Turning Our Back on the Problem?
What consequences do you think parliament’s failure to pass the bill on army manpower reductions will have?
“The vote to reject the presidential bill to reduce army personnel by 2005 means that defense reform has in fact been suspended. Second, the Defense Ministry will now be forced to backpedal on plans to reduce the number of conscripts. As part of this year’s army personnel reductions, we planned to trim the number of draftees by 14,000. We also planned to scale back admissions of cadets to military institutes, because such a great number of graduating officers will be superfluous four years from now.
“Moreover, we are facing the problem of merging the two branches of the Armed Forces — the Air Defense Forces and the Air Force. The Verkhovna Rada has now passed an appropriate bill. However, the merger of the two army branches, which we planned to complete next year, requires scrapping redundant structures, ensuring high efficiency of the new, merged branch, and, most importantly, cutting maintenance costs by 40%. However, the reductions of redundant structures also envision demobilizing their staff. Now that these reductions have not been passed by parliament, we cannot demobilize their staff and therefore cannot scrap those redundant structures. Understandably, cutting costs by 40% is now out of the question. Defense reform is linked inextricably to personnel reductions.
“The reform envisions changing the army structure, reducing the number of military units that are no longer combat worthy, etc. It’s unwise, uneconomical, and irrational to sustain structures that cause nothing but headaches and money for the Armed Forces. The defense reform could save 440,000,000 hryvnias of taxpayers’ money in 2004 — both experts and reform opponents have painstakingly calculated these figures. We had planned on using this money to raise the military’s wages, develop the army, and buy state of the art armaments. However, the voting in parliament means that the 2005 budget will not have these 440,000,000 hryvnias. To put it simply, we won’t be able substantially to increase funding for the military serving in 2005 because the budget will not have adequate funds.
“Putting a freeze on the current number of army officers also means perpetuating other negative and even dangerous phenomena. For example, not allowing colonels to advance beyond the ranks of captain, major, and lieutenant colonel largely means impeding normal and fast advancement of young commanders. There are other downsides that come with the suspended reform of military education, which is currently redundant: the upkeep of such an extensive infrastructure devours nearly a hundred million hryvnias annually. There is also the problem of transferring the railway forces to the Transport Ministry, but appropriate resolutions have been passed in this matter.”
What’s next?
“If this bill is not put to a vote in the Verkhovna Rada again — and I still think the deputies who voted against it will eventually understand the negative consequences of their stance — this will mean perpetuating most of the dangerous phenomena that have been accumulating in the Armed Forces. I think the implications of the political decision by the factions and unaligned deputies who voted against this bill will eventually sink in (unfortunately, later than it could have happened) — but much will have been lost by then.”
Against this background, the fact that parliament has passed, among other things, a bill on social guarantees for officers demobilized as part of the defense reform seems illogical, to put it mildly.
“As you have heard, I repeatedly went to the microphone in the session hall to ask who this bill was meant for. After all, in parliament on February 19 I presented the Bill “On the Reform of the Armed Forces of Ukraine”, and it passed in the first reading. Among other things, this bill envisioned merging the two branches, reducing manpower, and a huge package of social guarantees for demobilized officers. Under the bill, these social guarantees would be effective during the defense reform in 2004 and 2005. Meanwhile, what period does the bill passed today (June 15 — Ed.) cover? Most probably, one year — 2004-2005. I’ve already mentioned that this would create a unique situation for officers being discharged this year: they will find themselves in a significantly different position from those who were discharged last year or will be next year. That is, those slated for demobilization this year, as part of the defense reform, will allegedly enjoy certain social guarantees, but parliament has not allowed the continuation of this reform, whereas voluntary discharge is a completely different matter! Therefore the military runs the risk of being misled by those who are touting the bill adopted today as protection of the military. In other words, guided by political logic and election technologies alone, the lawmakers haven’t grasped the essence of the problem. Moreover, nobody in the session hall even heard this bill, which was adopted today by a constitutional majority. Meanwhile, it contains rather complex social formulas and entails greater spending, which has yet to be calculated in more detail.
“I think parliament should come back to this question. The supreme legislative body, or rather the part of it that voted against the defense reform bill, cannot create such paradoxes. By the way, it also became obvious today that the Verkhovna Rada has no majority.”
Will this move by parliament affect Ukraine’s positions ahead of the Istanbul NATO Summit? After all, defense reform is a major component of Ukraine’s relationship with NATO, which Ukraine wants so much to take to a higher level.
“This could affect Ukraine’s position in Istanbul (or rather the reputation of the political forces that are responsible for the consequences of today’s voting), but not too drastically, because the Istanbul Summit will not be addressing the question of Ukraine’s NATO accession or the Membership Action Plan. But, unfortunately, in a nutshell the situation is this: parliament is blocking defense reform. Just like that. The president initiated the reform; the government and the Defense Ministry provided everything necessary and developed an unprecedented, extensive, and unique legislative basis — a new wording of the Military Doctrine, which we have guided through many hurdles (the Security and Defense Council is currently reviewing this document), a Strategic Defense Bulletin — the Bible of the reform — bills on civilian control over the military and on potential threats to Ukraine’s security (both passed). Not to mention an impressive legal mechanism for providing and ensuring social guarantees, among others, jointly with the State Employment Center, which has developed an appropriate program upon instructions from the president. The Coordinating Center for the Adaptation of Servicemen has in its turn created a whole infrastructure in the regions and tested a number of educational and retraining programs for former servicemen. Money has been invested. All this is now becoming problematic, however.
“Still I’m certain that, after considering the situation in earnest, those who made a political decision by voting against the bill will ask themselves ‘What have we created?’ Life goes on, and we will continue seeking to have parliament pass a comprehensive package of bills on the defense reform.”
