2005 Menghean military reforms

The 2005 military reforms adopted in Menghe were part of a comprehensive effort to restructure and improve the Menghean Army and Navy during the second half of the 2000s. The changes were motivated by the disastrous performance of the Menghean armed forces in the Ummayan Civil War, where a Menghean intervention force succeeded in propping up a Taleyan rebel insurrection in the south but suffered severe casualties in engagements with Sieuxerrian and Tyrannian forces. The war brought the first engagements between Menghean combatants and a parity Casaterran military since 1964, and revealed serious deficiencies in Menghean capabilities.

Choe Sŭng-min convened a series of meetings of the General Staff in the spring of 2005 to discuss the poor performance of the Army and Navy in Ummayah, calling for "honest self-criticism and a plan for fundamental changes." The Ministry of National Defense issued a proclamation on June 5th stating that the armed forces would undergo "comprehensive reform in all areas," the first public acknowledgement that reforms were underway. Internal memos to individual units and departments gave more specific instructions.

The initial "self-criticism and introspection" period involved a series of resignations by high-profile officials, followed by a broader personnel shakeup of the middle administrative ranks, as politically motivated appointees from the 1990s were replaced by a new generation of theorists. A parallel campaign attacked corruption in the Army procurement department and severed many of the Army's civilian economic holdings. More material changes included new uniforms, new weaponry, longer and more selective conscription terms, improved armor and electronics for vehicles, and new developments in tactics and operations which granted more autonomy to lower-level commanders. Simultaneously, the size of the Menghean Army's standing force was increased to meet the border threat from Maverica and Innominada, and the Navy received authorization to build a third aircraft carrier. To support the increased costs, military spending broadly and research and development spending in particular increased sharply, and work began on a number of new weapons projects.

Background

The motive for the 2005 military reforms can be traced back to the deep budget cuts of the late 1980s and early 1990s. After coming to power in the Decembrist Revolution, Choe Sŭng-min normalized relations with Dayashina and the major Western powers, and declared that his government would prioritize economic growth. As a result of these shifts in priority, military spending fell sharply from 1988 to 1993, and for nine of the next ten years it grew at a slower pace than GDP.

The Menghean Navy reacted to tight budgets by focusing on quality over quantity, modernizing its large-combatant force but reducing the number of missile and torpedo craft. The Menghean Army made steep cuts in new procurement, shifting to a reserve-centric low-readiness force that mostly relied on old equipment. Training and readiness in both forces lapsed. Hundreds of aircraft were moved into reserve storage, some of them in climate-controlled hangars but many in open fields and rudimentary warehouses.

Having come to power with the help of the Menghean People's Army, Choe Sŭng-min was wary of making any moves that could provoke a counter-coup. Initial force reduction efforts in 1988 and 1989 were carried out under the guise of political purges of Communist sympathizers, and officers who wished to remain in the Armed Forces had to pass political loyalty tests. Promotion was also came to emphasize political loyalty rather than skill or ability, as Choe consolidated his power and built up a cult of personality.

Corruption in the armed forces also became a major problem during this period. In a further move to soften military unrest and discourage coups, Army and Navy staff departments began to reward laid-off and underpaid officers by encouraging them to start personal enterprises. This mirrored the existing practice of encouraging Socialist Party cadres to "jump into the sea" of private business. Under the Second New Five-Year Plan's "beehive campaign" to boost economic growth, military units were tasked with contributing to the economy directly: on-base farms and workshops, inherited from the military-centric economy of the DPRM, became the basis for de-facto private businesses run by officers. This phenomenon was especially acute in the Army, which organized large numbers of conscripts into "special construction brigades" to build roads, harvest crops, and even work in factories. Corruption was also a bottom-up phenomenon, as officers paid increasingly generous bribes in exchange for promotions and administrative posts.

Combat lessons

Polvokian Civil War

Main article: Polvokian Civil War

Ummayan Civil War

Main article: Ummayan Civil War

Major reforms

Volunteer enlisted troops

Prior to the 2005 reforms, all enlisted personnel in the Menghean Armed Forces were conscripts serving one-year terms. Conscripts could re-enlist, but they received the same dismal pay, and retention rates were very low. While this approach was adequate for a low-skill, manpower-heavy military, MoND reform planners concluded that it was increasingly inefficient in a modernizing military. A growing number of technical posts required expert training, and the prior practice of staffing these posts with lieutenant-grade officers was inadequate.

To address the problem, both the Army and the Navy established a separate category of volunteer personnel. Conscripts were (and are) only paid a small monthly allowance, which in 2004 was equal to ₩2,500 ($168 in 2020 SSD), on the rationale that the military covered their room, board, food, and equipment. Volunteer pay, by contrast, started at ₩66,000 ($4,201) per year, with a ₩25,000 ($1,651) sign-up bonus. Though small in absolute terms, the volunteer wage was half of GDP per capita and close to the median income, making re-enlistment financially attractive. Conscript stipend were also quadrupled, and pegged to inflation, which had previously eaten away at the real value of the fixed-Won number.

Anti-corruption effort

As training and readiness improved, the Menghean government also moved behind the scenes to fight corruption. While the June 5th proclamation made no explicit mention of corruption - a sensitive topic best kept out of the public record - it was a major topic of internal investigations and self-criticism sessions. In the summer and autumn of 2005, a slew of high-ranking officers were placed under investigation and dismissed from their posts on charges of embezzling funds and trading bribes for promotions. With the major patrons of the corruption web under control, the Military Discipline Inspection Agency followed up with a thorough purge of the lower ranks, and forced many bases to sell off their side businesses.

An internal Ministry of National Defense regulation passed in 2007 formally prohibited military personnel from operating for-profit enterprises while on active duty. This sweeping change forced the divestment of the remaining military-linked enterprises, as well as side businesses run by officers. Exemptions were made for licensed defense contractors and on-base shops and restaurants for personnel, and reservists were still permitted to work in the private sector, though they could be investigated and punished if they violated a vague clause against "unduly exploiting military status for market advantage."

To compensate for the loss of side income, the Ministry of National Defense doubled average officer wages between 2004 and 2008, a move which was also intended to increase enlistment and retention.