Lecture
In the strict sense of the word, the term «control» means verification or observation for the purpose of verification. But as a category of political science, this term carries a broader content. In social processes, control constitutes a system of measures ensuring the timely detection of negative phenomena and trends in the condition and functioning of particular objects, formations and institutions. Its purpose lies not in resolving pressing problems and contradictions, but in gathering information that attests to their existence, reveals their causes and substantiates the need to respond to them, as well as in conveying this information to those authorities which, by virtue of their status, are obliged to take the appropriate decisions.
Control understood in this way is necessary because the army and democratic society are not identical. This non-identity is expressed in the fact that the army even of the most democratic state is not a democratic institution. By virtue of its very purpose, the army stands apart from society in its principles of organization and forms of activity, in its systems of values and norms. The army and society are structures of different kinds. It is precisely this situation that makes necessary constant efforts aimed at integrating the armed forces and civil society – an integration that constitutes an important manifestation of democracy. This integration itself appears as a many-sided process, as a result of which a state of social community and political unity between the military and civilians is established and maintained.
The achievement of such a state is ensured by the coordinated efforts of the state, civil society and the army. Civilian control is an important and irreplaceable instrument in accomplishing this task. Its necessity becomes especially acute in those periods when society undergoes a deformation of civil-military relations associated with the weakening of the functional capabilities of their subjects (the state, civil society, the army), with a lack of coordination in their actions, and with a decline in the basic parameters of the country's defence capability and of society's domestic political stability.
Civilian control over the military organization should, in the most general terms, be understood as the concrete activity of citizens, carried out both through the state and through their own associations (associations, committees, parties, movements) and directed at ensuring that the condition and employment of that organization meet the interests and needs of the state and society. The fundamental distinguishing feature of civilian control is that it is control over the army not only on the part of the state, but also on the part of society. Moreover, what is at issue is not so much control imposed on the army from outside, as the strengthening of its ties with society, the recognition by the military leadership and the officer corps of society's values, their perception of themselves as an element of society rather than as a force standing above it, and their treatment of public opinion as a factor that has a positive influence on the state of affairs in the armed forces.
Society needs an effective organization designed to protect it from external and internal threats. This fundamental imperative consists in creating a system of relations between the military and civilians that would ensure maximum military security with minimum damage to other social values. In a word, civilian control over the military organization and over military activity is non-military control aimed at ensuring the observance by the military establishment and its officials of legislation, of state and military discipline, and of the constitutional order.
Civilian control constitutes a rather flexible and multi-level system. It cannot be the prerogative of one or two departments or institutions. According to their form of social organization and degree of institutionalization, three types of civilian control are usually distinguished: authoritative supra-departmental (state) control; public control; and particular (individual) control.
Authoritative supra-departmental control is exercised by non-military state bodies that are external to the army and the security agencies and independent of military-administrative bodies. At the same time, the armed forces and other security structures are under the full control of the highest state (civilian) leadership, carry out all its instructions, do not lay claim to an independent political role and, as a rule, are not drawn into the settlement of conflicts between separate branches of power, between central and local administrative bodies, and so forth.
The most effective form of control over the armed forces is one in which centralization and decentralization are flexibly combined. It is most fruitful when it is exercised by the highest legislative, executive and also judicial bodies, each of which has its own functions and tasks. Given proper interaction, they assist, complement and correct one another, minimizing errors in the leadership of the military sphere and of the army's activity.
In the overwhelming majority of developed countries, civilian control is also ensured by the fact that the military establishment is headed by a civilian, whose task is the political leadership of the armed forces. But of the most essential significance here is the change in the functions within the ministry of defence, which is called upon to become the conduit not of a «military line» within the country and the government, but of the government's political line within the armed forces.
Public control is exercised by the institutions of civil society (political parties and public associations, voluntary organizations, the mass media and others). The channels and means by which they influence the military organization are diverse. They ascertain the population's attitude towards the state's military policy, the conditions of service and daily life of service personnel and other matters; they request and receive free of charge from military command bodies and from enterprises and institutions engaged in military activity the information of interest to them that does not constitute a military secret; they put forward initiatives and proposals on questions of the country's defence capability; they carry out measures to inform the public and state authorities of their attitude towards plans, decisions and actions in the military sphere; they take part in public debates and parliamentary hearings on questions of military development, and so forth.
By formulating and explaining their own proposals on military-political questions, they make it easier for the political and military leadership to find optimal courses of action in the sphere under control, taking into account the interests of society and the orientations and attitudes prevailing within it. Within civil society there also arise numerous associations, unions, movements and organizations specifically oriented towards studying the state of affairs inside the armed forces and around them. Russian legislation provides for the right to create such organizations and movements. Their constitutional, lawful and legal activity, unfolding on the basis of and in accordance with state legal norms, helps to track all processes in the development of the armed forces and other troops, and to detect in good time disturbing facts and emerging negative trends within them.
Life demonstrates that there are large reserves in the activity of non-state structures for optimizing military development and harmonizing civil-military relations. It is important only that in their activity they should all remain within the bounds of the legal framework and should not act as a self-sufficient force either in relation to the army or in relation to society. Unfortunately, practice shows that the activity of some of them today has little in common with genuine concern for the military security of the state, for the condition of the military and security structures, and for their role in the life of society.
Particular control is exercised by individual citizens as private persons, regardless of whether they are service personnel or have no direct connection with the army. In their complaints and statements, letters and petitions, and appeals to existing civic associations and organizations that express the opinions and interests of private persons, they reveal particular shortcomings in the life of the army and other security structures and seek their elimination.
Of decisive importance here, without doubt, is the active civic stance of particular individuals, guided not only, and often not so much, by personal concerns and preferences, as by a conscious and responsible attitude towards the constitutional duty and obligation to defend the Fatherland. At the same time, the ability of an individual person to act as an opponent of the military establishment must have reliable organizational and legal support. In a number of countries such a practice has already taken shape and is in operation, and certain norms and rules have been established that create opportunities for such initiatives.
Each of the three types of civilian control has its own mechanism for carrying out the tasks belonging to it and employs for this purpose its own inherent methods and approaches. At the same time, their activity must meet common requirements and follow principles that make it possible to optimize civil-military relations and to increase the effectiveness of control itself. These principles are:
legality, meaning that the competence, powers and functions of supervising structures, their rights and obligations, are determined by the legislation of the Russian Federation, which precludes arbitrary interference by supervising subjects in the activity of the bodies administering the military and security structures and in the work of the institutions and enterprises of the defence complex;
the non-partisan character of civilian control, meaning the absence of any ties between the officials and citizens exercising control and the decisions of parties, political movements and other public associations;
a strict legislative separation of the functions and powers of the various branches and levels of state power in the field of the country's defence and security;
interaction of military command bodies with state bodies and with public and religious organizations;
free public access to official information on the state of affairs in the military sphere, subject to the restrictions necessary for safeguarding state secrets;
the strict accountability of officials for the timeliness, completeness and reliability of the official information provided to the public;
the obligation of military command bodies and officials to take lawful and well-founded decisions on the conclusions and assessments of oversight and supervisory authorities falling within their competence, and to ensure the timely and correct execution of these decisions.
Of all the existing principles, two of the most important can be singled out, which constitute the basis for strengthening and developing civil-military relations.
The first means a humanistic approach to military personnel, and the guaranteed observance of the rights and freedoms of the individual serviceman at any level in the performance of his official duties. Restriction of rights is permissible only in exceptionally specific conditions brought about by the situation that has arisen in the country (threat of attack, aggression), but in any case must be legislatively justified.
The second principle presupposes that civilian control must be built on the basis of professional competence and must proceed above all from the interests of ensuring national security, and not from party considerations, still less from anyone's subjective (self-interested or narrowly departmental) considerations, nor from momentary circumstances. It must not be an end in itself. Its purpose does not consist in taking military executive functions away from the political and military leadership. Civilian control is called upon to help identify and overcome negative phenomena in relations between the military and civilians, to serve the strengthening of the internal orderliness and cohesion of the Armed Forces, the enhancement of their combat readiness, and the provision of the state's military security.
Civilian control over the military organization and over military activity is a multifactorial, many-sided and multi-level social formation. Such an interpretation of civilian control makes it possible to consider its essential characteristics in both a broad and a narrow sense of the word. In the first case, it constitutes the theory, practice and form of regulating civil-military relations in which the basic principles of civil society occupy a leading place in relation to the principles of military affairs. In the second, civilian control constitutes a system of state and public institutions, and of the measures they carry out, ensuring the conformity of the organization and activity of the armed forces to the constitution, the laws of the state, the main directions of military policy and military doctrine, the concepts and plans for building the army, state armament programmes and programmes for developing the military-industrial complex, and international treaties in the field of defence and security.
In a word, civilian control is a many-sided system of relations, institutions, arrangements and practical measures that promotes the formation and consolidation in the country of a broad social accord, a consensus among various political and social forces on the question of the condition and purpose of the armed forces and of the procedures and rules for their employment. It is a means of strengthening and developing civil-military relations in society.
Civilian control, as a complex and many-sided system, cannot be established at a single stroke, within a short time, and is not able to encompass equally and simultaneously all the numerous kinds of military activity, or the entire military organization in full. Therefore, in creating such a system it is very important to have a clear conception of what should fall within the sphere of action of civilian control and of its priorities. Among the priority directions of civilian control in the Russian Federation may be included:
the condition of the armed forces and their ability to fulfil their constitutional purpose;
the prevention of the danger of the army's independent intervention in politics;
the formation and execution of the defence budget;
the observance of legality in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and in other troops, military formations and bodies, and the social protection of service personnel and members of their families, as well as of persons discharged from military service;
the moral and psychological condition of the armed forces and other troops, the army's standing in society, and the prestige of military service;
the identification and prevention of situations involving infringement of individual rights in the armed forces and other troops, and of deformations in civil-military relations;
the organization and condition of information and educational work in the troops.
In addition to those named, other tasks also fall within the field of vision of civilian control. Its object is the entire complex of questions connected with the formation of the state's military policy and with the adoption and implementation of military-political decisions that ensure the development and improvement of the military organization and of the whole system of civil-military relations.
World experience shows that the process of interaction between the military organization and civil society has given rise to a sufficient number of forms of civilian control. The most widespread among them should be considered: vesting parliament with oversight functions in respect of the condition and functioning of society's military organization; the openness of the army before society; the accountability of commanders of all ranks to society for the condition of the units and subunits entrusted to them, for their combat readiness and for the observance of the norms of service personnel's life established by the state; and the participation of civilian authority in the political leadership of society's military organization.
The most important form of civilian control over the military organization and military activity is undoubtedly parliamentary control. Through its legislative activity, parliament, first, gives clear and firm state-legal definition to all aspects of military development. Second, it determines the organizations and institutions within whose competence military questions fall, and legitimizes the main directions of their activity relating to ensuring the country's military security. Third, it regulates relations between the army and society from the standpoint of the rule of law and in the general interests of the people.
The main paths towards forming an integral system of civilian control over the military organization and military activity in the Russian Federation may be considered to be:
First, overcoming the established stereotypes of the army's interaction with society. It is necessary that not only the state, in the person of its various organizations and departments, but society itself should contribute to the social protection of service personnel and to raising the prestige of army service. Society should show an interest in military affairs and at the same time provide the necessary support for policy in the military sphere.
Second, the formation of civil society itself, whose degree of activity rises to the level required to control the military sphere reliably. Today it is becoming ever more obvious that the harmonization of civil-military relations and the enrichment of their content with democratic principles depend in large measure not so much on transformations within the system of power as on the emergence in Russia of influential civil society institutions. Relations of this kind constitute a necessary condition of the self-identity, moral stability and high effectiveness of the armed forces, which in turn is a precondition for the stability of the whole of society.
Third, the creation of a Russian army itself that is capable of accepting control over its activity and is not afraid of the most effective forms of such control. Along this path it will be necessary to master such a sphere of the formation of service personnel's personality as civic socialization – the natural and consciously organized process by which service personnel assimilate the traditions, principles and norms of civil society that motivate their choice of civic stance and line of practical conduct.
The building of a professional army urgently requires the introduction into work with people in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation of new humanistic principles, which must be based on a real, legislatively enshrined – rather than declarative, «sloganeering» – turn towards the person in uniform, the «citizen in shoulder straps». Such principles may be: openness and an organic connection with the civilian population, legality, and civic motivation for military service.
Contemporary social development is characterized by the interpenetration of the civilian and military spheres of activity. The depth and degree of this interpenetration depend on the maturity and development of civil society, on the military mechanism for ensuring national security, on the traditions and values of interaction between society and the military organization, and on the traditional and historical conditions of the development of national military experience. As a result of the process of interaction between the civilian and military spheres, conditions gradually take shape for the emergence of such a social formation as civil-military relations, whose essential meaning consists in the close and organic unity of the civic qualities of the military organization and the military qualities of civil society itself.
The interaction of the military and civilian principles of social life is subordinated to the interests of the development of society, the state and the individual, and of their security. The determining socio-political factor in the emergence of various types of civil-military relations is the form (model) of the interrelationship in a given country between civil society and the state's military organization. In Russia the character of civil-military relations will tend predominantly towards relations of a fairly deep integration of civic principles, the political elite and the structures of the military organization.
The most important condition of such integration is effective civilian control over the Armed Forces and over the entire military sphere
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