1/ Over four years into the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian commanders have still not beaten their deadliest enemy – the cumbersome centralised bureaucracy of the Russian military. 'Two Majors' gives a flavour of how badly Russian commanders are swamped with paperwork. ⬇️
2/ In an essay titled "On the Need for a Radical Overhaul of the Management System for Security Forces Involved in the Special Military Operation. Thoughts on the Topic, with Some Profanity", one of the contributors to the prominent 'Two Majors' Telegram channel writes:
3/ "▪️ The principle of multitasking and prioritisation. Even before the war, we once asked a young officer from a garrison unit subordinate to ours: why aren’t you working on such-and-such a task, since it’s objectively important?
4/ The answer struck us with its honesty: “The task is important. It’s just that nobody gives a shit about it.”
And indeed. Officers were beaten up over every bit of paperwork: plan implementation reports, logs, annual targets, more plans—but this time from higher-ups.
5/ "Staff officers demonstrated their work like this: “Look how many directives we’ve issued! Look how many meetings we’ve held! Look at all the reports we’ve received from below!” The statistics were rising, but the actual work process was deteriorating.
6/ "More accurately, it was being replaced by a simulacrum. Oh well. It was peacetime; there was no need to rush.
7/▪️“War is war, but they’ll hold us accountable for the reports.” By the first half of 2022, when jokes started up again in the smoking rooms of the rear units, everyone remembered about reporting.
8/ "The start of the special military operation went “under the radar” for everyone, so the lion’s share of peacetime decisions hadn’t been canceled.
9/ "In other words, the grueling first months of the war had passed, there were a couple of months left before mobilisation, and rear units—and not-so-rear units—were bogged down in paperwork.
10/ "Although earlier there had been verbal orders to “screw the paperwork, everything for the guys on the front lines.” And since then, regular reporting to the capital had only been piling up with new paperwork.
11/ "▪️The most alarming thing is that the objectives set out in numerous directives bear no relation whatsoever to the tasks within the Special Military Operation.
12/ Logistical, planning, organisational-administrative, and personnel-related telegrams and letters from higher-ups continue to be baffling. Certain types of consultative collegial bodies, headquarters, and organisational decision-making processes…
13/ …(and without a written decision, any action is illegal, and you’ll later be held accountable by the very same people who gave you verbal permission) simply do not keep pace with the rapidly changing situation.
14/ "▪️Hyper-centralisation is a scourge. Federal executive bodies and their regional offices are so bogged down that the top leader in his sphere receives a written, almost name-by-name breakdown of the agency’s personnel every day,…
15/ …detailing who is working where for the coming 24 hours. As a result, headquarters in the center are overburdened, and Moscow constantly “meddles” in virtually every combat incident. In other words, the strategic level is distracted by solving tactical tasks.
16/ "Come on, a colonel general can’t possibly command a sergeant or warrant officer over the phone who is currently engaged in combat, say, against a UAV or a multiple rocket launcher.
17/ And the headquarters certainly doesn’t need to know at all costs how many tracer rounds the sergeant fired into the sky or water: 15 or 17. But the habit of controlling everything and reporting in the finest detail to create the illusion of control over the situation remains.
18/ "▪️The only possible solution lies in the military-political sphere. Sorry, but nothing will change without a good thrashing from above. Remember how we started this discussion back in the good old days? “No one gives a shit about it.”
19/ "So here’s the thing. As long as they’re beating us up over plans to fix shortcomings, formal reports, and carrying out countless unnecessary orders, the military command system is unlikely to change.
20/ "We need a situation where every action (including in matters of training, combat readiness, educational work, etc.) by a military unit or formation is evaluated based on how it affects the situation within the context of achieving operational objectives.
21/ "Otherwise, we’ll just keep sitting here, pestering headquarters with registration numbers and plans. And the role of headquarters in solving combat tasks will be far from offensive, but rather one of control and reporting for briefings among high-level offices." /end
Source:a
t.me/dva_majors/931…
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