신생 러시아 聯邦軍에 있어서의 인력충원체제 : 과연 지원병제 시대가 도래할 것인가 = The New Manning System in the Russian Armed Forces : Current Situation and Perspective

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

On May 9, 1992, President Boris N. Yeltsin signed a decree that would create a new streamlined Russian army, striking a final blow to the Red Army that once projected Soviet power from Berlin to Kabul. Russia took under its jurisdiction, adding to the units located within its boundaries, the Western, Northern, and Northwestern Groups of Forces, the troops stationed on the territory of Transcaucasia, the 14th Army in Moldova, the border troops, and part of the Caspian Flotilla.
By late May 1992, the newly-transformed Ministry of Defense prepared a draft of
Russia's defense doctrine. First published in the special issue of the journal Voennaia Mysl', this official statement presumes structural transformations deriving from the performance of the allied forces in the Gulf. That includes a viable rapid deployment capability, mobile airborne forces, effective transport and logistics along with mobile support forces. Reconfigured Russian forces would thus make a small, mobile, modern, professional, and civilized army.
In this context, the rejuvenated military leadership vows to firmly establish a mixed conscription and voluntary contract recruitment system, providing a functioning alternative service. In fact, the change from the mandatory conscription system to a voluntary system will be necessary for the professionalization of the Russian. Army beset with low morale and lax discipline. During a series of debates on the introduction of the voluntary system since 1989, however, most generals objected to the idea on the ground that it is simply too costly to maintain a professional army Furthermore, the
transformation cost and other expenses for the reduction of troops should precede any expenses for the maintenance of a professional army and the related facilities.
Under these circumstances, would the mixed manning system have any future in
Russia? While there are few detailed and reliable information on the above issues, it seems safe to say that there are no grounds for optimism. As the society is besieged by the price hikes, the Russian youths are not likely to opt for the contract subsidy of 2,000 rubles in exchange for the rigor in the barrack life, After all, it is not clear whether the Army can secure enough financial sources for volunteers' wage.
The only way for the Russian Army to overcome the present financial constraints
might be to preserve the conscription elements: NCOs and some servicemen will serve on a contract basis, and to those branches and positions that do not require professional knowledge the ordinary enlisted men will be assigned.
On the other hand, while the criteria for assignment to combat or non-combat units and the combat or non-combat roles within the combat unit were the levels of education and spoken Russian in the past, the criteria for assignment today will be based upon the differences between the conscripts and the volunteers and between the volunteers and the substitute servicemen. That is, the professional soldiers who volunteered for a contract service will be mostly assigned to the priority units in the Strategic Deterrent Forces and Rapid Deployment Units.
The conscripts and the substitute servicemen secured from the conscript system will not be assigned to the core forces, but to regional defense or para-military units such as railroad and construction units. The substitute servicemen, whose job requires a relatively high level of difficulties and a longer-term service, will be assigned to those places that have achronic shortage of manpower, including hospitals, mines, defense factories. The more difficult the supply of manpower becomes because of financial conditions, the stricter the criteria becomes on the supply of manpower.
Given the above situations, the financial difficulties that the Russian Army is facing will not necessarilly result in a large-scale reduction of troops. On the contrary, the end result may be widely different from the wishes of the current military leadership-to organize into a professional elite force.