Anatoly Zapadinsky, a military expert, corresponding member of the Academy of Military Sciences and lieutenant general
Photo: Alexey Kudenko
|
 |
Pentagon’s Plans Are People’s Plans
Anatoly Zapadinsky, the prominent military expert, corresponding member of the Academy of Military Sciences and lieutenant general, explains to Kommersant Vlast correspondent Ivan Safronov why the U.S. military doctrine is better than the Russian.
What is your impression from the report of the U.S. Defense Department?
I was really surprised by how open it is. The review give the opinion of top American military officials, defining major military threats for the United States, means to engage the military forces to solve foreign policy issues as well as the information on the change in the contingent on the whole and in separate unites, some of which are of special purpose, and the data on armaments and hardware. What’s more, they disclose the information on the funds they need to finance the armed forces.
What attracted your attention most?
News on the expansion of high-precision guidance non-nuclear warheads at Trident II, submarine-launched ballistic missiles. This is the new use of these missiles and it can be implemented only if supplemented with the space system of arms target designation. Earlier, Americans were the first to use their strategic bombers to carry high-precision cruise missiles with non-nuclear warheads. Russia, by the way, presented its new Tu-160 of the similar type only last year.
Do you think that this doctrine sounds too offensive and aggressive?
Not at all. It’s chief aim is to let American people work in peace. The paper is well-balanced. Necessary resources, primarily financial, have been allocated for the U.S. army to pinpoint military threats, mainly terrorists. Undoubtedly, the state will earmark the funds and the military agency will find ways to use them properly.
Does the American military doctrine strikingly differ from the Russian one?
There is a White Book called Prime Goals in the Development of the Russian Armed Forces. Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov made the first report of it in October 2003 to Vladimir Putin. But unlike the American document, this paper does not contain the main thing, i.e. the volume of the necessary funds, information about actual means to reorganize Russian armed forces and the supply of military hardware. I believe that it is what the society ought to control. Yet, remnants of the old Soviet mindset hamper to do it. I want you to get me right, I don’t push for the public control over each and every sector of law enforcement forces. It is obvious for me that plans of operation and fight preparation of troops as well as forms and methods of their actions are not to be revealed. But the control over their finances and the Russian army’s weapons purchases is the sphere of competence of the Public Chamber, for instance. I am firmly convinced that Russia will never get a modern army until the army is controlled.
How can the army change if the society supervises it?
All problems of the Russian army stem from the fact that it has not got the attention it needs. This was the case in the Soviet times as well. The state does not fulfill its obligations for the military men who have to try and find ways to survive on their own. If servicemen are provided with everything they need in time and they don’t run from one office to another struggling to get what they are entitled to, then the climate in the Russian army will change. I’m sure of that. Nothing will happen as long as there are imbalance and disproportion.
Where the imbalance can be traced?
It is mainly the discrepancy between the funds allocated to buy armaments and the amount of arms that actually arrive to units. The imbalance can be also seen in the military industry which often proves to be unable to produce the armaments with necessary characteristics for the Defense Ministry and offers to take those outdated. The whole sphere is disproportioned if you have a closer look. A captain who does his service at the administration department of the General Staff should not be better paid than a commander of the military division. We still have no differentiation between posts of army officers and posts of army officials, which was in the czar’s army. Naturally, salaries of army officers were higher than those of army officials, policemen and gendarmes while nowadays it’s the other way round.
Ivan Safronov
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 20, 2006
|
|
|
