Georgian Daily, NY
Feb 1 2009
In Post-Soviet States, Finally a Time for Sergeants
February 01, 2009
WINDOW ON EURASIA
Paul Goble
Vienna, January 31 ` Russia and Armenia announced this week that they
will build their armed services in the future around professional
non-commissioned officers, a change that will bring them in line with
Western militaries, fundamentally change the duties of junior
officers, and possibly reduce the number of violations of military law
in the ranks.
During the Cold War, one of the most striking differences between NATO
forces and the armies of the Warsaw Pact countries was that the former
had professional sergeants and other non-commissioned officers and the
latter did not. And that difference, many analysts insisted at the
time, had a major impact on the very different nature of the two
forces.
The existence of professional non-commissioned officers in NATO armies
meant that officers could be officers and that long-serving sergeants
could play a major role in running their units and preventing the
outbreak of the kind of tensions that existed between officers and men
in Warsaw Pact armies where there were no such professionals.
With the demise of the Warsaw Pact and the disintegration of the
Soviet Union, many East European countries, including the three Baltic
States, who aspired to NATO membership and now in many cases have
achieved it, began the process by moving to create the corps of
professional sergeants typical of the militaries of the Western
alliance.
But the 12 countries that emerged following the disintegration of the
USSR have generally retained the older Soviet system of relying on
senior draftees to serve as sergeants, an arrangement that increases
the burdens on junior officers and frequently leads to outbreaks of
"dedovshchina," the Russian term for mistreatment of junior draftees
by more senior ones.
Now, this week, two more of these countries ` the Russian Federation
and Armenia — have broken ranks and are beginning to create a
professional NCO system, not because either of them aspires to NATO
membership but rather because they have become convinced that having
professional sergeants will make their forces more militarily capable.
Starting tomorrow, the first of what are slated by 2016 to be 250,000
professional sergeants (a number which by the way is planned to exceed
the number of officers at that time by 100,000) will begin training in
six higher military schools. Most will pursue a 34 month course,
focusing not only on technical subjects but on teaching and
psychology.
That program, Nikita Petrov says in a commentary prepared for the
Novosti news agency, is designed to teach the future sergeants how to
conduct "individual work with soldiers. To be for them not only bosses
but also senior comrades, something that unfortunately not all
officers today are able of doing.
As of September, professional sergeants will be studying at a total of
68 Russian military schools, and this system is intended to produce
some 15,000 NCOs every year. A smaller number of NCOs will be given a
shorter course of instruction, at least initially, although it is
unclear how long that alternative program will continue.
Meanwhile, Armenia has announced that it is well on the way to
creating a professional army with professional NCOs as well, a step
that in addition to Russia, four other former Soviet republics —
Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine — are now taking and one
that will likely prompt others, in the first instance their neighbors,
to do the same.
A commentary in the Baku newspaper "Zerkalo" today argues that
Azerbaijan should take that step both to boost military efficiency and
improve conditions for draftees both legally and practically, although
it notes that Azerbaijan so far has not adopted the necessary
legislation to take this step.
As has been the case elsewhere, the paper notes, there is certain to
be resistance to this step from the officer corps who see the rise of
professional sergeants, many of the most senior of whom are likely to
be paid far more than junior officers as a threat to their status and
perquisites. But now that Armenia and Georgia have taken that step,
Azerbaijan may follow suit.
And that trend could have an outcome that will strike many as
paradoxical: Even those countries which do not aspire to NATO
membership or actively oppose that idea are now copying "a NATO
standard" in organizing their militaries, something that will almost
certainly benefit the soldiers in these forces and hence ultimately
the countries they serve.
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