Russian Air Force Summary

SUMMARY

During the period of transition that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Air Force has undergone quite a rapid transformation from a quantitatively massive super power organization to much smaller arm of defense, which in terms of size meets international standards in many respects. At the moment lack of resources caused by the economic change is causing problems in replacement of equipment and especially in training. On the other hand, getting more freedom from the constraints of party hierarchy and military doctrine laying emphasis on the ground forces has given new prospects to set the development priorities according to actual professional requirements.

In spite of substantial cutbacks, the clear effort to maintain the status of super power armed forces becomes clearly apparent in the Russian military organizations. Also the Russian Air Force aims at maintaining all the modes of support and use of force operations related to global projection of air force. However, due to quantitative restraints, at least for the time projection of force is possible to two simultaneous directions at the most. Especially when it comes to such special support functions as for instance AWACS and flight refueling the situation will probably only worsen in the early years of the next millennium.

Even though Russia is maintaining its super power traditions and for example the nuclear deterrence has been brought up in several connections, in the new doctrine the main emphasis is very much in management of regional conflicts near the Russian borders. The stress on mobility and ability to concentrate forces rapidly are in keeping with the basic features of air force. Thus rapid reaction capacity of the air forces is seen as the key factor in bringing conflicts and regional wars to a quick end.

The Russian Air Force is gradually advancing - according to the examples given by war experience and international practice - towards the status of the most important arm of defense in the Russian use of force philosophy based on conventional weaponry. In spite of the discord with traditions both the Gulf war and own war experience from Chechnya have had a crucial impact on Russian thinking. The results the allied air forces achieved by means of concentrated use of force and investment in quality were so convincing that they could penetrate the Russian information barrier laden with prejudice. With all its mistakes the war in Chechnya showed that the Soviet Union could not achieve militarily significant results before it formed centrally commanded and qualitatively selected air force party, but only after serious losses.

An important factor affecting the current military development are the general cutbacks in the Russian armed forces, which have reduced the strength of the ground forces to approximately 356,000. The foundations to apply the former concept of massive ground force operations have thus been lost. Accordingly, Russia now tries to avoid committing personnel to long-lasting operations. Instead, according to the new doctrine, Russia makes air strikes against the opponent's strategic targets and systems aiming at paralyzing the opponent as rapidly as possible.

The Russian Air Force organization was also temporarily adopting a structure in keeping with the international practice. Even though the Soviet Air Force formally achieved the status of a separate arm of defense already before the World War II, in practice the Red Army kept it strictly under its command. Subsequently, in terms of quality its readiness to answer the challenges of aerial warfare remained very weak.

In many countries the harsh wartime conditions have either strengthened or given rise to the right principle of air force organization. In the successful defensive air operations during the critical summer of 1944 Finland used a system in which the air force was commanded in a centralized and flexible manner. The defensive power could always be concentrated in a way that best served total defense. The same principle has been maintained also in peacetime and it guarantees that the national resources are used as professionally and efficiently as possible.

On its home turf Germany had divided its fighter force under the command of district commanders, gauleiters. However, as soon as the Allied Forces had started their bombing offensives, Germany had to eliminate the inefficient system and to rapidly spring up a centralized national air defense system. Already in the beginning of the report was described the lesson Americans learned about the importance of centralized air force command after the invasion of North Africa.

In many countries the lack of war experience or the bureaucracy long peacetime promotes have often lead to measures or endeavors to attach the air force to different regional headquarters and also to proposals concerning weakening its independent arm of defense status. Behind such measures can be found the typical administrative official's picture of leadership, which is very headquarters- and paperwork-centered. What such people lack is competence to understand operation of the system involved and expert oriented organizations as the air force. There the commander-in-chief is first and foremost a coach and, specifically, coach with operative responsibility. System and expert organizations can operate effectively only when they have won the trust of the whole organization through their professionalism and when the echelons that would only make the operations formal and slow have been eliminated.

When the air force resources are under regional command and the leadership system follows the views of administrative officials, the defense organization in question cannot stand the test of the modern war scenario emphasizing air force. For instance in Sweden, which lacks aerial warfare experience and applies the regional organization structure, the leadership of the air force has proposed adopting a similar centralized resource management principle as for example in Finland.

Russia was undergoing an organizational reform, which aimed at bringing the dispersed and overlapping air force resources under more centralized, and thus more efficient, command. Such an organization would have better served the defense doctrine by being able to produce the air force to impact on those targets and operations as agreed by the joint command via the shortest expert channels. Now the orgnization principle has been changed again and it will somewhat slow the effort toward quality and effectiveness. In some proportions the current organization principle reminds that of the era just before the Winter War.

The infrastructure of the Russian Air Force has changed radically after the collapse of the Soviet Union and dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. Both the air control and airbase systems have diminished substantially, and their regional distribution has become distorted, when taking into account the current Russian groupings and operative threat scenarios. Under the prevailing economic circumstances it seems unlikely that the Air Force can take quick measures to fix the situation. Therefore, Russia is trying to fill in the gaps in air control with its relatively small AWACS fleet and cooperation with several CIS countries. However, in practice the latter usually means that Russia participates in local development projects as the bill-payer. It also seems unlikely that Russia could increase the number of serviceable airbases by much, and thus it cannot but continue to maintain the current quite close Air Force unit groupings.

The gaps in the maintenance system due to loss of depot standard facilities to neighboring countries have caused maintenance delays, and it takes time before the system can be brought up to date. This project belongs to the third phase of the ongoing reorganization program.

The most acute problem in the Russian Air Force is lack of training resources, specifically lack of fuel. Flying hours have been kept to the minimum for years, which erodes besides the pilot skills also the readiness of the whole system.

The Air Force's most important recruiting incentive is flying. Both the quantity and quality of applicants to pilot training will drop, if there is no chance to fly and the pilot cannot advance to top aircraft and challenging flying missions. The situation has negative long-term effects, since pilot training takes several years and, when a pilot has entered the training program, the standard of his skills cannot be improved in a significant manner overnight. On the other hand, the pilots' competence has been a crucial success factor in all air wars. In the current very unforgiving aerial warfare situations this has become even more crucial, since only the winners continue the fight. The competence can be achieved only through continuous and plentiful training so that each pilot has the self-confidence of an top athlete when using his air weapon system.

Fully trained pilots can be restored to combat readiness relatively quickly, but as far as the system as a whole is concerned it is only a short-term remedy. The passivity in training and exercise flying operations paralyzes besides the pilot skills and aviation safety also the readiness of the air control and combat command systems as well as the flying technical and support systems. The routine and professional skills created through frequent flying are a must in air force flying operations, where performance efficiency is optimized into risk management fulfilling the criteria of flight safety.

Through the necessity of air supremacy, well-trained fighter pilots are an important strategic national asset. In this respect Russia will have to suffer deficiency caused by its neglect of training for several years to come no matter what solutions it makes in terms of aircraft equipment and infrastructure.

The quantity of Russian aircraft equipment has diminished considerably in the recent years, but because the initial figures were high, the total numbers are still significant. Naturally the reductions have been made from the older equipment, and thus, relatively speaking, the average age has fallen and the level of modernity risen. However, in the recent years the Russian Air Force has had to manage without new or replacement acquisitions. The situation has been bad for both the Air Force and the aviation industry. The Air Force command has pointed out that as far as combat aircraft are concerned the situation is good enough until the first years of the next millennium and instead of new acquisition, it can settle for modifications of the existing aircraft. In fact, the situation is the worst in transport equipment, since Russia lost almost half of the aircraft when the Soviet Union collapsed.

The state leaders have recognized the security political meaning of the air power. When opening the MAKS-97 air show in Zhukovsky in 1997, President Boris Yeltsin made an announcement about a new development and procurement program of aircraft for the years 1997 - 2005 to replace air force equipment. Also the parliament made a proposal aiming at improving the financing situation in the Air Force. At the same time it paid serious attention to the difference in investments made in the air forces in the West and in Russia (65).

Lack of domestic orders has driven many Russian aircraft manufacturers to a tight spot. Still, main part of the former aviation industry potential has been kept alive with state subsidies. With joint export efforts the manufacturers and the state have collected money for development of new aircraft types and modernization modifications of aircraft in service. The export prices have been set at quite an attractive level, but Russian products have not done well in countries, which have carried out extensive evaluation programs with full life-cycle cost calculations.

The Russian aviation industry is competing hard over the projected air force orders. The companies are developing new types of aircraft at their own risk without any binding advance orders. Especially the fight between Sukhoi and Mikoyan has reached "all or nothing" proportions, since each one of them aims at eating its main competitor out of the market. However, there now are indications of the merger of those two companies. The deputy chief of Sukhoi was appointed to head of MiG maker VPK MAPO. The merger may be announced in the summer of 1999. (111,112) 10 Feb '99

The West has often wondered about the Russian capacity to produce new and new types and versions of aircraft in rapid succession. The reason is simple. Over half a century of cannibalization of other industries in favor of weapon industry has produced a potential that, even when reduced, represents the state of the art in Russian engineering and manufacturing. Even now it shows no signs of adapting itself to the markets, but, instead, it tries to adapt the markets to its own activities. A typical example is a Russian comment heard in the MAKS-97 air show that a new type of aircraft in display is Russian answer to NATO enlargement. On the other hand, indirectly the weapon industry itself suffers from having cannibalized the other sectors of industry. It takes a long time before these sectors of production develop enough to provide the kind of solid foundations necessary for the economic growth without which even the weapon industry cannot be profitable.

As concerns weapon systems, the situation is pretty much the same as in aircraft. Thanks to massive Soviet orders the storage rooms are still full of series-produced weapon systems, but there has not been enough money to purchase the newest weapons. Instead these are offered to the export market without any commercial or political constraints. The companies are clearly trying to collect money so that they can improve their own technological edge on the market. Also the state benefits from export revenues, and advocates weapon exports to any direction. Thus it is likely that in the future Russian aircraft weapon systems will be turning up in quite surprising places around the world.

In air force operations the key factor is quality, and, specifically, the quality of air force personnel. Obviously the effort to get its training system working again is among the top priority goals of the Russian Air Force. Anyway, it has now rather good doctrinal opportunities to develop its operations according to the international criteria. Due to Russia's political super power endeavors, the Russian Air Force will come to play the primary role among the security political means available for Russia.

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