Russia's military reform plans face resistance

Senior Russian military figures have criticised the Kremlin's plans for military modernisation and have cited an inefficient industrial base as a major roadblock to reform.

The main cause of friction between Defence Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov and the military establishment has been the plan to significantly reduce the size of the officer corps by as many as 200,000 personnel. Some 200 generals, 15,000 colonels and 70,000 majors would be among those retired. There would also be a much smaller number of ground force units: a reduction from 2,000 to around 200.

One retired military officer, who now works in the defence industry, said that a smaller and more professional army would rob the senior military establishment of the 'comfort factor': the knowledge that it could call up large armed formations almost overnight. He said there is an institutional bias that says "the more men under your command, the more powerful you are".

He said that the resistance to personnel cuts occurs every time Moscow proposes the modernisation of air defence systems and other types of military hardware.

However, while most concede that the reliance on high manpower levels is not practical today, one former Soviet-era military officer told Jane's: "These sort of old habits die hard."