Those who have nowhere to go remain in the Army

The decision to speak is legal and, in my opinion, a legitimate consequence and moral necessity.

The people who finance army and trust in its ability to protect lives and property, must know at all times the state of the defense system, as one of the bearers of every social order. Unfortunately, from the "transparency" of the army advocated during the "transition" after October 5, 2000, the only thing that became transparent and remained is that our enemies now have a better insight into the state of our army than our people and that the army is completely, instead of under civil, i.e. civil, fell under the political control of the ruling party, that is, the party from whose ranks the member appointed for Minister of Defense.

As a military person, I do not have the right to make statements to the media under my name, surname and function without the consent of my superiors, but I have the right and obligation to anonymously, as a citizen, point out the situation and warn of the possible consequences of unprofessional and criminal activities that in the department of the army, they have been conducting it for several decades. I will not present any military secrets here, although they are very accessible to those who least need them, but I will only point out the problems that even the president of the state publicly points out, but also the causes and possible solutions of them, which the system does not deal with with the intention of actually solving them, and for which there is a lot of evidence. That is my legal right and obligation, otherwise I would be an accomplice in that destruction, as well as my moral obligation and need in accordance with family and military upbringing and education.

AS MANY PHRASES AS POSSIBLE, WORRY LESS ABOUT THE ARMY

Now, the fact that people do not join the army is a bigger problem than the fact that they leave it. There is no one who respects the laws of this country over their employees less than the military. The police do not have nearly as many human resource problems as the military. And the differences in salaries and other benefits from the employment relationship are almost non-existent. The military simply does not protect its members enough. The more concern for people and raising standards are emphasized in the media platitudes of the political and military elite, the less concern and growth actually is.

We are witnesses and contemporaries of an extremely interesting phenomenon, namely that Serbs are leaving the army, demotivated and disappointed. They didn't feel anything like that even when they were going through Albania. A multi-volume monograph can be written about what has been done wrong now. I highlight only perhaps the most striking and painful points: politicking, nepotism, poltronism, despotism/mobbing and disrespect for the laws of this country that apply to all its citizens and all employees on its territory. It is well known that for the survival of the army, especially a professional one, it is necessary that the average salary is three to five average salaries in the country. Then, holiday pay, hot meals, actual transportation costs for the arrival and departure of employees to the workplace, etc. must be paid. However, in the army there are even daily wages from the level of 2001/2002. years - reduced. Also, the costs that the military profession carries with it - that is, from the first to the last workplace, an elder can be sent to other cities and parts of the country - have not changed for more than a decade, that is, compensation for the costs of renting real estate and paying utilities for unmarried elders and today it is - 38 euros!

ADVANCEMENT BY RECOMMENDATIONS

As far as promotion is concerned, due to the unattractiveness of military service - the many reasons for this will be discussed perhaps on another occasion - there are not so many party personnel in the Army, there are more of them in the Ministry of Defense, so the army as a system still maintained some degree of independence in this regard that some education and training are still needed in order to progress. However, we see that wrong moves have also called that into question. All those who have "connections" or as it is politely said now, "recommendations" generally do not get service in combat units or leave them very quickly. That is why we are witnessing two consequences: firstly, the combat units, which are why the entire army exists, are the least filled, and secondly, in all other parts of the system, progress is made faster and easier. It used to be said that the ranks of generals are political, that is, to be promoted to those ranks it is necessary to be politically active, that is, at least worthy and at the mercy of the ruling caste. Today, that level has even been lowered by law to the rank of major. And that may not be a bad thing. It is not a problem if the army is subordinated to the government, it is a problem if the government is not subordinated to national and state interests.

ON THE INTRODUCTION OF MANDATORY MILITARY CONSTITUTION

It should be known that the army gave up most of its facilities when it was downsized and that now there are far fewer officers who should accept and train the army. And that is one of the prerequisites, as well as finances and youth resentment, so the military service is very short. These were more dominant criteria than professional requirements and prerequisites for the effectiveness of the implementation of the whole intention.

If the professionalization of the army was carried out to the end, in the sense that the army is provided with all the conditions for work, that the equipment and weapons are correct, that salaries are at the necessary level, that all financial entitlements guaranteed by the laws of this country and within the prescribed framework are paid, it could be to say that the attractiveness of military service would be preserved to a sufficient extent that would ensure the renewal of the cadre of professional officers and the maintenance of the level of people who volunteer for military service to become part of the reserve in the event of war. However, none of this was done. So today, military service is marginalized in the minds of young people, and military service is no longer a part of tradition, even in rural areas more inclined to respect conservative values. Until recently, young people who wanted to work as professional soldiers applied for voluntary military service. Neither do they anymore. There aren't even enough boys who want to be jet pilots! The situation is more than devastating.

POLITICS AND GENERALS

Generals and soldiers generally have a place with the people and with the representatives of the government elected by the people. Always and everywhere, generals stand by statesmen. In our country and in several other countries in the world, perhaps more and more often than it should be the case, but I think that this phenomenon only follows political activity in the army. When the president visits, say, an army unit, of course he will be accompanied by the Chief of the General Staff, the army commander, the brigade commander and the commander of the unit he visited. It is a domestic approach and is prescribed as such. This is not a problem and these are not political or politicized messages being sent. The problem is that a general who is more loyal to the ruling party will advance sooner than a general who is more loyal to the army and profession. The problem is that generals can be seen at party gatherings and in parliamentary benches. Although, in North Korea, and even in China, such a situation is quite normal. But also in NATO member states, although the generals do not expose themselves so much, they are very politically committed and very close to the government. The army does not tolerate disloyalty, and neither does the government.

THE CASE OF NOVICA ANTIĆ

I am not a member of a trade union and I believe that the situation in the army must have always been such that the army never needed a trade union. I know almost nothing about Mr. Antic, but I know that he was very familiar with the complete situation in the army and that he always presented true information. And he was one of the very few sources of true information about the state of the defense system in the public.

My attention was drawn to the act and the insistence in the Army that in a short period of time all members are informed of the information about Mr. Antic and the suspicions and accusations related to him, and that they are informed with a signature. There is another interesting event, it seems to me from 2016, at a time when the mass attrition of personnel in the Army had just begun. Then the union organized joint protests with other unions - the Police and some other ministries. I remember that the protest was supposed to take place first on one and then on the second Saturday. According to the order, the first Saturday was declared a working day in the Army, and for the next protest, warnings have already been made that members of the internal security service will monitor which of the military personnel will appear at the protest and that everyone will bear certain consequences for such activity. I would reduce the entire case of the union to one sentence - it was easier for the authorities to solve the problem of the union than to solve the problems pointed out by the union. How the state and the command staff treat the army in peace is an excellent indicator of how they would treat it in war.

photo: marija janković

"AESTHETIC" CORRECTNESS

I would be rude if I said that the most important workers in our modern dedicated industry are welders. And I will not do it out of respect for a few professional and hard-working people in that sector, as well as for all the numerous and significant successes of our dedicated industry in the past, which, I hope, will be even greater and more significant in the future.

If we speak in the language of facts, I would not comment on the new systems of our own because they have not been in our army for long enough, and there are none in foreign armies at all. Nevertheless, the fact that we have, say, Lazar 3, and not Lazar 1 and 2, is a fact that speaks volumes for the seriousness and expertise with which the projects are approached. The Ministry of Defense has one man who understands all armed systems and second lieutenants who, right after schooling, get to lead projects in an industry that has had a break in the continuity of system development for almost 35 years. It is something very frivolous for any further comment.

However, the government is well aware of how lucrative the arms trade is. They don't only have painted and gasoline-smeared vehicles whose main characteristic is "aesthetic" correctness, that is, "appearance", as they like to say in the army, their daily political role of securing the electoral votes of those fellow citizens at an advanced age, but there is also the old radical a saying from the period before the First World War - that anything can be sold to the army at the highest or any price. Because of all this, even to a naive eye, the increasingly frequent combination of politicians and arms dealers is noticeable, and even some people enter this business whose primary activity is to entertain the masses and not to kill large masses of people. The case of a well-known Belgrade businessman who freely causes explosions by testing his new weapon in a field near Belgrade and makes it public is characteristic, while the Serbian Army has to go to remote training grounds, arranged and secured with both physical and technical means of protection, with all guards deployed around, so that no one would get hurt, so that she would fire just one bullet from the gun, and not something more, bigger and stronger. More devastating.

ARMY FOR PAINTING

In the army, one invests mostly only in what can be seen on the displays and recordings. While tens of millions of dinars are invested in the ground floors of some representative buildings where a few people work, in some buildings where companies are housed, not a single dinar has been invested for decades. Even with this enormous reduction in facilities and the number of people and assets, after the transformation of the armed forces, the decline in investment in maintenance continued, which has continued continuously since the late 40s. In terms of investment, the army can be compared to the afforestation of our country. For 40 years, we did not take care of reforestation and now we live in almost desert conditions. In order to correct it, we need a lot of investment, planting, expertise, care and watering, and of course another XNUMX years to make up for what was missed and get to the level we should have been at now through professional, systematic and systematic work. And the necessity of investments only increases from day to day, as does the damage caused by their lack.

SPECIALISTS AND OTHERS

Officially, the decision on an almost irrational increase in the salaries of members of special purpose brigades was inspired by the successes of assault units on the front in Ukraine. Objectively, special purpose units cannot win a war. These are the units that most often attack a point target in close combat and most likely in the enemy's rear, without the use of larger and more complex technical means and combat systems. So, these are units trained to perform delicate tasks, and there is one unit for each such range at the army level. Therefore, a more adequate term would be special or unique, rather than special units. Of course, all units in the army are special, because every member of the army, even a regular soldier, has his own specialty. None of these things can be done by a random passer-by on the street.

If we understand the increase in the salaries of special forces as an attempt to attract young people to the army, it did not succeed. But it is interesting why the salaries of the others were not significantly increased, in order to prevent the departure from other units of the army. Even before the salary increase, the least number of people left were from the special purpose brigades. So this move with salaries is almost without any rational basis.

In addition to all that, the quality of people who joined the army and special units, motivated only by financial income, is questionable. Maybe the most prepared and bravest members of the army should go to the special units. We have a case where the standards were lowered so that the majority of those recruited could satisfy them, which again is not such a problem, as much as the fact that these guys before these salaries were not generally motivated or willing to serve this shortened military term, and now they want to be - special forces. Does anyone really think they won't quit on the first day of the war? There are bigger problems here than the fact that a scout soldier who started working in the army yesterday has a higher salary than his battalion commander, who is a lieutenant colonel with 20 years of service and completed the Military Gymnasium, the Military Academy and the basic command and staff course and the command and staff improvement.

In addition, there is an opinion in the army that the public increase in the salaries of special purpose units actually wants to create the so-called The Praetorian Guard, which might have been unfounded if it had not been followed by a secret salary increase for members of the internal security services, after the disclosure of which by the Military Union of Serbia, the persecution of the leading members of this organization.

STATE OF AFFAIRS IN UNITS

Everywhere in the world, with minor deviations, it is considered that a unit occupancy of more than 85% is necessary for the unit to be operationally capable. Below that, it withdraws to support, and below 50% occupancy, it is either subjugated or added to the composition of another unit. Therefore, such a unit does not even formally exist anymore. Look at the strength of the Serbian Armed Forces and it will be crystal clear to you its ability to operate and protect the entire territory of the country, which is its main task.

Training in peace saves lives in war. The more you give to the army, the more you will get from it. The Serbian army always gave much more than it received from the state, but if you give almost nothing to the army, you will still get much more, but I think that more than nothing is not enough.

What neutrality means for the Serbian army, we saw for ourselves in the First, Second and, here, in the Third World War. It is very difficult, if not impossible, for a small country to maintain neutrality among great powers. And independence and neutrality. A small country must be under the influence of a great power that surrounds it or it will not exist. It is the same with Serbia, which is in the NATO environment. I will not talk about Serbia, but the parallel will be quite clear to you. North Korea is the most independent and neutral country in the world. But that's just an illusion. North Korea is a country that is completely dependent and under the complete influence of the Russian Federation.

photo: marija janković

MILITARY CONScription AND PERSONAL INTEGRITY

The Serbian Army is getting old because it is not getting younger. The problem of the Army is not the aging and departure of members, but the fact that young people are not coming. Aging cannot be stopped, but in order for life to continue, it must be enabled - rejuvenation.

The army, in my opinion, has become a place where those who have nowhere to go stay. Very sad. Even tragic. Part of the people left with the professionalization and downsizing, i.e. disintegration since 2011, and especially since the reduction of salaries and other affiliations in 2015, when, cumulatively, with all new arrivals and departures, very probably more than 20.000 people left the army. They found better paying jobs, with fixed working hours and responsibilities, in better conditions, etc. These were mostly younger people, in their "prime years" as they say, the most professional and hardworking. I thought they were the best people the Army has. However, today I believe that they were very bad soldiers, although good people and workers - they left without a word or explanation. Those people would not have fought, killed, died in the war. I'm not too sure about the remaining ones either. They don't fight in peace either, so I doubt they would in war. That is, they fight for their benefits, ranks, salaries in peace... But, in a war for others, for the people, for the state, for general interests, I'm not really sure. As I already mentioned, the state of peace is quite reflective of the state of war.

In general, two groups of people remained in the Army, with different fortunes, but the same destiny. One group consists of those who do not have "recommendations" to transfer to another workplace outside the defense system, while the other group consists of those who have "connections" to advance in the army and reach good salaries, ranks and jobs, but do not have "connections". out of the army to go to some even better places. There are exceptions, but I'm not sure there are many. Because if they are truly committed to this calling, they would have to rebel and fight against its destruction, and then find themselves under pressure until they quit. I don't know such people. Many point out the bad situation in their conversations with each other, but they are not allowed to tell their superiors, journalists, even their neighbors and friends. You know, the military vocation is committed to honor and freedom and implies the protection of integrity and sovereignty. I am not sure that my colleagues are fully aware of the meaning of all these terms and the weight of obligations and sacrifices that they and their defense entail.

TV WARS, I WILL NOT AND I CAN'T

As for the "TV wars", it became almost crystal clear to probably all members of the armed forces that we will do nothing and that we will give everything. The soldiers, especially after the first alarms, were ready to engage in war with NATO, regardless of the consequences and the balance of forces. That was not in question. However, when everything became a political show for the sake of form and without substance, the media began to hand out pats from the top of the government to members of the military, noting that no one in the special forces said "no", and in some units they went on sick leave. In the army, it is strictly forbidden to make a statement - I will not. And certainly no one in any unit said that they won't, only some said - they can't do it anymore.

COMPARISON WITH JNA

As a child who grew up in a military family, I think that today's VS has very little to do with the JNA, and not even the latter VJ. He acts as the "black sheep" in the family. Descendant waste. I will cite just one piece of information that says a thousand things - in the JNA, training was maximal and bureaucracy was minimal, in VS it was completely the other way around.

I don't think the two armies can be compared in anything. The JNA was also a multi-ethnic army, which was its greatest weakness. The Serbian Army is almost homogeneous in this regard, which is its greatest strength. And the Yugoslav Army had a good foundation in that it inherited almost all of the armaments of the JNA. And what it was like functionally and operationally, was seen in the war against NATO in 1999.

AS COMMANDED BY THE MINISTRY OF DEFENSE

The comparison of the Ministry of Defense and the Serbian Armed Forces can be expressed in one sentence - the difference can be seen already in the facade of the building; where there is air conditioning under every window, there is the Ministry of Defense, where there is none under any, there is the Serbian Army. He who is under air conditioning in peace will be in air conditioning in war. He who is not in peace, will not be in war either. A banal, but very credible indicator of the difference between these two halves of one whole. And the need for modernization, including air conditioning and combat equipment, and not only peacetime offices, in addition to the unquestionably higher standards of task performance, proved at the Pešter exercise in 2021 that it can take human lives in peace, let alone in war. However, in addition to the constant emphasis on "raising the standard of military personnel", that standard is still so low that it is not even below air conditioning.

The Ministry of Defense, as I emphasized at the beginning, from a unit that served the army, became the superior house that commands the army. There are administrations almost identical to the units in the General Staff itself, with generals at the head of both. Who decides what and who orders what and to whom and why is very mysterious. It is evident that the Army has a disproportionately large number of generals in relation to the projected, let alone in relation to the current numerical situation, and it is almost certain that all these general positions will always be filled, even if in the end they remain the only ones in the entire defense system.

photo: marija janković

HOW TO FURTHER

First of all, it is necessary, unfortunately, that the public be fully informed about the situation in the army, so that under the pressure of public opinion, a series of changes in the right direction would not really be initiated. Tirelessly and constantly repeating that the army is in a better and better condition, while it is being brought into a worse and worse condition, cannot be justified by patriotism and protection of information about the real situation from the enemy, because it is actually something that is completely the opposite of patriotism and a true enemy activity .

The army must, as paradoxical as it sounds, become attractive. It cannot be done with empty parades, while everyone knows that it is not the moment to parade. This cannot be done with military exercises that aim only to be "photogenic", and not to train large units in an approximately realistic war situation. This cannot be done in times when our enemies are doing whatever they want and the army is not allowed to do anything.

The "omerta" that reigns among the members of the army and the government about the real situation in the army is like a patient whose health condition is getting worse, and he remains silent and suffers without telling his relatives or doctors about his problems. The only question is whether he will cry for help or die first. A patient who does not accept that he is sick and does not want to be treated cannot and will not be cured. Therefore, the reputation of the army is raised only by its actions. Everyone cheers for the winning team. The Serbian Army needs victories, but over real opponents, that is, challenges, and not in staged exhibition matches organized for the audience, without opponents and not even with tied outcomes, but increasingly convincing defeats. And the team's victories depend above all on the individual and joint efforts of its players.