Stars come out for top brass
Oct 1 promises to be a little like New Year’s Day for the Royal Thai Armed Forces. The annual retirements and shuffling of positions are now a tradition. This year’s long list of promotions and assignments is somewhat of a present for the men in green. Every service has been awarded more money to build its stocks of new weapons and fortify its bases. And for the men at the top, there are 215 slots for new generals.
The number of promotions to general status this year is apparently a record. No one can remember a year when there were more. The army chief, Prayuth Chan-ocha, pointed out that many generals have reached the mandatory retirement age of 60, and have to be replaced. But Gen Prayuth and other top military men have not yet provided the details of exactly how many generals are retiring. In any case, the retirees are those at the top — three- and four-star rank for the most part. Those being promoted are at the bottom of the ladder, and will wear two stars.
It is widely believed that the possible record of promotions was a specific aim of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. She appointed herself as defence minister in the last major cabinet reshuffle. It is rare for a civilian to serve as defence minister — Chuan Leekpai, then premier, was the first — and it is unprecedented for a woman to hold the post, let alone a woman with no previous ties to the armed forces.
Ms Yingluck has gained fast and obvious acceptance by the allmale military hierarchy, but the pertinent question is how high a price she, her government and the nation have paid for harmonious military-government relations.
As this newspaper’s military analyst Wassana Nanuam has pointed out, next week’s military reshuffle is the largest in Thai history. She described it as ‘‘an act of generosity’’. It sends 861 senior military officers to new posts. Almost all of the assignments were technically requested by the military, and granted by the defence minister and prime minister. The truth, as every Thai knows, is far more complicated, because the military continues to hold and to influence political power.
In the reshuffle, the army gets 120 new generals, the navy will have 46 new admirals, and the air force will welcome 64 new air marshals. It is encouraging to see that 37 female officers are included in this group. This is an indication, small but important, that at least some of this massive number of new high-ranking officers has been ordered on merit. But while the military congratulates itself over winning such hefty promotions, it is far from clear how the country has advanced.
Because final figures have yet to be released, the exact number of general-rank officers in uniform during fiscal year 2014 is unclear. It is close to 1,700, a significant increase over last year, when the Oct 1 reshuffle left 1,600 such officers. And it should be remembered that a year ago, then-defence minister Sukumpol Suwanatat stressed the need to slash the number of serving generals. ACM Sukumpol described that number as ‘‘staggering’’.
The number of generals in the armed forces is sometimes the butt of jokes by foreign military leaders. ‘‘More generals than tanks, more admirals than warships’’ is heard far too often. The military no more needs 1,700 generals than it needs submarines in the Gulf.
The military no more needs 1,700 generals than it needs submarines in the Gulf.