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The following article appeared in the Association of Naval
Aviation’s Helldiver Squadron’s newsletter and reveals the
significance of the war in Iraq.
In
the US’s easy defeat of Saddam Hussein’s army, Russia sees
a lesson for its own conventional forces. The Iraqi Army which
was cloned from the Red army in the final decades of the
Soviet Union- mounted only a feeble defense before falling
apart.
“The
key conclusion we must draw from the latest Gulf war is that
the obsolete structure of the Russian armed forces has to be
urgently changed,” says Vladimir Dvorkin, head of the
Russian Defense Ministry’s official think tank on strategic
nuclear policy. “The gap between our capabilities and those
of the Americans has been revealed, and it is vast. We are
very lucky that Russia has no major enemies at the moment, but
the future is impossible to predict, and we must be ready.”
The
swift victory by mobile, high-tech American forces over
heavily armored Iraqi troops dug in to defend large cities
like Baghdad has jolted many Russian military planners. “The
Iraqi Army was a replica of the Russian Army, and its defeat
was not predicted by our generals,” says Vitaly Shlykov, a
former deputy defense minister of Russia.
Like
its Soviet prototype, Iraqis Army was huge but made up of
mainly of young, poorly trained conscripts. Its battle tactics
called for broad frontal warfare, with massed armor and
artillery, and highly centralized command structure. But those
forces were trounced in a few days by relatively small numbers
of US and British forces, who punched holes in the Iraqi front
using precision weapons and seized the country’s power
centers more rapidly than traditional military thinkers could
have imagined. “The military paradigm has changed, and
luckily we didn’t have to learn that lesson firsthand.”
says Yevgeny Pashentsev, author of a book on Russian military
reform. “The Americans have rewritten the textbook, and
every country had better take note.”
Recently,
the independent Council on Foreign and Defense Policy- a group
of top Russian military experts and former policy makers,
including Mr. Shlykov met to assess the implications of the US
triumph in Iraq for Russia. Their conclusion: The Kremlin must
drop all post-Soviet pretense that Russia remains a
superpower, and make rebuilding and redesigning the nation’s
military forces a top priority. “We cannot afford to
postpone this any longer,” Boris Nemt sov, head of the
Liberal Union of Right Forces, told the meeting.
Twelve
years after the USSR’s collapse, the most unreformed branch
of Russian society remains its armed forces. Though its
numbers have been halved to about 1.2 million personnel, and
its annual budget has dropped to a mere $10 billion, the
structure, weaponry, and doctrines of today’s Russian
military remains those of its Soviet predecessor. Each Russian
defense minister since 1991 has pledged sweeping reform, yet
more than half of the Army’s combat forces remain
ill-trained conscripts required to serve for two years for
just 100 rubles ($3) a month. Aside from the strategic nuclear
forces, no branch of the Russian military has acquired
significant quantities of modern weaponry in more than a
decade.
According
to Defense Ministry survey in early 2003, cited the daily
Izvestia, more than a third of Russian officers and their
families live below the poverty line, and fewer than half of
the officers want to remain in the service.
Critics
say that the military manpower must be at least halved again,
and the draft abolished in order to make reform feasible. “We
can afford an army comparable to those of France or Britain,
but hard decisions must be made,” says Pavel Felgenhauer, an
independent defense expert. Adequate spending for equipment,
training, and payment of professional troops is key, he says.
Other
say that Russia also must define a clear post-Soviet Security
doctrine. ”How can we reform our Army when we have not
defined the threats it must deal with?” says Mr. Dvorkin.
“We must first identify our national interest, then we’ll
know who our enemies might be.”
As
the US prepared to invade Iraq, many Russian military experts
warned that American forces would come to grief in the streets
of Iraqi cities. Some predicted the battle of Baghdad would
resemble the Russian Army’s two assaults on the Chechen
capital of Grozny-in 1995 and again in 2000- each of which
lasted more than a month and cost hundreds of Russian
casualties.
Early
in the Iraq war, the Russian online newspaper Gazeta.lru
reported that two retired Soviet general may have played a key
role in designing Iraq’s defenses. The paper published
photos of Vladimir Achalov, an expert on urban warfare, and
Igor Maltsev, a specialist in air defenses, receiving medals
from Iraq’s defense minister two weeks before the war began.
Russian TV later quoted General Maltsev as saying ”the
American invaders will be buried in the streets of Baghdad.”
Some
in Russia’s military establishment still appear reluctant to
accept the sweeping military verdict in Iraq. “I think the
American dollars won the war, it was not a military victory,”
says Gen. Makhmut Gareyev, president of the official Academy
of Military Sciences in Moscow. “The Americans bought the
Iraqi military leadership with dollars. One can only envy a
state that is so rich.”
But
others are obviously shaken. “Thank God our public has
finally begun to discuss the state of the Army,” Gen.
Vladimir Shamanov, who commanded Russian troops in two
Chechnya wars, told a Moscow radio station after the extent of
the US-led triumph in Iraq became clear last week. “Maybe
our strategic nuclear forces will protect the country for
another decade, but then what? A strong Russia is impossible
without a strong army.”
One
bright note for Moscow, however , is a report that said Iraqi
forces used Russian-made, laser-guided antitank missiles to
destroy several Abrams tans during the US attack. This could
boost profits for Russian armsmakers, who are already
receiving inquiries from Syria and Iran, according to Shlykov.
The
US has complained that Russia supplied Iraq with defense
equipment in violation of UN sanctions. “As a result of the
Iraq War and accusations of illegal Russian arms deliveries,
applications for Russian weapons have soared.” Defense
minister Sergei Ivanov said.
(We
hope this was discussed during the recent visit by President
Bush with President Putin -the editor)
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