Without a monopoly on truth
The new system of analytical support should be an effective tool for achieving Russia's intellectual superiority.October 1 The Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation has registered the Analytics Association. What goals and objectives does it set for itself in a difficult time for the country of economic sanctions and unprecedented pressure of the West? This and other questions in an interview with the columnist of the Military-Industrial Courier were answered by the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Analytics Association, the Chairman of the Scientific and Technical Council of Rostec, Doctor of Science, Professor Yuri Koptev.
- Yury Nikolayevich, how do you see the future of the association, what hopes does the expert community, represented at the meeting of founders, place its hopes on it?
- Completed a three-year hard work to create an association to promote the development of the analytical potential of the individual, society and the state "Analytics". It received a legal status, formed the core of the main specialists - well-known analysts who are able to solve practical problems. The first public events were held, including under the auspices of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation.
“Angular velocity sensor on the“ Proton ”turned a qualified and experienced fitter. Optimization of personnel led to the fact that this operation was excluded from the category of particularly responsible, was removed from the control of military acceptance ”
Today there is no shortage of non-state analytical organizations. We see deep and serious work that is carried out efficiently and in demand. At the same time, there are also lightweight ones, when one or another analyst, company is limited to application events, participation in PR actions. There are many cases when analysts who have loudly declared themselves disappear from the horizon after a while.
Naturally, all this does not enhance the authority of the community, and most importantly, it does not bring practical benefits to state authorities. Often, many of the most important issues of major importance are generally outside of analytical studies and the issuance of relevant recommendations. In order to be in demand in state structures and society, in our opinion, it is necessary to provide a prompt analysis of the situation, an assessment of forecasting, a search for ways to reduce the negative impact of the current situation, especially the policy of imposed sanctions, on the economic life of the country. And this is feasible only with a professional approach to the analysis of possible negative consequences and the choice of means for overcoming them, making recommendations to ensure the appropriate social well-being of society. That is, we are talking about the aggregate search for ways of the socio-economic development of the country, strengthening its defense capability.
Hence the main goals of the association: the development of analytical activities and technologies in Russia to ensure public policy, the promotion of analytical and institutional centers, an increase in the number of professional analysts, the development of a methodological framework and technologies for such work.
The focus should also be on the analysis of issues of life, development, existence, transformation of our defense industry. The need for this work can be illustrated by such an example. Now we are working hard on the new edition of the Military Doctrine. It is clear that this is a document, some sections of which cannot be the subject of public discussion. At the same time, a number of questions, it seems, deserve the fact that society understands how this direction of state activity will develop. And then the analytical community can have their say. However, today the work on the doctrine is structured in such a way that none of the analysts practically participates in it. And, probably, some initiative should be shown here so that at the stage of the formation of documents it was possible to make certain judgments, taking into account the experience, knowledge, orientation of the activities of many analysts.
In our common vision, the creation of an association should ensure creative and constructive cooperation of the community. However, creating it, you must answer a number of questions. Consolidation should take place not at the expense of monopolization of the right to truth, but on the basis of unity in terms of diversity, when the goals coincide, but different approaches and judgments to the solution of emerging problems are acceptable. This is possible if we manage to create a certain network structure of the association, which promotes the unification of the subjects of analytical activity with the common goal of serving the truth and not indifferent to the fate of our country. Organizationally, a system of analytical support for development and security management can become one of the tools for achieving intellectual superiority of Russian society and the state in the context of global transformation of the world and the accompanying conflicts. This should be the strategic goal of the association.
Her work will not take place in a vacuum. At the site of analytical studies today, I repeat, quite a lot of players, including those who are used to the absence of healthy competition and not always a reasonable monopoly on truth. Under the sign of the association, at the site of the Public Chamber, the problems of forecasting the development of the defense industrial complex have already been discussed, the results of which received a positive assessment from the Military Industrial Commission. With the participation of experts of the Association and the Institute of Economic Strategies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a special course was developed for intensive training of managers and a strategic personnel reserve with the leaders of the defense industrial complex on the subject of “Strategic Management”. The relevance of this issue does not require explanation. The law on strategic planning has just been issued. In November, the first group will start classes, which included the heads of defense enterprises, such as OJSC Far East Plant Zvezda, OJSC Production Association Sevmash, OJSC TsKB MT Rubin, GKNPTs named after MV Khrunichev, OJSC "Helicopters of Russia", and others. This is actually our first pilot project and the organization of the learning process will determine the perception of the association as a worthy educational center, capable of teaching people what they need most today.
In addition, we suggest holding "round tables" and scientific and technical conferences on topical issues of information and analytical support for decision-making, which seems to be one of the most significant forms of maintaining the corporate image of the association, confirming its intellectual potential, which ultimately is intended to become a means of overcoming the current today there are situations of unsystematic, when the most important decisions are sometimes made on the basis of intuition or stereotypes. After all, many of today's negative phenomena in the country are precisely the result of the fact that the adoption of responsible decisions is not preceded by relevant analytical work, an assessment of the consequences.
All this is not an easy and very significant task - to become objectively relevant, not to slip into self-education and to explain to each other the positive and negative aspects of the life of the country. This will require monitoring the problems of development of society and public administration, rapid assessment, analysis of the situation and forecasting, the formation of a common subject of analytical research in the spheres of the country's life and government, rapid research on specific issues.
- You said that the reason for a number of negative phenomena in the country is the lack of analytical studies. What are the most typical examples?
- Over the past five or six years, they will be quite a lot. Take a decision on changing time zones. Accepting it, they did not listen to the specialists, who said that this is fraught with unpleasant consequences for society. We were explained this by the alleged need to save electricity. But there are still biological laws of human life, biorhythms, frequent changes of which have a very negative effect on him. Not to mention the costs associated with the transfer of hour hands across the country, changing the schedule of land and air transport, etc. And if the decision were preceded by serious analytical studies, then the result would be different, which finally happened this year.
Many examples of volitional decisions in the economy and other spheres of life. Although the trial and error method in serious matters is simply unacceptable.
We will have completely independent experts who are not connected with any corporate or other connections. For example, military issues are supposed to be discussed at the level of experts who were in senior positions: Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Head of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff, Deputy Defense Minister for Armaments. These people are not just competent, but those who have passed a great life school and have experience of military actions behind their shoulders. They found the courage and strength to express directly their disagreement with the actions of the former Defense Minister Serdyukov, did not agree with the destruction of the canons of military science, training, voluntaristic decisions on military acceptance. I was involved in investigating the causes of the accident with “Protons” and found out that at the Khrunichev Center, as part of the “optimization” of military cadres, they reduced military acceptance from 170 to 25 people, lost piece specialists who had been trained for decades. Today, the reverse decisions have already taken place, the states have been allocated, and they cannot return those people or get equivalent ones. It turns out the most important product in short in our country - people committed to their work, knowing it thoroughly. And the association should protect our leaders from such ill-conceived, voluntaristic decisions.
Although I’ll just say: it’s very difficult to be heard. The same angular velocity sensor on the “Proton” turned a rather skilled fitter who worked for several years. Before this, he carried out similar operations perfectly correctly. Why? One of the reasons is the lack of proper control. The second, I think, in a difficult financial situation of the leading rocket and space enterprise, where the fitter has an official salary at the level of 23 thousand rubles. In addition, unsuccessful administrative decisions to optimize personnel led to the fact that this operation was excluded from the category of "particularly responsible" and was removed from the control of military acceptance.
And so everywhere. At the same airport "Vnukovo", until a French businessman died in a plane crash, the decision was not taken to change the radar of observation of the situation on the airfield, on the actual use of the GLONASS system to assess movement at the aerodrome. Habit leads a person to appeal to "you" with a very complex technique, but she does not like it. So it was in the preparation of the rocket: in the case of the Proton crash, even the special locking pins, which were keyed off with a key, did not save.
- Have you ever wondered why this is happening in the country and in the defense industry in particular?
- If you look at the decade from 1992 to 2002 in general, when the collapse of the military government order and the amount of work at defense companies six to eight times, it becomes clear: this turned out to be simply disastrous in its consequences. After the war, the same Americans engaged in conversion, but 200 invested billions of dollars (in that money) to reorient military plants from military orders for civilians. And Russia in the 90-s only obediently followed the course laid by liberals-reformers and tips from American advisers. It was a course of blind monetarism. What he led, we see today.
We were told all the time: the market will put everything in its place. Did not set. Now, many managers recoup their curses about the organization of work in the USSR. I will not say that everything then was chocolate. But in the MIC there was a developed system of motivation. The salary is at least 10 percent, but higher social security is better. A young specialist immediately on arrival at the "mailbox" received a place in a hostel, after three years - a room in it, and after five years could claim an apartment. If a child appeared, it could be given to a kindergarten that patronized the enterprise. On vacation, such a specialist traveled at will either to the factory boarding house or to the sanatorium at a discount ticket. And if he fell ill, he was treated for free at the factory clinic.
Each company had its own powerful social infrastructure, an accessible base for sports and cultural events. Yes, this is a certain burden, but it has justified itself many times. What did we do after 1991? We were told: look at how Boeing works, does it have such social burdens - no, everything is outsourced. That's right, but a working person can outsource outsourcing services for their salaries. And who among us young specialists today can buy, say, an apartment?
We have destroyed all the privileges that attracted and distinguished the defense industry. Including the support of family dynasties, which for several decades worked at the same enterprise, they passed experience and traditions from hand to hand. And just now we started to remember how that system worked, but the time has passed.
There was also a centralized re-equipment of enterprises that routinely received funds for the development, equipment upgrades, and the introduction of new technologies. We broke it all at once, but gave nothing in return. How many people and enterprises, technologies have been lost over the years ... And the world did not stand still. He went forward, we - back. Today, in the West, technological equipment changes at enterprises every seven years. If we have somewhere 10 percent new - this is already the foremost. And most of them are outdated equipment, some samples are relics, and even after reparations they were taken from Germany.
So this is a major system issue. But we must pay tribute: with the arrival of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, the problem began to be solved. Appeared orders, development projects of enterprises. The “Program for the Development of the Military-Industrial Complex” gave a particularly big boost. If five or six years ago, they ran, clutched at any job, but today a number of enterprises are simply overwhelmed with orders.
But the main thing is to protect the country from random decisions, which are then extremely difficult to correct. Therefore, our analytical community will conduct serious examinations on major system decisions, issuing recommendations to ensure the implementation of military-technical policies, economic development, support for the defense industry, making doctrinal decisions on the development of the country, personnel policy, etc.
We, for example, have not overcome the problem of 90's today, when specialists of average age were washed up. In any serious enterprise today, people are either up to 30 years old, or already past 50. The situation is gradually getting better, in technical colleges there are again contests, everyone, figuratively speaking, ate with lawyers and financiers.
- The consequences of the application of Western sanctions to Russia also work for your association? What do they threaten our country?
- Older people remember how our defense industry lived. Within the framework of the military-industrial complex, the most severe rule was in force, which categorically prohibited the use of foreign element base and materials in VVST samples. And it was executed.
You know what kind of army there was in the USSR, how much equipment and weapons were produced - even with brute force. In those quantities should not be produced. This militarized the economy. But we produced the entire product range, parity with the United States was achieved in almost all areas of weapons and military equipment.
However, today we simply do not have an alternative, because a whole number of areas technically did not develop over the years of non-time, many managers, developers, enterprises have developed a certain psychology, which is called, to follow the path of least resistance. We bought everything that was not there, instead of developing and producing ourselves, setting the task for other industries to create the necessary equipment and materials.
Therefore, we got what we have. It is impossible in the areas of activity that determine our national security to focus only on the good attitude of foreign suppliers. We know how the first war in Iraq ended, when the French air defense control system of the country at one point was remotely turned off by those who installed it. This was made possible thanks to bookmarks in microchips.
The United States some time ago also demonstrated the deception (shutdown) in some areas of hostilities (Yugoslavia, Iraq) of the operation of the GPS satellite system. But this is not only the main information tool of navigation, but also the most important component of the use of high-precision weapons. All this is reflected in the fundamental decisions that have already been taken by the President of Russia. 28 July 2014, they were tasked with accelerating the transition to import substitution. Speaking about Western sanctions against the defense industry, related to the position of Russia in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin stressed that it was necessary to protect themselves from non-fulfillment of contracts by our foreign partners, including risks of a political nature.
Of course, this is a very painful process. In those matters that I do (it is not a secret for anyone), we were largely dependent on the same Ukraine. 80 percent of helicopters were equipped with engines "Motor Sich", 60 percent of ships under construction - gas turbine installations of the Nikolaev company "Zorya".
I have no doubts that these products will be mastered in Russia. For example, the same plant them. Klimov in St. Petersburg has already built a separate production for the production of engines - up to 500 units by 2017 year. But any serious dependence on suppliers in the West or the East may lead in the next year or two (before the implementation of the import substitution program) to a certain decrease in the rate of output of weapons and military equipment compared with the plans of the SAP. This is not critical. The most dangerous thing in all of this, paradoxically, is the restoration of such cooperative ties tomorrow. Again, everyone will forget about import substitution. It is possible and necessary to be friends with everyone, but in no case do not slow down the momentum on the projects that we decided to organize.
From the point of view of further development, I consider it absolutely correct to enter into more detailed relations with the PRC, South Korea, India and other countries. But you can not get involved in rampant love. People there are very pragmatic, they just do nothing. Over the past 20 years, they have progressed tremendously in terms of the element base, creating national branches of the defense industry. About 80 percent of the nomenclature of the ECB, which we are deprived of by Europe and the United States, we can get in the East. A number of joint projects (for the same wide-body aircraft, heavy helicopter) are of interest to us and the PRC. At the same time, these countries should be treated as equal partners, capable of becoming a real participant in the implementation of complex projects. We will not be able to go further on the former resources, know-how of the Soviet time, they are almost exhausted.
- The country's leadership expressed the opinion that the bet will now be placed on medium and small business, but if it does not justify itself, then there will be only one way out: a return to the mobilization economy. Such a turn is possible?
- Over the past years, we have not created a normally functioning small business. If you look at the organization of the work of aerospace industry manufacturers in France, then there are five or six large companies relying on four thousand small businesses. The Boeing has ten thousand of them. Therefore, leading firms can afford to be as clean as possible from non-core products, to concentrate power on the final operations.
And we have everything in the structure of any enterprise - from procurement workshops, foundries and fasteners to assembly. This is the legacy of the Soviet military-industrial complex. But it must be understood that neither small nor medium-sized businesses will replace 1260 large associations and enterprises of the military-industrial complex of Russia in solving the tasks assigned to the defense industry complex. Instead of Uralvagonzavod, not a single small enterprise Tanks will not be able to do. However, this does not exclude the development of small and medium-sized businesses, which can be outsourced to a number of configurations and technological conversions.
A mobilization economy is already a critical, extreme option, a forced measure of preserving a country in the context of the Cold War. On the other hand, it is also a major cost in terms of our full-fledged multidisciplinary development, which we would very much not like. But in any case, our “fifth column” will have to be removed from production and financial management to save the country.
As you probably know, at 2016 – 2017 years GOZ is supposed to be reduced by 22 – 23 percent. On the one hand, these are problems of the budget, on the other - objective conditions, when a whole range of products for the RF Armed Forces are tied to import substitution programs. And we simply cannot solve these tasks in the previously accepted scope, until we replace the foreign package bundle. Therefore, it will be necessary to shift part of the work to the right by one or two years. At the same time, this is a definite savings that will go to the unconditional fulfillment of social obligations in this situation.
I repeat: we are doomed to leave this situation with dignity. All our centuries-old story says that it is impossible to defeat Russia from the outside. Moreover, the bright hopes of universal love, that everyone only dreams, how to do good to us, are in the past. We now felt the Western system of double standards. And in this situation, the role of analytical support for fateful decisions only increases, which should suggest how to stop and minimize the possible risks and costs of the Russian Federation.
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