February 28, 2013: The Russian government recently bowed to public pressure and agreed not to send conscripts into combat. Only “contract soldiers” (higher paid volunteer troops) will do combat, unless there is a general war. As a result of this new policy, combat training of conscripts will be reduced from six to four months. Actually, training was cut in half but conscripts will not be sent to a combat zone (as in the Caucasus) until they had been in uniform for at least four months. The actual wording of these new regulations allowed conscripts to be sent to do non-combat jobs in the Caucasus, where terrorism is quite common. This was not publicized. These new rules were issued with no fanfare but the word quickly got around and parents of draft age (18-26) men were outraged. This was seen as a subterfuge to save money (less training for draftees) at the expense of the young conscripts and still send them to dangerous service in the Caucasus. While the conscripts would not be chasing after Islamic terrorists down there, they would be targets for terrorist attacks and would, because of the training cuts, be less able to defend themselves. The parents figured that out themselves. The military saw the change as necessary because conscripts are only in for a year now, rather than two, and extensive training is costly and largely wasted because most of the conscripts leave after their year is up. The larger problem is that Russia has fewer and fewer people to conscript and a very difficult time attracting volunteers.
Read More..........
No comments:
Post a Comment