WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 (UPI) -- Russian generals have long felt they should be the ones to set military policy. They have trouble accepting civilian authority -- be it from President Dmitry Medvedev or Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov. They derisively describe the minister as a former furniture salesman and tax man, yet Serdyukov knows where the brass keep their money.
Russian Prime Minister and former President Vladimir Putin, a former intelligence officer and Russia's "national leader," may be a different story because of his dominating personality and popularity. Yet Soviet-era military retirees already have challenged him directly.
On Dec. 3, Gen. Vladimir Isakov, Russia's deputy minister of defense and commander of the service of the rear -- supply -- resigned. Several top generals also have resigned since Serdyukov's appointment, supposedly protesting his management style. This included Armed Forces Chief of Staff four-star Gen. Yury Baluyevsky and several others.
The new wave of resignations -- initially denied by the Russian Defense Ministry -- also included the chief of military intelligence -- the famed GRU -- Gen. Valentin Korabelnikov, the chief of the Central Command Center District, Lt. Gen. Vladimir Goshkoder, and others.
The minister's people say the retiring generals are either incompetent or corrupt or both. Meanwhile, the generals leak that the reforms are destroying Russia's glory -- its defense forces. In the long term, the reforms are clearly a positive trend for civil-military relations in Russia and for the forces' modernization, but in the short term, the social stability of the country may be at stake.
Serdyukov and the Russian military failed to announce the policy and the criteria by which officers will be laid off. Questions about housing availability, always a sore point with the Russian officer corps, abound. Job insecurity, career retraining and professional change amid economic crisis are acute issues.
Also, Russia is amid its worst economic crisis in at least a decade. The 1998 crisis was acute but short, and the global contagion was limited. This time Russia may be staring into an economic abyss, despite its large hard currency reserves, as oil, gas and commodity prices plummet. This is a bad time to drastically cut the officer corps, which may take to the streets or form a political opposition as it did in the 1990s.
In 1991 some of the army brass supported Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov during the anti-Gorbachev coup, and several years later Gen. Lev Rokhlin died under mysterious circumstances while allegedly plotting an anti-Boris Yeltsin coup.
For the West, the suppression of public and professional debate on the military reform demonstrates the secretive nature of the Russian state, lack of transparency and poor civil-military cooperation. This trend, along with the military transformation itself, should be a constant priority for the analytic community.
The reform progress also may offer some insight into the new structures, doctrines and weapons systems Russia is pursuing.
After the years of lingering talk of military reform, the civilian defense minister is ripping control over the army from the General Staff. This may signal a real power shift in the Putin-Medvedev era.
Keeping tabs on social and political stability during this crisis should be a top priority for those who track Russia, its military, and the safety and security of its nuclear arsenal.
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(Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is a senior research fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies and International Energy Security at the Catherine and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute at The Heritage Foundation.)
