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Russian President Putin visiting the Armed Forces Central Command Centre. Kremlin.ru
Alexander Golts, Moscow Times: Army Brass Sabotaging Putin's Plans
Surprisingly, Russia's leaders do manage to come up with good ideas on occasion. But, of course, their subordinates immediately sabotage them to the best of their abilities. To the casual observer, it seems the military brass long ago stopped offering resistance to proposals from the president and defense minister, but Russian generals in fact continue to sabotage every order from the top that they dislike.
For example, President Vladimir Putin first began an experiment two years ago to create military reserve forces in a fairly civilized manner, and recently issued fresh orders to implement that project.
WNU Editor: I come from a family that has a long history of serving in the Russian military .... with some of my descendants even attaining the rank of General (my uncle retired a few years back with a rank that is equivalent to a 3-star U.S. general .... my father only served in the Second World War .... ending his career with the rank of Colonel) .... so growing up I can say with a great degree of confidence .... I have heard it all. This post by Alexander Golts is just the tip of the iceberg.
The last of the old Soviet officers should be leaving the scene making the way for a senior officer corp with the Chechen conflict as it's main experience. When these guys retire -they may have not fought in WWII or experienced the cold war, but they were trained by those who did - it'll be last of the old Soviet influence in the military.
ReplyDeleteObviously wars cast very long shadows over militaries, I cannot imagine just how profound a institutional memory WWII was to the Russian Army. The officers and NCO's who entered service after 2005 are and will be the doctrinal future of the russian military. I should mention that effects of WWII were not just seminal to the Russian army for decades, but also politically and socially and anyone doesn't address that will never understand Russia.