rbth.com, “Why is Putin expanding Russia’s armed forces to 1.9 million?”, 2017,
http://rbth.com/defence/2017/03/30/why-is-putin-expanding-russias-armed-forces-to-19-million_730717
ibid.
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