I don't recall
from the top of my head who was it, Dmitry Gorenburg, Mark Galeotti or whoever
poses today in the Western media and think-tankdom Parnassus as "Russia's
military experts", but I remember the phrase about declaration of the
return to the Division structure in the Russian Army as "purely
symbolic" by one of these "experts". By now this whole list of
those "experts" is so mixed up that I barely remember what corner of
this "expert" community another round of rubbish comes from. Truth
is, Russia restores, dissolved in 1946, Order Of Kutuzov 150th Idritsk-Berlin
Motor Rifle Division.
The division will
be stationed in Rostov Region and the construction of the quarters for it is in
a very active phase. In fact, First Deputy Defense Minister Ruslan Tzalikov
already inspected facilities of the newly reborn division and they are really
nice accommodations, both for personnel and for officers. The division will
have around 10,000 of personnel in six regiments: 3 motor rifle, 1 tank, 1
self-propelled and 1 air defense regiments. Division's HQ will be located in
Novocherkassk, which is very close to Rostov-on-Don--a major urban center in
Russia's Southern Federal District. But the point is not in that, however
remarkable, fact. The point is much larger and deeper.
In 2013, "reformed"
into the utter submission, that is reduced to the brigades, 5th Tamanskaya
Motor Rifle "Brigade", as well as brought from the verge of being
completely disbanded, 4th Guards Tank Kantemirovskaya Division are back in the
game and not as "brigades" but as full blown divisions. In fact,
these two divisions, together with two, one tank and another motor rifle,
brigades, are the core of newly reconstituted 1st Guards Tank Army of the Western
Military District.
The question here
is next: what happened with this much touted (mostly in the West)
"brigade" structure of the "reformed" Russian Army, why
return to divisions? The answer is extremely simple and...complex--almost a
catastrophic failure of Anatoliy Serdykov's and his minion, former Chief Of
General Staff Makarov's, "reforms" of Russian Armed Forces. In the
end, the fresh title from one of the major Russian media outlets Vzglyad reads
exactly like this--To
Defend Against NATO One Needs Larger (than brigade) Units. Welcome to the
reality. But the issue here is not just with Serdyukov--a no clue, corrupt
imbecile who surrounded himself with coterie of his clueless bimbos. After all,
it was none other than Putin who appointed this tax and furniture
"specialist" to head Russian Defense Ministry. The issue here is HOW
could this "reform", which almost cost Russian Armed Forces the loss
of operational control, have happened at all? A large part, the root, of the
answer is found in influential SVOP (Council On
Foreign and Defense Policies), one of the representatives of which, namely
Karaganov, was featured in media (and this blog) very recently. One of the
brains and ideologues of that "reform" was late Vitaly Shlykov, GRU
Colonel, whose biography reads like a spy novel and whose ideas, later,
when Shlykov became Deputy Minister Of Defense of Russian Federation and
founded this SVOP, which I mentioned above, played a crucial role in this
"reform". It is customary in Russia to follow a very famous proverb:
about deceased--either only good or nothing at all. But we are not going to
discuss here the personality of late Vitaly Shlykov, who, undeniably, was a
Russian patriot and a man who wanted only best for Russian Armed Forces. That
is a given. We have to take a look at his ideas. What is also a given is
this--spies do not necessarily make good military leaders, in fact, they seldom
do. Vitaly Shlykov's ideas are the best proof of that, because they were
generated by the person who was by an occupation...drum roll--economist with
the slight leaning towards military economics. He graduated famous (or
infamous--depends on the point of view) Moscow Institute Of International
Relations (MGIMO) with degree in International Relations. This is a red flag
immediately. Make no mistake, it is a red flag insofar as any military
operational experience goes, for a spy this could be, actually, an advantage.
In the end, Shlykov graduated Military-Diplomatic Academy but here is the first
major problem with his military education (rather lack thereof) since Shlykov's
ideas on the training of officers instigated a disaster of a massive proportion
with officer corps of Russia's Armed Forces. It matters a great deal, in
fact it is a decisive factor, that Shlykov never went through real system of
higher military education which lead to his very bizarre ideas on officer
training. Later, that would contribute to almost successful demolition of the
system of officers' training in Russia and not that only. After all, SVOP, of
which Shlykov was one of the founders and a big shot in SVOP's
military-analytical "wing" likes to point it out. In the end, none
other than pro-government Rossiiskaya Gazeta (Russian Gazette) published a obituary after Shlykov's
untimely death in 2011, which stated that Shlykov's ideas, aka Shlykov's
List, were in the foundation of Russian Armed Forces'
"reform". And they were, since Shlykov joyfully applauded the
appointment of furniture "specialist" ( and a moron, I may add)
Anatoly Serdyukov to the position of Defense Minister. It was Shlykov who
stated that:In Russian: Здесь не нужен человек со специальными военными
знаниями, для этого у президента в подчинении полно генералов(c)In English:
There is no need for this position to have a man with special
military knowledge, for President has enough generals under his command (c) Needless
to say, a lot (MOST???) of Shlykov's ideas have been drawn from US and European
military "experiences" (actually, he is overbearing with his
references to US Armed Forces) and, actually, found a lot of positive response
(still
do) from Western "experts". The problem? Shlykov forgot
that he wasn't on a spy mission in Switzerland, he was pushing homicidal (or
suicidal) principles on one of the greatest armies in human history and
he had no experience whatsoever of commanding a platoon, let alone an army, to
his credit. In fact, he had zero field experience. Do you remember how
Hippocratic Oath goes? I, certainly, remember what Varlam Shalamov told a
darling of Western propagandists Solzhenitsyn, while giving him his notes--in
whose hands will your literature end up? Well, guess what, according to
Solzhenitsyn I should have been born in GULAG and all my relatives should have
been executed and I...shouldn't have been born at all, since, well, hundreds of
millions (nay, billions) of Russians have died in GULAG. Guess what,
Solzhenitsyn didn't spend a day in GULAG (he worked in Sharaga), while Shlykov
never commanded anything in his life. Sounds familiar?
To Be Continued..........
No comments:
Post a Comment