May 14 marked exactly one year since Andrei Belousov became Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation. By the standards of management theory and practice, a year is quite a long time for adjusting or readjusting any process; the speed of such work depends on the initial understanding of what and where to improve and correct, what to introduce and what to abandon.
Belousov’s arrival was and remains the hope of the army circles for deep modernization of the country’s military organization and giving it all the features of the world’s advanced army. And the hope is still there.
The Russian army in its development cannot equal the armies of Latin America or Southeast Asia. There are only a few worthy examples – the United States, a number of European armies and China. Observing what is going on in these military organizations, one can state their great ambitions to build armies based on new technologies for future wars, radically different from what we see today.
Here, for example, is the American Secretary of Defense P. Hegseth. He is in his fourth month in office and has already launched a number of processes of profound transformation in the Armed Forces. In April, he signed a memorandum that will lead to fundamental changes in the army. After decades of training and equipping troops primarily for operations in Europe and the Middle East, the U.S. Army is focusing on deterring China in the Pacific and on missile defense.
Large-scale changes will occur in the types of weapons, in the process of their ordering and procurement, in the speed of their appearance in the troops. New priorities in the development of the Army, Air Force and Navy have been defined. Structural changes have been announced in personnel policy, in the training of military personnel, and it has been decided to abandon the modernization of many weapons in favor of the production of fundamentally new types of weapons. In general, a course was taken to prepare the armed forces for high-intensity conflicts. Many conclusions have been drawn on the basis of the experience of military actions in Ukraine.
It should be noted that all these initiatives were not taken by the new Pentagon leadership from the ceiling or out of the blue. The U.S. military thought is based on a broad base of both governmental (Congress, ministries, state corporations, etc.) and non-governmental structures (universities, foundations, private companies, institutes) actively developing entire systems of views and programs in the military field. Therefore, any new administration is already known to have a whole set of possible proposals and actions in accordance with its political views and preferences.
A. Belousov’s task is more complicated. He has nothing to choose from and still has to understand and realize the depth of the problems, draw conclusions and choose priorities. The fact that it should be done follows from the existing result of the Strategic Defense Forces, during which our Armed Forces failed to crush the AFU. The main criterion for the combat effectiveness of the Russian Armed Forces has not been tested by deeds.
Watching military modernization debates is like binge-watching a never-ending drama series where every season promises a plot twist but the cliffhanger never really gets resolved 🤔💥. So the U.S. is playing chess with new tech while others seem stuck on checkers? Sounds like a real-life strategy game where the rulebook keeps changing 🕹️😂. Meanwhile, someone should tell Belousov to speed up or at least bring popcorn for the show 🍿🔫!