Belarus The Armed Forces
Honor guard at the World War II memorial, Minsk
Courtesy Michael E. Samojeden
Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, 180,000
Soviet
troops were stationed in the Belorussian SSR;
approximately half
answered directly to the General Staff in Moscow rather
than to
Belorussian Military District commanders. This situation
changed
only in May 1992 when Belarus abolished the Belorussian
Military
District and subordinated all troops on its soil to its
own
Ministry of Defense.
The Belarusian armed forces officially came into
existence on
January 1, 1993, the day after all service personnel with
Belarusian citizenship, which excluded the great majority
of the
officers, had taken an oath of loyalty to Belarus. Because
there
was no stipulation that only Belarusian citizens could
serve in
the armed forces, they were Belarusian forces in name
only, and
there was concern among groups such as the BPF that in
time of
crisis the loyalty of these forces might lie with Russia
rather
than with Belarus.
A component of this concern was the ethnic composition
of the
armed forces. At the end of 1992, ethnic Russians
accounted for
nearly half the Belarusian conscripts and some 80 percent
of the
officer corps. Since then, the ethnic composition of the
officers
has been changing gradually in favor of Belarusians as a
result
of legislative acts, but the process is slow. It will take
years
before the republic has its own Belarusian-led armed
forces that
are politically reliable and dedicated to Belarusian
nationhood.
Another aspect of the nationality issue was that in
1993 some
40,000 Belarusian natives served as officers in the armed
forces
of other former Soviet republics. Many of them wished to
return
home for either patriotic or economic reasons, but such
possibilities were limited because of the shortage of
housing and
the republic's scheduled military reductions in general.
What
concerned the Belarusian Ministry of Defense, which was
dominated
by Russians, was an announcement in the spring of 1992 by
the
Coordinating Council of the Union of Belarusian Soldiers
that
these officers were willing to fight against Russian
military
aggression in Belarus.
Because of Belarus's geopolitical importance and its
absorption of troops withdrawn from the countries of the
former
Warsaw Pact, it was the most militarized republic of the
former
Soviet Union. Even in 1993, it had a ratio of one soldier
to
forty-three civilians, compared with one to ninety-eight
in
Ukraine and one to 634 in Russia. In real numbers, this
meant an
estimated 243,000 troops. In addition, there was a serious
imbalance in the officer-to-conscript ratio: three
officers for
every seven conscripts.
In accordance with its stated goal of becoming a
neutral
state and its new defense doctrine, the government
decreased the
number of its troops by some 60 percent, from 243,000 to
96,000
(including up to 22,000 officers) by the beginning of
1995; the
armed forces also employed 64,000 civilians in early 1995.
Further reductions were expected to reduce the total armed
forces
to a strength of 75,000 or even 60,000. Such a move,
however,
presents a difficult political problem because of a lack
of
housing and employment for demobilized service members,
who,
regardless of their present citizenship, are eligible to
become
Belarusian citizens and voters.
Women serve in the armed forces as well, although in
much
smaller numbers than men. They face the same physical and
other
testing requirements as men. In mid-1995 there were
approximately
3,000 servicewomen, many of whom worked at headquarters as
secretaries.
In early 1995, the armed forces were in the midst of
adopting
five main reforms. The first was a gradual move toward a
goal of
50 percent professional soldiers. By mid-1995 there were
22,000
professional soldiers on contracts of five years or longer
and
another 9,000 soldiers on contracts of two to five years.
These
accounted for 32 percent of the uniformed establishment.
The second reform is to redivide the country into
military
territorial districts whose district commanders will be
part of
the structure of local government. The Ministry of Defense
hopes
that after implementing this system, recruits will be able
to
serve closer to home and that draft avoidance will
decline.
The third reform is to create a mobile operational
force.
Such a force would likely be composed of three brigades:
airmobile, helimobile, and airborne/special forces.
The fourth reform is the adoption of a new structure to
permit maximum flexibility. The army's new post-Soviet
structure,
built on corps and brigades, suits Belarus's needs better
than
the Soviet-era divisions.
Last is the army's increased role in internal security.
According to a presidential decree of January 1, 1995,
entitled
"On Reinforcing the Fight Against Crime," troops have been
transferred from the Ministry of Defense to the Ministry
of
Interior. Belarus's Border Guards are under the control of
the
Ministry of Interior. They numbered 8,000 in early 1995.
Data as of June 1995
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