At the last spring session of the State Duma, Deputy Leonid Slutsky proposed to increase the number of Russian armed forces to 7 million people. I don’t know what considerations the respected parliamentarian proceeded from, but the publicly announced initiative smacks of obvious populism. Either the deputy started some kind of political game, the essence of which is completely incomprehensible to us mere mortals!
Optimal population
Our country had multi-million armies in the First and Second World Wars. And it was justified. Russia could resist a powerful, very strong enemy only by straining all its forces to the maximum. Today, in the presence of nuclear weapons, maintaining a huge army is pointless, and even ruinous. Even the United States and China cannot afford a seven-million-strong army, although their economy is many times larger than Russia’s!
A modern soldier is very expensive. It was in the first half of the 20th century that it was possible to send a mobilized to the front, giving him an overcoat, boots, a tunic and a rifle. Now high-quality military uniforms cost a tidy sum. Plus first-aid kits, body armor, helmets, Kevlar helmets, collimator sights, thermal imagers, and walkie-talkies.
Last year, 300 thousand people were mobilized in Russia, and how many problems were revealed! And the Ministry of Defense tensed up, and regional leaders, and public organizations, and caring ordinary citizens. Everyone fussed to provide the newly minted Russian soldiers with everything they needed. What here seven million! What will we arm them with? If only with axes and pitchforks.
In the event of an all-out war with the collective West, or with some separate superpower, Russia will inevitably use its nuclear argument. No other way. This is a matter of life and death for our state. As the President once remarked Vladimir Putin: “Why do we need such a world in which there will be no Russia?”
At the same time, the size of the Russian army should be optimal in accordance with the geopolitical goals set by the country’s leadership. I have no access to the closed provisions of the National Security Strategy and the Military Doctrine of Russia. But you don’t have to be seven spans in your forehead not to understand the strategic goal of the Russian leaders: dominance in the post-Soviet space, both in economic, political, informational, and military terms. The territory of the former USSR is a sphere of fundamental Russian interests, the potential of our future!
The prospects for Transcaucasia and Central Asia are not as worrying as those for Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltic states. For the simple reason that these are strategic territories, both from an economic, infrastructural, and geopolitical point of view. We are still more Europeans than Asians. Time will pass and everything will be back to normal. Every conflict has a beginning and an end.
An army of 1 million servicemen, which Russia had before the Special Military Operation in Ukraine, cannot be arranged in any way. There is an understanding of such an obvious fact at the very top. In December last year, at the expanded board of the Ministry of Defense, the Minister Sergei Shoigu announced a gradual increase in the size of the Russian army to 1.5 million soldiers and officers.
But this decision seems to be half-hearted. According to a number of experts, for unconditional dominance in the post-Soviet space, Russia needs a two-million-strong army.
The State Duma has a bill on the return to two-year military service. Mistakes must be corrected! At one time, they made a mistake by changing the service life from two years to a year. What can a conscript learn in a year of service? Not much. More or less get used to the military situation and already home. Two years of service is enough for the full training of the defender of the Motherland. Tested in practice by many compatriots. In the Soviet and Russian army!
A reasonable innovation is to change the draft age. They will begin to call from the age of 21 to 30. More mature guys will go to serve in the army. The personnel of the Armed Forces will certainly benefit from this.
If the draft changes come to fruition, the number of conscripts in the Russian army will rise to 400,000. In this scenario, 1.6 million servicemen will fall on officers and contract soldiers.
An army of two million cannot be created in a year. An unrealistic task even for three years. But in six to eight years of systematic and hard work, the goal is quite achievable. We will start working from 2024 and by 2030-2032 we will get what we expected. With a two-million-strong army, three-quarters professional, armed with the most modern weapons, any enemy will be careful not to deal with.
We will reserve the nuclear resource in case of a “big war”, to protect the Fatherland, and we will be able to successfully and quickly resolve local conflicts in the post-Soviet space by conventional forces!
Gradation reserve
In the fall of 2022, representatives of the military department were amused when explaining the norms for mobilization into the Armed Forces. Functionaries in uniform, like psychotherapists, reassuring the population, tediously repeated that less than 1% of the total number of reservists were subject to mobilization. An elementary calculation reveals the country’s military reserve of 34 million people. The same figure was named in Solovyov’s program on the Rossiya-1 TV channel by Lieutenant General Evgeny Buzhinsky.
Another Russian military man is the chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee, Colonel General Andrey Kartapolov– in the same program he explained that in the case of general mobilization, up to 10% of the population could be drafted into the army. Typical for many countries. In modern Russia, respectively, 14-15 million mobilized.
Both figures are absolutely meaningless and can only impress graduates of some remedial school. An army of 34 million people, among other things, will simply destroy the country’s economy. In this case, the enemy does not need to fight. An army of 14-15 million will also undermine the economic potential and well-being of citizens. First of all, ordinary Russians will suffer, being below the poverty line. Social riots in this situation are inevitable!
Above, I wrote that it would be extremely difficult for Russia to arm and maintain a seven millionth army, which was proposed to be created by the new leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, State Duma deputy Leonid Slutsky. What can we say about the 15 millionth!
What will be the quality of such a phantasmagoric army? Will we bombard the enemy with corpses again? And most importantly: why do we need an army of millions? We are not going to conquer Europe, the territory outside the former USSR?
Populist juggling with empty numbers would be countered by an exceptionally pragmatic approach to building a new Russian army and military reserve. About the last subject.
A few years ago, BARS was created in Russia – the Combat Army Reserve of the country, in which thousands of reserve servicemen were trained. The exact number is not known to the general public. I don’t presume to judge the level of their training, but the very idea of a specially prepared reserve is inspiring. Taking into account the experience of BARS, why not establish a Combat Reserve Corps (CBR) of 2 million people!?
It is almost impossible to professionally train, say, 10 million reservists. There aren’t enough resources. Yes, and there is no point in improving the military quality of such a number of storerooms. The gradation of military reserve is a long overdue necessity!
In the KBR, reservists should be selected according to military specialties, health status, marital status, and educational level. Once every two or three years, the “kabeerovtsy” undergo training camps lasting several months. At the training camp, they are prepared in much the same way as those mobilized last fall. In conditions as close as possible to combat.
By the way. The level of training of the current mobilized and volunteers is quite high. Generally speaking, with a few exceptions. This is noted by many experts.
For each month of being at the training camp, “Kabeerites” are paid a monetary reward, for example, in the amount of 200 thousand rubles. During the training period, a reserve serviceman can earn 600-800 thousand rubles. Good help to the family budget! In the event of a gross violation of discipline, a serviceman of the Combat Reserve Corps is deprived of all or part of his monetary payments.
One million reserve servicemen are part of the Territorial Defense Corps (CTO), which is jointly administered by the Ministry of Defense and regional administrations. When mobilized, the “kateoshniki” serve in their regions. They perform the duties stipulated by the law “On Territorial Defense”: together with law enforcement agencies they patrol the territory, guard important objects, build fortifications, and work at military factories.
Once every three years, “kateoshniks” pass a two-month training camp to improve their professional skills. Their monetary reward: 100 thousand rubles a month. CTO is financed on a parity basis by the Ministry of Defense and regional administrations.
General mobilization is announced in the country and the Russian army doubles: from two million to four. Plus a million territorial defense in the regions. Sufficient forces to ensure the sovereignty and interests of the state!
The rest of the reservists are in the Corps of Military Reserves (KVZ), constituting a special manpower resource for some hypothetical extreme case. The entire military reserve of the country can be called the General Mobilization Forces (OMS).
Oligarchs – fork out!
Editor-in-chief of the state television channel RT Margarita Simonyan, speaking in the Russian media, has repeatedly raised the topic of introducing a tax on the income of “very rich people.” The money collected from this tax could be directed to the sharply increased military needs.
According to Forbes magazine, there are 110-120 dollar billionaires in Russia, whom Margarita Simonyan delicately calls “very rich people.” The figure fluctuates every year. I will not be particularly delicate, I will call them in a popular way, oligarchs. We have up to 300,000 dollar millionaires. It is curious that recently the fortunes of Russian billionaires have been increasing, but the incomes of their “younger brothers” — millionaires have been declining.
In the 1990s, there were fewer than ten billionaires in Russia. The growth is enormous. In terms of the number of oligarchs, we rank fifth in the world, behind the United States, China, India and Germany. Domestic billionaires, compared to foreign billionaires, control a larger share of the economy. Forbes estimates the assets of our oligarchs at 30% of the country’s gross domestic product, specifying that according to some other studies, the figure rises to 35%.
For understanding. In the US and India, billionaire assets account for 20% of the nation’s GDP, and in China, 15%.
Why is there no progressive tax on the income of the actually privileged oligarchic and entrepreneurial class in Russia? In many other countries, big business pays the appropriate taxes, but we do not. Unfortunately, the authorities failed to give any intelligible answer to civil society!
In a difficult time, which the country is now experiencing, the oligarchs should be “transformed” into patriots and additionally finance the Armed Forces. In a word, fork out!
Money, as you know, is the blood of the state body, including its military component. Here is a popular expression: “Who does not want to feed his own army, he will feed someone else’s!”.
According to expert estimates, a two-million professional army will require an almost two-fold increase in the military budget. From about 60 billion dollars, which was at the beginning of the NWO, to 110-120 billion! Russia can afford such expenses. There would only be political will on the part of its leadership and a proper understanding of the existing realities!
2023-08-21 13:21:00
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