Russian defence: Reform and be sacked ANATOLY SERDYUKOV, Russia's defence minister from 2007 until November 6th when President Vladimir Putin fired him, was never much of a military man. He had previously sold furniture in St Petersburg and served as a tax minister. With little patience for the top brass (whom he called little green men), Mr Serdyukov was "unabashedly civilian," says Mark Galeotti of New York University. Many officers whose privileges Mr Serdyukov threatened rejoiced at his downfall. Mr Serdyukov was caught up in a corruption scandal over Oboronservis, a company that manages property and other assets owned by the armed forces of which he was chairman until last year. Investigators claim the company was involved in the fraudulent sale of some $100m in state property. Yet murky business dealings are rarely a cause for dismissal in Mr Putin's Russia. What may have undone Mr Serdyukov was the addition of a familial offence. He is married to the daughter of Viktor Zubkov, a Putin intimate and former prime minister who is chairman of Gazprom. But Mr Serdyukov struck up a liaison with Yevgenia Vasilyeva, an aide and board member at Oboronservis. A tabloid internet site with connections to the security services reported that, when investigators arrived to search Ms Vasilyeva's flat at 6am on October 25th, Mr Serdyukov was also there. His replacement by Sergei Shoigu, a loyal Mr Fix-it for Mr Putin, raises questions over military reform. Mr Serdyukov was a competent administrator, able to overcome resistance to change. Under his predecessor, Sergei Ivanov, now Mr Putin's chief-of-staff, the defence budget rose with little impact on effectiveness: it was the old Soviet army, just smaller. Mr Serdyukov was brought in as a crisis manager, says Alexander Golts, a military analyst. The idea, says Dmitry Gorenburg of Harvard University, was to "revitalise the military by getting out of the business of competing with major powers." It was to be refashioned for missions it might have to undertake: interventions in post-Soviet neighbours, counterterrorism and antipiracy operations, and fighting insurgencies. Gone was the notion of fighting a big land war in Europe. That also pointed to a phasing out of conscription and a gradual move towards a professional army. Mr Serdyukov was meant to make the numbers work. In shrinking the bloated officer corps and closing down units, he can boast a "big list of victories," says Vasily Zatsepin, from the Gaidar Institute in Moscow. The number of officers shrunk from 400,000 to 220,000. A structure based on unwieldy divisions was swapped for one based on smaller, nimbler brigades. The 2008 war with Georgia also offered lessons. Although Russia won, victory was messier and harder than it should have been. The armed forces struggled to co-ordinate with each other, with pilots taking orders from one headquarters and ground troops from another. In 2009 they moved to a unified command structure that eliminated duplication and streamlined battlefield communication. Much remains to be done. Military education is antiquated and is not designed to create ambitious officers with skills or initiative. Yet "fewer but better" soldiers, says Mr Galeotti, are just what a leaner army needs. That explains why Mr Putin raised wages last December. Yet recruitment remains low, and conscripts, who now serve for one year, are not able to handle high-tech weapons planned as part of a $628 billion modernisation. And that exposes the weakest link in Russian military reform: the defence industry. Although aerospace is impressive, many factories making hardware for the armed forces rely on outdated technology and production methods that prop up jobs but do little for the armed forces" needs. The $1.7 billion purchase of Mistral-class assault ships from France in June 2011 was meant to jolt the industry. But helped by the likes of Dmitry Rogozin, a populist deputy prime minister, the industry has political cover. Last year the chief of the general staff, Nikolai Makarov, said the army did not need any more outdated T-72 or T-90 tanks. Yet before the presidential election, Mr Putin promised to buy 2,300. Another question is what Russia can afford. Alexei Kudrin, a former finance minister, says new weapons may cost 3% of GDP in the next three years, which means either higher taxes or freezing health and education spending. Mr Kudrin told the newspaper Vedomosti this week that defence spending affected the entire political system. The sacking of Mr Serdyukov shows how true that is.