Grachev's Portfolio: The Deeper Issue

The recent controversy in the press, the Duma and among President Boris Yeltsin's advisers over whether or not Defense Minister Pavel Grachev should resign has overshadowed the more basic problem of civilian control over the military. There have been many accusations hurled at Grachev: corruption, dragging his feet on military reform, supporting a bloated and costly military, etc. But almost no one has asked Grachev the main question: Why is he, a professional soldier, occupying a post that should be held by a politician who is accountable to society and to the parliament?


Sources in the administration and in the Defense Ministry have been leaking information lately that there may soon be changes in the ministry's leadership. They claim that Yeltsin has already decided to replace Grachev, but that the order will only come after a certain time so that it will not look like he has caved in to outside pressure.


Most likely these leaks are just rumors rather than the innermost thoughts of our mysterious president. But the situation in the army is unlikely to improve over the next few months. The Defense Ministry stands to receive less funding than it needs to maintain Russia's current armed forces. In real terms, the 1995 defense budget will be less than that for 1994.


Therefore, it may not be important what Yeltsin thinks about Grachev. Sooner or later he is going to need a highly placed scapegoat on which he can blame the army's troubles. If Yeltsin replaces Grachev with a general who has a clean record -- say, Andrei Nikolayev or Mikhail Kolesnikov -- and fires those whose reputations have been sullied, then the storm of criticism against the Defense Ministry will be silenced for a time. Yeltsin knows this; therefore, Grachev is doomed.


But replacing Grachev with another general will not solve the army's problems. Professional soldiers always seek to fulfil the commands of their immediate superiors, not public opinion. This is what any successful military career is predicated on. Grachev, as a professional soldier rather than a politician, has always tried to be loyal to Yeltsin and to remain in his good graces. He even learned, at the age of 46, how to play a pretty good game of tennis. As a result, he is sincerely at a loss to understand why no one is satisfied with him and why everyone is calling for his resignation.


Russia's civilian leadership is most responsible for the current crisis in the army, not Pavel Grachev. He, after all, was merely following orders. Yeltsin demanded first and foremost political loyalty from the army, not the kind of rapid, painful transformation that would have enabled the government to really reduce defense spending.


Many highly placed military people, including the chief of the general staff Kolesnikov, have repeatedly stated that "the army cannot reform itself." But no one has heard them. Andrei Kokoshin, a political scientist who was appointed first deputy defense minister in the spring of 1992, has not been able to lay the foundations of a civilian Defense Ministry during his 2-1/2 years in office because he has not received the active support of Yeltsin.


Yeltsin is interested in maintaining his personal control over the army. Therefore, the next defense minister will certainly be another professional soldier who will unquestioningly obey orders. The claim that "the army will not accept a civilian defense minister" is just a cover. The bottom line is that Yeltsin is simply not interested in creating a system of real civilian control over the military.





Pavel Felgenhauer is defense and national security advisor for Segodnya.