No wonder that the draft is regarded by many people in Russian society as something like serving deprivation of liberty for 1 year. Mass media often communicate information about outrageous facts that show disgraceful attitude towards soldiers, as if they were dumb animals. Draftees often cannot receive proper medical aid. Violence of organized groups of privates who have served more than 6 months against younger draftees became the rule. Every year not less than 3000 soldiers desert from the Russian army and a number of suicides in it is more than in the armies of the NATO countries. The situation with human rights violations in the Russian army became worse when it was allowed to call up for military service previously convicted persons. In fact, hazing in the army is the same as hazing in a prison camp. I suppose that prison hierarchy has already been adapted to army conditions in Russia. The conditions, in fact, are the same: one can be put into prison or be drafted against his own free will; both convicts and draftees are infamous and forced to do something what they don’t want to do and draftees are unpaid at that. In 3 years from reducing the period of serving in the armed forces to 12 months, it became obvious that hazing in the Russian army cannot be eradicated in such way. If the period of serving will be reduced even to 1 month, then draftees who have served more than 2 weeks will scoff at draftees who served less than 2 weeks. By the way, it’s no coincidence that classrooms for first grades and senior grades are always placed in schools separately; it’s even advisable to place them onto different floors in order to restrict access. The problems are the same. So, it’s necessary to change the whole system. But there are some people who try to impede progress.
Supporters of the draft usually put forward 2 arguments. First of them is that an all-volunteer force is much more expensive than a conscription-based army. The second argument is that mainly representatives of poor strata of a society shall sign contracts with the military, and this will supposedly lead to degradation of the army.
To begin with, in the USA the draft was replaced by the all-volunteer force (AVF) in 1973 because of demoralization of the conscription-based army and loss of fighting capacity as a result of the defeat in Vietnam. According to the former General Accounting Office (GAO), the move to an AVF added about $3 billion per year in 1974 dollars to the military’s costs (more than $10 billion in 2006 dollars)—or about 11 percent of DoD’s spending on its manpower budget accounts in 1974. However, all these funds remained in the USA, contributed to increase of purchasing capacity of people and in the final analysis had promoted economic growth. The same mechanism is fully applicable to Russia. For example, if the draft in the existing Russian army of 1 million servicemen will be replaced by the AVF and average monthly military pay for contract soldiers will be raised up to $1000 dollars, then annual expenses will be increased up to 12 billion dollars. At the same time, it would be reasonable to continue reduction of armed forces down to 500,000 servicemen, and in this case expenses for regular military compensation would be about 6 billion dollars per year. If we’ll take into account the long-service bonuses and also the difference between rates of wages of privates, sergeants and officers, these expenses would grow up to 10 billion dollars per year at most. These 10 billion dollars per year could advantage the economy and will hardly be transferred abroad. It would promote the growth of GDP and living standards.
Or, perhaps, it’s more than the 300-billion-dollar Russian federal budget can afford? By the way, according to various estimates, aggregate expenditures for the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi for 2008-2014 will account for 30 billion dollars, which is equal to 5 billion dollars per year. It’s obvious that at very most only 1/3 of them shall be really invested in the infrastructure. Apparently, other money will be plundered, as usual in current conditions of Russia. Yet the Government goes to all lengths in order to hold the Winter Olympic Games in subtropics. However, in this case it should realize that refusal of the gradual transition to all-volunteer armed force means subsequent return to the conscription-based army and this will cost the Government a pretty penny too. Moreover, this already costs a lot. These costs are conditional on the loss of draftees' earnings and the diseconomies caused by the obstacles on the way of running of households. The difficulties and risks of military service may worsen the welfare of draftees and their families too. Long-term negative consequences of military service are also huge: according to results of recent researches, former draftees lose from 5 to 15 percent of their annual salaries during all their lives[1]. The main reason for such costs and losses is probably a harm caused by the military service during the process of forming the human capital[2]. May be, even this estimate of economic losses is understated because it fails to take into account losses of earnings of ex-servicemen, which have to begin their careers with less operational experience than their peers who had escaped the draft.
In addition, a battleworthy conscript army is not as cheap as some supporters of the draft try to portray. Let’s cite Bundeswehr as a good example of battleworthy and conscription-based army (unfortunately, the Russian army does not fit these criteria). Thus, on June 2010 Minister of Defense of Germany Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg proposed to reduce the number of Bundeswehr to 100,000 servicemen and suspend the draft. According to the Minister’s calculations, this would make it possible for the Germans to save about 490 million dollars per year. Firstly, this means, that the financing of the Russian army by the standards of the Bundeswehr in case of refusal of the AVF would cost the federal budget 5 billion dollars per year. It’s quite comparable to the possible expenses for military pay for 500,000 servicemen if average monthly military pay for contract soldiers will be $1000. Secondly, it’s necessary to repeat that just now we’re here talking about the German standards, and not about the sad state of the Russian army, on soldiers of which the Russian Government seriously economizes and even passes this for the draft’s advantage. In other words, everybody should understand that an effective conscription-based army which is financed in accordance with the German standards is much more expensive than the AVF. Conscription-based army can be cheaper only if it’s required only to simulate military might and to make easier the task of military commissars and armchair generals to line their own pockets. In conditions of equal funding, an AVF is much more efficient than a conscription-based army, because weapons and equipment are usually being operated more skillfully. For the same money a country receives a higher quality product under the name "efficient army".
Now it’s time to consider the second argument against the AVF that it supposedly leads to inequality when mainly representatives of poor strata and the depressive elements in a society prefer to sign military contracts. Let’s find out how are matters stand in the U.S. armed forces, which are at war in Afghanistan and in Iraq now. In July 2007, the Congressional Budget Office published a document entitled "The All-Volunteer Army: Issues and Performance", which concluded that 91 percent of recruits in 2006 were high school graduates, compared with 80 percent of U.S. residents ages 18 to 24. Moreover, 69 percent of recruits scored at or above the 50th percentile (relative to the overall U.S. youth population) on the qualification test[3]. In addition, the socioeconomic background of service members (before they joined a military) was not differ from average indicators, yet youths from the very highest and lowest income families may be somewhat less likely to serve in the enlisted ranks than other groups are[4].
Wouldn't it be good for Russia if youths from lowest income families or orphans will join the all-volunteer armed force in the first place, whether or no? Is this bad, if citizens at age 18 to 27 who previously had no chance to be educated competitively and couldn’t aspire to high wages, would become able to raise their social status thanks to the army?! It means growth of living standards in the depressed areas! Moreover, a practice proves that a lot of American contract soldiers renew their contracts with pleasure. It’ll be fair to give everyone do what he wants. There are a lot of people who want to defend their country. May be it would be reasonable to pay them for that and even make that their profession since they like it? And vice versa, there’re many people who keep themselves busy. They don’t like when military commissars impertinently interfere in their lives. For what reason must they do something for free for the Government which earns hundreds of billions of dollars from raw materials export every year?
Generally speaking, the burden of draft in conditions of Russia is laid on youths exactly from the poorest and uneducated strata of the society. Analysis of dependence of the number of recruits from the type of centers of populations where they lived before they joined the military shows that possibility to be drafted is 11 times lower for youths living in large cities like Moscow and Saint-Petersburg, than for their peers living in rural areas. The probability of being drafted from the richest stratum of the population is only 3 percent, but from the poorest stratum is 20 percent[5]. Everything indicates that, in fact, the Russian army is already volunteer, because everyone who doesn’t want to join up in the army can pay it off by means of several variants: to enter an institution of higher education (it’s very hard to be accepted as a student for free because free higher education in Russia remains only on paper), to graft a military commissar or a medical board. Director of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights Alexander Brod declared in June 2010 that potential recruits are ready to pay from $2500 to $4000 to avoid military service. But how do you think, are 18-year-old former schoolboys capable to earn such sums of money in Russia? In fact, this is an additional tax on families which were unlucky because a boy was born there. Why must a family of a boy pay such kind of tax, and not a family in which a girl was born? And how, in this case, can we talk about any equality of rights and duties of citizens of Russia?
No wonder that the most zealous supporters of conservation of draft are, first of all, employees and officials of the military registration and enlistment offices, because they have a power over the Russian men at 18 to 27 years old, and use this power to take bribes. Armchair officers also don't like an AVF because they’re not able to be in command of professional servicemen since experienced soldier feels instinctively an incompetence of ungifted officers. Armchair officers have already accustomed to command people like sheep, and treat them accordingly. Ridiculously enough but even these officers usually agree that everybody should do things in those spheres where he is an expert. But according to their logic, the military service is intended especially for those people who don’t want to do it, don’t know how to do it and don’t even want to learn how to do it. In contrast, those who are capable on something are often denied to apply their skills with maximum efficiency in the armed forces. The Defense Ministry has no thought of differentiating conscripts in accordance with their skills honed before they were called up for the military service. For example, in 2006 I asked then-Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov about his attitude to proposition of differentiating draftees according to their skills acquired during civilian life. Also I had informed him that the former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov has suggested to begin reducing terms of the military service down to 6 months to prepare recruits for those military specialties which are necessary in a modern army to ensure that conscripts will come back to civil life with understanding of characteristics of the military service and having skills of controlling modern defense technology. In response, Defense Minister delivered a ten-minute speech, the meaning of which boiled down to the fact that 6 months is too short term, so everybody would understand nothing at all, but as for getting involved best-trained and well-educated recruits in the most responsible and difficult work in the army – it will be implemented. Today, after 4 years, one can verify whether it’s implemented.
Since in early 2010 it became clear that the process of transferring of Russian sergeants to contract is failed and allocated funds are stolen as usual, senior army officers decided apparently to reverse the process using as always insincere slogans as a cover.
Here are, in particular, some of them: "It is the honorable duty of every man and citizen, every patriot of his country to serve in the army!” “There is no difference between an all-volunteer force and an army of hirelings! Both of them shall take the side of an enemy if the enemy will offer them more!" However, it’s inconceivable that American soldiers could take the side of Saddam Hussein, even in case if he would have paid to every servicemen $10000 in cash! But in accordance with the logic of the Russian generals, Saddam was able to hire 10 thousand American soldiers with their weapons and equipment, having spent 1 billion dollars, or 20 thousand soldiers for 2 billion dollars etc. Or the president of the oil-producing country, who had collected golden machine guns and had not less than 100 palaces, was not able to pay pathetic 2 billion dollars, the more so because he had nowhere to spend this money because of embargo? Was something like that ever with soldiers of armies of the UK, Italy or Germany? How often do soldiers of these armies decide to take the side of the Taliban in Afghanistan? Or a billionaire Osama bin Laden had already squandered his money? So, all these armies participated in hostilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Saddam or bin Laden or somebody else who was of sound mind had not decide to offer money to contract soldiers in order to pay them for betrayal. On the contrary, high command of the conscription-based army of Iraq was grafted and simply left its soldiers to the mercy of fate (of course, I believe in incorruptibility of the high command of the Russian army which would throw this dirty money in similar case in the enemy’s face without hesitation).
Patriotic slogans don’t work anymore in Russia. Despite the fact that patriotism is a loose concept, it’s formed on the basis of real facts and events, community of interests, civic pride and joy for the fact that you live in your own country, which were accumulated in good times. This resource is quite possible to be applied during difficult times. In fact, patriotism is something that makes us one people. But it’s impossible to derive the country’s strength from the only one source, especially when unworthy people call for help the patriotism of Russians. What associations of real life can arise in citizens’ heads when they are faced with our reality and the current regime, considering that patriotism is usually linked directly with a state? In conditions when common material and spiritual values had been lost, now only private interests still remain. For many people these interests are the following: a couple of close relatives and friends, flat and belongings. So, a probable enemy should guarantee not so much if he wants to make a lot of citizens began to ask themselves: why must we resist? What will change for us in case of the current authority is overthrown?
If there is no patriotism, how can we speak about efficiency of the conscription-based army? What shall protect these armed men? In fact, we have one million armed men who are more likely to protect their private interests rather than common values (for lack of them). Internet forums are full of posts like: “Take machine guns, bastards, and defend your damned state without us! Don’t hide behind others' backs! Do it yourselves, if you’re so fond of stinking black liquid or sickening gas”. And here is another example: "Everything for what people must fight, no longer belongs to people. Do you really think that they’re gonna die in order to protect oil wells of oligarchs?” The Russian army cannot be effective with such state of public mood. In addition, potential draftees are aware of what is in store for them in the Russian army, because everybody knows about the inhumane treatment of draftees there. At the same time, they can see a completely another attitude to draftees, for example, in the Israel Defense Forces. Did someone hear of construction of cottages for Israeli generals by soldiers? The fact is that now in the IDF serve only those citizens who understand, firstly, that their army is necessary to protect their country from the very specific enemies, and secondly, that there is an order in the IDF. Every soldier knows that if anything happens, his companions in arms shall cover him and get him out of trouble. Israeli citizens understand that every serviceman protects the order of governance with which this serviceman agrees. And how many people in Russia sincerely agree with the existing order of governance?
Certainly, one can try to cultivate patriotism. The most effective way to cultivate patriotism is to do it since a citizen’s childhood (marches, singing of hymns, flag raising etc). The main thing is that a person should believe that his country is the best in the world. It doesn’t matter whether this is truth or not. Examples are the following: China, North Korea and Iran. That's really where the patriots are… But in the 1970-1980-s the people of the Soviet Union were not liable to any indoctrination. If a government wants the enthusiasm and solidarity among a society, ruling circles have to combine propaganda with strong incentives and show their personal example. And if a government promotes high moral ideals, but its members behave immorally, then there will be growth of hypocrisy in a society as a result.
But, of course, Russia requires a system of training of reservists. And supporters of the draft try to prove us that exactly draftees who had served their time in the army then will turn to the best reservists because they supposedly had obtained combat skills and became familiar with the military discipline. Probably, broken heads and internal organs, frost-bitten kidneys, damaged stomachs, marching on a drill ground all the day until stupefaction, construction of generals' cottages and painting grass (it's not a joke!) really ensure that the army prepares excellent reservists who are able to repulse the enemy. A soldier may hold a machine gun in his hands twice for the entire period of military service – during taking the oath and on a shooting range (standard practice where he may use 9 cartridges). Can all these really be called "combat skills"?
So, it’s much more efficient and cheaper to maintain not a conscription-based army for preparation of millions of reservists, but the Voluntary Society of Assistance to the Army, the Air Force and the Navy. Moreover, some citizens will be even glad to pay to learn how to drive a tank or an APC. In general, what Russian reservists should be able to do? Firstly, they should know how to handle firearms. Secondly, if it will be necessary, they should be capable to mobilize themselves quickly and be ready to a guerilla war. With that end in view, the mobilization reserve could be replaced by the people's militia units. In fact, it would be so called “soft draft”. A member of the home guard after serving for 6 months in a training battalion then returns to his residence place and registers himself at a territorial unit of the people’s militia. For the next 10 years he should undergo a week-long training every year with work being discontinued (or to choose from – one-day training with examinations of shooting and physical training). Territorial units of people’s militia are commanded by reserve officers living on the same territory. The most important thing in this case is that every member of people's militia keeps military weapons and ammunition at home (otherwise the people’s militia beats its purpose). Only in this case, in conditions of a surprise attack of an enemy, the people’s militia units would be capable to take up arms instantly in order to begin a guerilla war, and therefore any air strikes on ammunition depots would become senseless because firearms will already be in guerillas’ possession. Of course, this presupposes the legalization of firearms and hidden carrying of them by citizens. But it’s another subject, and we’ll consider it later.
As for the Russian army, it must be staffed only with servicemen who signed a military contract. Terms of the military service in accordance with a military contract should be not less than 5 years. Airplanes, ships and missiles cannot be mastered in a year and in two years too. And an infantry after the pattern of the last century now is good only for armies of African or Latin American countries. First of all, the forces in constant combat readiness, special mission units, Air Force and Air Defense should be staffed only by contract servicemen. If someone objects to this, he ought to answer the question if he is ready to fly on an airplane serviced by yesterday’s schoolboys which were seized by a military commissar and now are forced to work in an airport.
In modern warfare everything is determined not by cannon fodder but technologies. If the USA will make progress in the sphere of battle lasers and similar systems (and the first success is already there), then even nuclear weapons may become unnecessary for the Americans. Of course, in Russia the case is somewhat different. If we‘ll abandon the regime’s primitive agitprop, then we have the following achievements: an imitation of fifth generation jet fighter, defective submarine-launched ballistic missile Bulava, the Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) which is diminishing rapidly etc. Also we have airplanes and tanks without any modern navigation and communication systems, so that they would be good only for wars in Africa. We also have a large floating museum of the Navy under the name "Peter the Great" and the complete absence of united information field for each soldier and unit of technique (this is the reality for the U.S. armed forces). Moreover, we have a whole army of dull-witted and money-grabbing officials. Suffice it to mention the number of high officials’ sons who had ever been drafted, and then it‘ll become clear that Russia needs not such an army.
It’s important to understand that time of cannon fodder is over now. And in case of war, for example, between Russia and China, then Russia will definitely lose if the conscription-based army will remain, because the Chinese possess 10 times more cannon fodder than Russia. It’s time to begin to understand that one can win only by quality of privates, sergeants and officers. By the way, have you ever seen a fat American general? And have you ever seen a strong Russian general in good shape? Incidentally, that's another problem. The number of soldiers in the army is directly related with the number of generals. There’re even more generals in the Russian army than in the U.S. armed forces which are warring in Iraq and Afghanistan now. Reducing the number of draftees means recognizing that a lot of generals will become unnecessary. So, Russian generals are all against abolishing the draft. In general, an AVF usually releases resources. Transition to the AVF is a long-term strategy that will make it possible for us to ensure GDP growth, improve economic and investment climate, increase efficiency of the army, put an end to absolutely needless and inefficient activities such as cleaning potatoes and construction of generals’ cottages. And there will be no horrific news about dead or maimed soldiers and deserters.
 |
[1] Angrist J. Lifetime Earnings and the Vietnam Era Draft Lottery: Evidence from Social Security Administrative Records // American Economic Review. 1990. Vol. 80. P. 313 - 336; Imbens G., van der Klaauw W. Op. cit.
[2] Economic Burden of the Military Conscription in Russia: Results of the Microeconomic Analysis/ R. Emtsov, M. Lokshin //Economic Issues. – 2006. – №1.
[3] The All-Volunteer Military: Issues and Performance. // The Congressional Budget Office. P. 10.
[4] Ibid, p 12.
[5] Economic Burden of the Military Conscription in Russia: Results of the Microeconomic Analysis/ R. Emtsov, M. Lokshin //Economic Issues. – 2006. – №1
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий