Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that an armed uprising organized by Wagner’s head, Yevgeny Prigozhin, would be suppressed anyway, adding that “the organizers of the uprising did not understand this, despite the loss of competence.”
“Among other things, they all understood that they were engaged in criminal acts to divide and weaken the country, which is now facing an enormous external threat, unprecedented pressure from outside. “No step back!” Our comrades are dying,” he said. The President also thanked the Russians for their endurance, solidarity and patriotism.
Any state in the world has always somehow solved one of the most important problems of its existence, which is as follows – as if the mass of armed people (the so-called armed forces) did not and did not get out of the control of the country’s authorities. declares his political claims. This problem was not always publicly raised (for example, in Soviet times it was not even mentioned), but in any case it was.
It has been checked in various ways. For example, in the ancient world era, the army laid down its weapons in front of the entrance to the capital of their kingdom. Almost always, the recruitment of the highest cadre of commanders and officers of the armed forces was carried out from among the representatives of the ruling classes, which in themselves should ensure the stability of the functioning of the military organization of the state (he worked by the way, not always – it is enough to recall the Russian Decembrists).
There were other approaches as well. For example, Stalin ensured the obedience of the army by brutal repression. However, such a plan only works successfully in peacetime, up to certain limits. But with the start of the war, big problems arise. To achieve victory in the armed struggle, the senior officer corps must act assertively, enterprisingly, creatively, one might say, show a certain courage during hostilities.
However, military leaders, fearing constant executions, will in any case wait only for written orders and directives from the top leadership, and even the most necessary manifestation of initiative will be considered an unjustified risk between commanders and commanders. This was convincingly proven in the initial period of the Great Patriotic War.
In the USSR, there was also an institution of political overseers for officers, which at different times were called commissars or political personnel. In fact, it was another officer corps with its own staff bodies. Moreover, the movement of a political worker through the service was strictly independent of its direct commanders. By itself, such a plan is extremely vicious and leads to only one thing – the erosion of command unity in the Armed Forces.
It is also possible to make peace in the Armed Forces, promoting only the faithful to leadership positions. However, such a scheme only works well in peacetime. Such a system of selection and promotion of personnel to leading positions during hostilities would be absolutely disastrous both for the Armed Forces and, perhaps, for the state itself. Loyalists, by definition, cannot win fights and battles – not the right character.
In industrialized countries and established democracies, civilian control of the armed forces is often exercised in conjunction with an accepted and established electoral system and personnel promotion to higher positions in the army and navy.
As Winston Churchill said, democracy is the worst form of government except all the others. Approximately the same can be said about the control of the armed forces by civilian authorities. Until now, more effective ways of controlling the army and navy have not been invented.
For example, in the United States it sounds something like this: “The US military is under the control of civilian authorities. The United States Constitution establishes, by current law, the responsibility of the commander at all levels to the President as the supreme commander through the appropriate ranks of command. It sounds fancy, but it’s backed by laws, relevant governing documents and instructions. In summary, this system is, of course, indescribable, but what is perfectly clear is that the senior officers completely exclude any self-will (and even the slightest hint of it) on the part of their representatives.
Also, in countries with established democracies, the armed forces are divided into operational and administrative management. For this reason, in many Western countries, defense ministers are female politicians. They deal purely with administrative matters, but there is an element of power-sharing. And this largely eliminates any possible misalignment.
Most importantly, no one anywhere in the world creates parallel armies with a special order of obedience, because sooner or later such structures fall out of state control. As for private military companies, Wagner has nothing to do with such structures. In fact, “Wagner” today is a full-fledged unified weapon formation with all possible means of reinforcement.
Parallel armies must be dismantled and the strictest chain of command reestablished in the military organization of the state. Only strict unity of command and centralization is possible in this area. The immediate future, of course, lies in the establishment of civilian control over the armed forces, together with the creation of a well thought-out system for the selection and promotion of personnel to higher positions in the army and navy. This will prevent any possible confusion in the province and avoid personnel shortages in connection with the initiation of any hostilities. No need to invent anything else. Everything else has already been tried.