Focusing on four critical components of combat cohesion—leadership, morale, trust, and training—the author argues that under Boris Yeltsin, combat cohesion deteriorated to the point where the Russian military was not in a position to carry out combat operations—as demonstrated by the army’s poor showing in the First Chechen War. As a result, the military that Putin inherited was in shambles. Planes were not flying, ships were not sailing, and soldiers were not training. While the outcome is not assured, Putin has provided the generals with the two factors they value the most: stability and predictability. For the first time since the collapse of the USSR, the steep decline in combat readiness has begun to be reversed—even so, success is not assured, and there is a long way to go before Moscow will be able to boast of an army approaching that fielded by the Soviets
In accordance with standard Russian usage, the Army refers to all of services: the Navy, Air Force, Strategic Rocket Forces, Space Forces, and Air Defense Forces. The methodological approach taken in this article owes much to Robert K. Yin, Case Study Research: Design and Methods, 3rd ed. (London: Sage, 2003), chap. 2.
2.
These factors encompass both social and task cohesion as defined in Robert J. MacCoun, Elizabeth Kier, and Aaron Belkin, “Does Social Cohesion Determine Motivation in Combat: An Old Question with an Old Answer,”Armed Forces & Society32, no. 1 (2005): 1-1. As they put it, “social cohesion, in other words, refers to whether group members like each other, while task cohesion refers to whether they share the same goals.” In discussing such concepts, Russian military writers do not make a distinction between the two. In fact, the Russian military has faced serious problems in both areas.
3.
and Jeremy J. J. Phipps, “Unit Cohesion: A Prerequisite for Combat Effectiveness” (Issue Paper 82-3, National Defense University, Washington, DC, 1982).
4.
In discussing the Russian and Soviet armies, the pronoun he will be used because the Russian Army has yet to integrate women in a meaningful way into its ranks. They remained restricted to administrative, medical, and other noncombatant positions. The vast majority are the wives or daughters of officers serving as warrant officers struggling to make enough money to keep the family going.
5.
Thomas E. Ricks, Making the Corps (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998).
6.
Leonard Wong, Thomas A. Kolditz, Raymond A. Millen, and Terrence M. Potter, Why They Fight: Combat Motivation in the Iraq War (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2003).
7.
At various points in time, this writer has discussed the problem with senior Russian officers (as a member of a delegation led by Admiral Dennis Blair, who was Commander in Chief of U.S. Forces, Pacific, to Russia in 2000), as well as with a wide variety of former Soviet and Russian officers and soldiers in other forums.
8.
and “Reformirovanye armii trebuet vzveshnnogo I produmannogo podkhoda,” Krasnaya zvezda, November 23, 1992.
9.
See chapter 6, “Political Officers in the Soviet Military,” in Dale R. Herspring, Soldiers, Commissars, and Chaplains; Civil-Military Relations Since Cromwell (Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), 161-186.
10.
“Vooruzhennye Sily Rossii—na strona Zakona I Konstitutsii,” Krasnaya zvezda, December 18, 1992.
11.
“Uchebny god zavershen, problemy ostayutsya,” Krasnaya zvezda, December 12, 1992.
12.
“Dedovshchina: Caste Tyranny in the Soviet Armed Forces,”The Journal of Soviet Military Studies5, no. 1 (March 1992): 65-65.
13.
Robert V. Barylski, The Soldier in Russian Politics (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1998), 284-284.
14.
and Mark Rhodes, “Public Attitudes in Russia,”RFE/RL Research Reports2, no. 3 (January 1993): 42-42.
15.
“‘Ludi v pogonakh’ kogda Vorruzhennye Sily RF sokrashchaysitya shislennost silovykh struktur rastet,” Krasnaya zvezda, August 2, 1994.
16.
“Officers! Russian Federation of Ministry of Defense Information Publishes Data on Armed Forces’ Officer Corps,” Rossiyskaya gaeta, August 26, 1996, in FBIS, Central Europe, August 21, 1995, p. 1.
17.
Lilia Shevtsova, “Russia’s Fragmented Armed Forces,” in Civil-Military Relations and Democracy, ed. Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1996), 113-113.
18.
Dick, “Crisis in the Soviet Military” (February 1992), 72-72.
19.
in FBIS, Central Europe, February 24, 1993, p. 26.
20.
William E. Odom, The Collapse of the Soviet Military (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 302-302.
21.
C. J. Dick, “The Crisis in the Former Soviet Military,”Jane’s Intelligence Review, September 1992, 72-72.
22.
in FBIS, November 25, 1992.
23.
C. W. Blandy, “Chechnya: Two Federal Interventions. An Interim Comparison and Assessment” (Document no. P29, Conflict Studies Research Centre, January 2000), 13-13.
24.
and Roy Allison, “Russia, Regional Conflict, and the Use of Military Power,” in The Russian Military: Power and Policy, ed. Steven E. Miller and Dmitri Trenin (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004), 130-130.
25.
and “Armiya budet takoy, kakim budet ee ofitserskiy korpus,” Krasnaya zvezda, May 17, 1994.
26.
Aleksandr Gol’ts, Armiya Rossii: 11 Poteryannikh let (Moscow: Zakharov, 2004), 166.
27.
Olga Oliker, Russia’s Chechen War 1994-2000: Lessons from Urban Combat (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2001), 14-14.
28.
Blandy, Chechnya: Two Federal Interventions, 15-15.
29.
Anatol Lieven, Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 47-47.
30.
Ibid., 106.
31.
and Blandy, Chechnya: Two Federal Interventions, 15-15.
32.
Lieven, Chechnya, 102-103.
33.
and Pavel Felgenhauer, “The Chechen Campaign” (Paper for the Third Annual Conference on Russian Decision Making, November 7-8, 1995), 11-11. This article was prepared for a conference at the Naval Post Graduate School. I am indebted to Professor Mikhail Tyspkin for providing me with this article.
34.
Oliker, Russia’s Chechen War, 59-59.
35.
and Felgenhauer, “Chechen Campaign,”12-12.
36.
Lieven, Chechnya, 291-291.
37.
Ibid., 110.
38.
Felgenhauer, “Chechen Campaign,”15-15, note 11.
39.
A number of senior Russian military officers, with whom this author spoke, at the time considered this statement to be far “too optimistic” (slishkom optimistichnyi).
40.
Joint Publication Research Service-Russia, February 7, 1996, p. 19.
41.
Lieven, Chechnya, 284-284.
42.
“Russia Continues to Lose Officers,”The Monitor, October 13, 1999.
43.
U. S. Department of State Country Guide, “Military Schools,”Exploitz.com, July 1996.
44.
and “Russia Needs More Soldiers to Balance NATO; Commander,”ITAR-TASS, March 12, 1999.
45.
Lester W. Grau and Timothy L. Thomas, “A Russian View of Future War: Theory and Direction,”The Journal of Slavic Military Studies9, no. 3 (September 1996): 514-514.
46.
“Armed Forces Crime Figures for 1998 Announced,”Interfax, December 1, 1999.
47.
Walter Parchomenko, “The State of Russia’s Armed Forces and Military Reform,”Parameters, Winter 1999-2000, 100-100.
48.
in FBIS, June 13, 1997.
49.
in FBIS, March 6, 1998.
50.
and “Crime Increases in Russia’s Armed Forces,”The Russia Journal, March 15, 1999.
51.
“The Army Is Shooting Its Own Men,” Izvestiya, June 6, 1997.
52.
“The Russian Army, Reeling from the War in Chechnya and Facing Brutality within Its Ranks, Has Found a New Enemy—Itself,”Transactions, November 1998.
53.
M. J. Orr, “Manpower Problems of the Russian Armed Forces” (Document no. D62, Conflict Studies Research Centre, February 2002), 4-4.
54.
‘“Defense Ministry to Submit Program on Contract Service by Autumn,” Novosti, July 15, 1997. Around 100,000 were the wives of officers serving primarily in communications, administrative, and medical positions to supplement their husbands’ incomes.
55.
“Army Struggles with Contract Military Service,”The Monitor, October 15, 1997.
56.
in WNC, December 26, 2002.
57.
in Johnson’s List, March 11, 2004.
58.
The Monitor, September 5, 2001.
59.
and Gol’ts, Armiya Rossii, 11.
60.
Aleksandr Gol’ts, “The Social and Political Condition of the Russian Military,” in The Russian Military: Power and Policy, ed. Steven E. Miller and Dmitri Trenin (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004), 78-78.
61.
in WNC, March 11, 2005.
62.
in WNC, March 29, 2003.
63.
in WNC, January 31, 2005.
64.
in WNC, August 22, 2005.
65.
in WNC, November 8, 2005.
66.
See also Oliker, Russia’s Chechen War, 42-42.
67.
and “Soldiers Vigilantly Extort Chechen Drivers,”Chechnya Weekly, June 30, 2004.
68.
in Johnson’s List, March 27, 2002.
69.
Meier, Chechnya, 107-107.
70.
Russia Project, “What’s Next for the Russian Military,”Radio Series, http://www.russiaproject.org.
71.
Vladimir Putin, “Stenograficheskiy ochet o sovershchanii rukovodyashchego sostave Vooruzhennykh,” November 9, 2005, http://president.kremlin.ru.
72.
in WNC, April 22, 2005.
73.
Paul Jenkins, “Red Army Blues,”The World Today, September 2, 2001.
74.
Associated Press, “As Desertions Continue, Russia’s Military Drafts Men with Mental Illnesses and Criminal Records,” October 6, 2002.
75.
Human Rights Watch15, no. 9 (2002): 23-24.
76.
in WNC, June 13, 2003.
77.
in WNC, January 28, 2006.
78.
and “Draft 2006 Budget Shows Increased Spending on Defense,”Interfax, August 17, 2005, in WNC, August 19, 2005.
79.
in WNC, January 31, 2005.
80.
Barylski, Soldier in Russian Politics, 276-276.
81.
in WNC, February 1, 1999.
82.
Zoltan Barany, “Politics and the Russian Armed Forces,” in Russian Politics: Challenges of Democratization, ed. Zoltan Barany and Robert G. Moser (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 182-182.
