EDITORIAL: Ukraine's aging military machine (08/04/02)

EDITORIAL

Ukraine's aging military machine

Ukraine remains in shock nearly a week after an Air Force jet fighter aircraft crashed into a sea of humanity during an air show exhibition at the Sknyliv Aerodrome in Lviv. Eighty-three mostly young people died in a tragedy that Yevhen Marchuk, secretary of the National Security and Defense Committee, said could have been avoided had military officials followed simple regulations, foremost of which was enforcing a ban on flying over crowds of spectators during exhibitions. Again Ukraine gets worldwide publicity for another tragedy on its soil, as the grim picture of a Ukrainian aircraft tumbling into a crowd of spectators is broadcast around the world.

Four high level military officials, including the head of the Armed Forces General Staff have been arrested on charges of criminal negligence and relieved of their duties. The pilots, who were hospitalized with spinal injuries after ejecting from their aircraft, are also under arrest. Minister of Defense Volodymyr Shkidchenko submitted his resignation in the aftermath of the catastrophe, which President Leonid Kuchma has neither accepted nor rejected as yet.

Investigators, while considering technical malfunction as a possible reason for the crash, also want to know why the pilot changed his trajectory during his final, catastrophic acrobatic dive. In addition they are curious as to why the two pilots and their co-pilots didn't bother with a rehearsal prior to the fateful performance.

There are many other questions that need to be answered as well, such as why military officials approved improper flight plans and why city officials were not contacted about the air show.

While Lviv residents and all of Ukraine mourn the loss of so many young lives - 26 of the 83 dead were 18 years of age or younger, and 48 were under 30 - in the days after the tragedy, a public debate has developed among state leaders and military officials on how the tragedy reflects the current state of Ukraine's Armed Forces. And that debate inevitably has turned to the matter of money, or the lack of it, in this case.

It is true that Ukraine's military needs much additional funding if it is to modernize and retain battle readiness. It needs everything from new aircraft, tanks and weapons to new bases and more housing for career soldiers.

But it is also a fact that agreeing with the logic behind the reasoning will not produce the needed finances. Simply put, Ukraine's budget constraints today do not allow it to properly fund its military. Since there is no money to train and maintain troops, the generals in charge must overcome their desire to retain the size and scope of their operations - which, by the way, is a normal bureaucratic and organizational tendency - and begin a major cut in troop numbers.

Ukraine does not need a half-million-strong army. Three hundred thousand soldiers will more than suffice, and perhaps even less are needed. The standard fighting force of the 21st century is not a large and cumbersome machine, but a small and swift battle unit. Ukraine will need to cut troop strength to come into line with NATO requirements anyway, so why wait. If the country is serious about military reform, then it should begin now. The money saved could be rechanneled to modernization and to the purchase of new technologies.

Unfortunately, there is also another, perhaps more difficult problem, one of discipline and morale. The procedural oversights - failure to inform local officials of the show, lack of rehearsal, etc. - that led to the crash in Sknyliv can be blamed on lack of discipline. There is also low morale and much corruption among officers who have felt let down and left out since the waning of the influence of the Armed Forces from the halcyon days of military might during the Soviet era.

Yet perhaps now is the time to begin a major redevelopment program to replace the old guard with a new generation of military leadership. The old generals have long been accused of being more concerned with guarding their privileges - often illegally - than with working to bring Ukraine's military into its own.

For a long time the armed forces denied responsibility for last year's tragedy over the Black Sea, in which a commercial Russian jetliner was shot down by a wayward Ukrainian missile, long after the civilian leadership and most Ukrainians realized what had happened. The generals would probably say today that the Sknyliv disaster was not a military error as well, if there was a way to believably do so.

It is time for Ukraine to begin the difficult task of radical military reform. Troop strengths need to be radically reduced and the leadership changed or Ukraine will have more tragedies like the one at Sknyliv, and the country will continue to be known for its failures rather than its triumphs.

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