[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by Feuer Frei!

The make-up of Russia's military will shift dramatically away from draftees, with more than two-thirds of the force to be composed of professional soldiers by 2017, a senior army officer said Wednesday.Russia's military expects 70 percent of all men and women in uniform to be paid soldiers in six years' time. Some 220,000 will be officers, with a further 425,000 enlisted personnel, said Nikolai Makarov, chief of Russia's general staff, according to Interfax.

I think they said something similar in 2000 for 2005.

Some Russian officers have spoken out against the creation of a lighter and more professional military, saying the changes would end centuries of military tradition and, potentially, make Russia vulnerable to a major attack.

I sympathize with them. On the one hand, a one year conscription period is nearly useless; on the other hand, a wholesale adoption of Western solutions, made under a very different situation is not the answer.

Every Westerner and his dog says there are three solutions to Russia's personnel problems: End Dedovschina, "Volunteer Military" and "Professional NCO Corps".

Though I've read (on boards) that some Russians consider the Western perception of the Dedovschina problem exaggerated, it is the excesses that get reported, and they have to end or at least seriously tame down Dedovschina. This will be partly alleviated by improved conditions (if Senior Conscript Ivanov has more than enough to eat he won't feel so compelled to rob Junior Conscript Platonov of his breakfast) and the rest increased monitoring until some more positive traditions can be established.

The increased monitoring will be a mix of motivating the officers, but often they are overworked. That's when they bring out the "Professional NCO Corps", as if creating one is just a matter of will and overcoming the obstinacy of "old-school" Russian officers.

To put it bluntly, the NCO corps started with the caste system. In the past, entire population subgroups (mostly those that are not the nobility or the rich) that might have had the qualities to be an officer but could not due to birth. If they are to join the military, they have to do the equivalent of enlisting and eventually settle for the NCO corps, which handled "technical" tasks that are "beneath" the aristocrat officers, and this formed the backbone of the "modern NCO" corps as a technical and technotactical (squad leader level) specialist. But the important thing is that good people started becoming NCOs because they can't be officers (a not-so-glass ceiling), and there were a niche for NCOs because the officers couldn't be bothered (and later find it hard to learn to the required level) to handle certain tasks.

So, let's look at the Russian situation. Junior officers handle technical as well as tactical tasks, there is no unbroken NCO tradition, and worst of wall we are now in a relatively egalitarian era. Without any artificial ceiling, there is nothing to induce the best quality personnel to enlist. Anyone that wants to make a career out of the military will have tried out for officer school. In such a circumstance, only 2nd-rate people will try for being long-term enlisted. This, I believe, is a factor of why the old praporschik/michman program in the USSR didn't work out well - the officer schools already sucked up everybody with the right qualities that wanted to give the military a go - and the praporschik/michman program got the crumbs.

To put it bluntly, the only way a good NCO corps can be made in this kind of circumstance is if:
1) Supply exceeds demand for officers, so there is high selectivity for officers and some good volunteers will have to settle to be enlisted.
2) The population quality is relatively even, and on average high

and thus, even though the NCOs are 2nd rate human material as a group, they are still pretty good and good enough to lead troops. The dedovschina does not improve matters but even without it Russia doesn't have either one. Presumably, the recent reduction in the officet cadet intake is to help improve on one but nevertheless under the circumstances, only a poor quality "professional NCO" corps can be realistically expected, which will in fact be detrimental to good control.

As for the volunteer army, it is guaranteed to be much more expensive per man, with the consequences in numbers. It is not guaranteed to be much better for the same reason as what I said for the professional NCO. For other Russian arguments against the imposition of a volunteer army, I recommend http://army.armor.kiev.ua/hist/kontrakt-army.shtml (translates well in Google Translate). And worst of all, once you give up conscription in the modern era, if history is any indication, you can't go back. Resistance is almost guaranteed.
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Any scheme would have to try and make use of what Russia has now, rather than following Western schemes made for different circumstances blindly. Since the priority is to improve troop control and expertise at lower levels (NCOs and volunteers are just means, not ends), if I were running things, I'll

1. Exploit the large glut of senior officers in the Russian Army. Instead of just relieving them from the Army, I'll demote them (except for the few best ones) and assign them to lower positions. That will increase the experience level at all levels while retaining (rather than discarding) corporate expertise, and the pyramid's shape will be instantly restored. They'll agree because it is better than being fired. At the very bottom, some platoon commanders will be demoted to deputy platoon commanders or squad leaders (typical NCO posts). That will immediately increase the density of troop control.
2. Keep the current large influx of officers instead of cuttiing it, but reinstate the Junior Lieutenant rank as a practical rank for new graduates (right now Junior Lieutenant is only for Russian equivalent of ROTC, and due to the differences in the Russian military education system,, the gap in military preparation is much larger than between say US Academy and US ROTC). Only the best candidates will be be a Lieutenant and assigned to be platoon commanders from the get go. The rest will start off as "Junior Lieutenant" and will have to serve an "apprenticeship" as squad or deputy platoon commanders (depends on their grade). They should be very motivated because with only 8 guys under them they have less excuse to be unable to keep them under control, and they won't be promoted unless they can control their squad. This will also have the pleasant side effect of improving the level of experience at platoon.
3. Henceforth, civilian university students will, instead of serving as reserve officers, only be used as NCOs to fill in the remaining squad leader posts or even as ordinary conscripts.
4. Keep warrant officers as a specialist corps.
5. Only after the environment in the Army units comes under control and the quality of recruits or conscripts improve do you attempt to make the "professional NCO corps".

Basically, the plan, rather than to try and hastily and clumsily make a NCO corps out of poor human material, be to strengthen the officer corps' ability and density to command and control. This will buy time to allow a much more careful selection of the NCO corps.