A Leaner, Cleaner Russian Army

This Week at War: A Leaner, Cleaner Russian Army -- Robert Haddick, Foreign Policy

Everyone agrees that Russia's military needs reform. But making it happen won't be easy.

This month, the U.S. Army War College released Can Russia Reform: Economic, Political and Military Perspectives, an anthology published by the college's Strategic Studies Institute and edited by Stephen Blank, a professor at the college. Mark Galeotti, a professor at New York University and a long-time analyst of Russia's military and security forces, contributed a chapter on reforming the Russian Army. Corruption, poor leadership, outmoded policies, and Russia's impoverishment after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Galeotti suggests, has reduced the once-mighty Russian fighting force to an ineffective mob.

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My Comment: I have trouble seeing the Russian military being able to reform itself into a serious "leaner and cleaner" military force that will have a global impact. The political bureaucracy, the military culture, the systemic corruption, the demographics that show a smaller Russian population .... this .... and much much more .... are forces at work that will impede any reform .... and considering the history of reform in Russia .... I can easily make the prediction that it will fail.