Lecture
Depending on the specific circumstances of the military-political situation, a military organization functions in different ways.
In peacetime, the principal task of the military organization is to guarantee the prevention of aggression from outside or the impossibility of a surprise attack upon it, and to ensure an immediate rebuff to the aggressor. The main lines along which this task is accomplished are as follows.
1. Maintaining a high level of "military readiness" of the state, whose main indicators are: a high level of combat readiness of the armed forces, which denies the aggressor any possibility of catching the country unawares; a high level of development of the military-industrial complex, ensuring the possibility of restructuring the entire life of the country onto a war footing in the shortest possible time; and maintaining a high level of military-professional training of service personnel and of military personnel in the reserve or in the "organized reserve".
Maintaining the state's "military readiness" must be a constant concern of the military organization at all times. This determines the special regime of its activity, which is divided into two types: the regime of ordinary day-to-day readiness and the regime of the threatening pre-war period.
2. Conducting timely analytical and forecasting work, which provides for assessing the state of the defence capability of states by comparing indicators of the combat capability of their armed forces; assessing the state of the military-industrial complexes of potential adversaries; and taking account of and comparing the military-mobilization capabilities of probable adversaries.
3. Carrying out practical measures to ensure parity or superiority in the quantitative and qualitative parameters of the military organization through the continuous improvement of military development. Given the multidimensional nature of this process, a distinction is drawn between military development in the broad and in the narrow sense of the word.
Military development in the broad sense is a system of economic, socio-political, properly military and other measures, which are carried out both by the state itself and by other actors under its leadership, and which are aimed at creating a system of multi-level and heterogeneous military (paramilitary) forces and assets capable of ensuring the reliable armed defence of the state.
In the narrow sense of the word, military development is regarded as the development of the armed forces, their growth and consolidation. In this sense its content comprises: determining the organizational structure of the armed forces as a whole, as well as of the services and branches of arms; determining the principles and methods of manning the armed forces with personnel; organizing the equipping of the armed forces with modern weapons and combat matériel; organizing and developing military science; the training and placement of military cadres, and so on.
The military potential of the state created in the process of military development already performs a defensive function to the extent that, being measured against the military potential of a probable adversary, it serves as a warning to that adversary through the possibility it embodies of his defeat or of inflicting unacceptable damage upon him in the event of a military attack.
In wartime the military organization is called upon to demonstrate the effectiveness of its actions directly in battles and engagements with the enemy and to achieve his defeat or retreat. The outcome of the war and the fate of the state depend to a decisive degree on the quality of the military organization and on its mobility under a constantly changing military situation.
The main component of the military organization – the military and paramilitary structures of the state and society – in open clashes with the enemy realizes and tests the reliability of all the factors of the country's military readiness, that is, it demonstrates in practice the level of military organization and mobilization capability that has actually been attained.
Let us single out the main lines of activity of the military organization at the outbreak of war and in its course: participation in shifting the country's economy onto a war footing and towards the comprehensive provision for the needs of defence and the armed protection of the country; organizing a decisive rebuff to the enemy and his defeat; the performance by military bodies of a number of political functions at the front and in the front-line zone; participation in diplomatic work aimed at isolating the adversary and attracting allies; maintaining a high moral-political condition of the people and the army, and organizing and conducting ideological-psychological influence on the population and the personnel of the enemy's armed forces; and carrying out, within the military organization itself, a system of measures to restore the combat power of the armed forces and the elements of the country's defensive complex that has been disrupted during the period of military operations.
Many bodies and institutions of the political organization of society become, in wartime, elements of the military organization, while elements of the military organization become elements of the political organization.
Two main factors exert a decisive influence on the functioning of the military organization under wartime conditions: first, the stability or instability of the socio-political and moral-psychological mood of the country's population; and second, the character of military operations and the degree of their success.
During a war the activity of many democratic and public organizations in the political system of society is often curtailed, especially of those that do not work directly for defence and for the war, while the activity of command-and-authority structures is intensified. The scale of such changes depends on the size of the theatre of military operations, its remoteness from the centre and the extent of the territory, the internal political situation in the country, the traditions of political life, and so on.
The laws of war provide for directing strikes not only against the adversary's armed forces, but also against targets vital to him and to his military potential, including civilian ones, with the aim of undermining his capacity for active combat operations (conducting offensive operations or active defensive actions).
In the post-war period two regimes of activity of the military organization may be distinguished: under the conditions of the country's transition to a peacetime footing, and under the new post-war geopolitical and domestic political conditions.
Under the conditions of the country's transition to a peacetime footing, the military organization carries out the following: participation in restoring the country's destroyed military-industrial complex; the direct military conversion of the country; restructuring the system of training military cadres for the armed forces and of military training for the country's population; and reducing the personnel strength of the military departments.
Under the new post-war geopolitical and domestic political conditions, the military organization functions and develops in the ordinary, classical regime.
The functioning of the military organization during a period of social destabilization has a number of distinctive features. Social destabilization may cause destabilization within the military organization as well, including within the armed forces. Moreover, the latter may be subject to disintegration because of the uncertainty of political events and the loss of political control. At the same time, possessing relative independence in governance and self-development, they are capable of preserving their effectiveness for a fairly long time and, balancing between opposing political movements, of acting according to the following options:
remaining faithful to nationwide state interests, resolutely rising to the defence of the constitutional order or of the existing government;
in the event of the loss of the government, or of the government's loss of authority and legitimacy, taking power into their own hands in order to restore order in the country and stabilize society;
taking the side of one of the political movements and carrying out its political directives, or splitting along lines of political preference and confronting one another in separate parts.
Between the options named above there may be intermediate variants, which depends on the character of political development in society, the direction of economic transformations, the quality of legal provision and legal traditions, and the degree of elaboration and substantiation of the provisions of the military doctrine and of other documents regulating their life and activity.
Thus, an analysis of the history of various societies and of the socio-political entities that compose them shows that the majority of them, in order to protect their interests, created and continue to create certain specially prepared structures of armed formations of a military, semi-military, paramilitary and administrative-civil character.
Among all these armed formations, a special, nationally significant role is played by the military organization of the state (a system of structures – the armed forces, other troops, military formations and bodies, governing bodies, part of the military-industrial complex), created directly by the state or, with its direct support, by other social actors), intended to protect the interests of society, the constitutional order of the state, and citizens (individuals) by preventing wars and military conflicts and repelling armed aggression by other states, international terrorist organizations and other socially dangerous armed actions. For this reason, the comprehensive improvement and strengthening of the military organization of the Russian Federation is the historic duty of all its citizens and of its political and public organizations.
Comments