WHY THE RUSSIAN ARMY SUCKS: A VERY BRIEF EXPLANATION

Anyone who follows world events is by now aware that Vladimir Putin's "special military operation" is going very poorly indeed. What was supposed to be a three-day walkover is now entering its second year, and some (perhaps biased) sources put Russian casualties as high as 690,000 men killed, wounded and missing, with over 10,000 combat vehicles and 2,600 artillery systems lost in the bargain. These are staggering figures and would remain staggering even if cut in half: Europe has not seen their like since 1945. The now-tired joke, that Putin started the war thinking he had the second best military in the world, only to find he had the second best military in Ukraine, is actually quite true. The question remains: why?

Putin has been in power for over twenty years in one guise or another. He spent much of that time modernizing and reshaping the military he inherited from the Soviet Union, bringing it slowly to par with Western nations not only in terms of technology but also, supposedly, composition and doctrine. He tested his military in numerous small-scale wars, and, often finding it wanting, pressed his ministers and generals to identify problems and come up with and impliment practical solutions. He also boasted of technological breakthroughs (such as hypersonic weapons, nuclear torpedoes, etc.) which effectively put Russia ahead, in some areas, of its Western and Asian rivals. On top of this, he had a vast and highly sophisticated intelligence network with very deep roots. When he gave the go-ahead to invade Ukraine, he did so with what seemed like an insurmountable advantage in every possible area...and yet he has failed, and failed miserably. Twenty years of supposed reforms have yielded an army which has shown itself to be shamefully incompetent on the battlefield. It is my belief, based on a lot of study, that this failure has three basic causes, each of which Putin inherited from the defunct Soviet Union and its forebearer, the old Russian Empire. I would like to explore this subject more fully on Saturday's post, but for now I will keep things short:

1. Corruption. The Russian Federation is a country with very little legitimacy. Putin is a dictator surrounded by oligarchs, just as Soviet premiers were dictators surrounded by Party nomenklatura, just as the Tsars were dictators surrounded by imperial councilors. In each instance you had a single nearly all-powerful man surrounded by men of lesser but still consdierable power. They had everything, everyone else had scraps, and there were no real checks on the supremacy of the ruling body. In such an atmosphere, where there is no political or judicial freedom, or freedom of the press, where the police are merely enforcers for the ruling class, and where criticism of the leader or his system is viewed as treason, corruption flourishes. There is nothing to stop it. And because nobody in a dictatorship profits by telling superiors what they do not wish to hear, even dictators who actively wish to rid themselves corruption find themselves helpless against it. Their reforms and initiatives succeed on paper, but in practice are subverted by a shadow system which everyone knows exists, but nobody talks about. Money earmarked for weapons systems is pocketed by defense ministers. Equipment meant for troops is sold on the black market by generals. Troops supposedly training for combat are hired out to work in factories or on farms by their officers and never learn their trade. The list is almost endless, and it covers everything from the soldier forced to "buy back" his stolen rifle from his corrupt sergeant (who has stolen it) to the naval vessel which can't sail out of the harbor because its repairs were never made -- the contractors faked the work. This termite-like activity eats away at the military from the inside, leaving a hollowed-out shell which looks formiddable but has no substance or strength when put to the test. And since there is no one to tell the emperor he has no clothes, the emperor is inevitably shocked when he discovers himself naked in the midde of a war despite all his insistence that his raiments are beautiful and intimidating. Putin, at his heart, is a gangster, and like all gangsters has no moral center, no understanding of the value of ethics, no grasp of the necessity of being told unpleasant truths. It is much easier to shoot a messenger than listen to bad news, and after a few messengers get shot, the rest of them get a message of their own: tell the boss what he wants to hear.

2. Deception. The Soviets were masters of what they called "disinformation," i.e. lying. Obsessed with secrecy, and with deceiving enemies as to both their strengths, weaknesses and intentions, they raised the science of strategic deception to an art. They were so good at it they managed to convince the world that major events were happening that were not, and also that major events which were in fact taking place never happened at all. It was the same with everything from industrial achievements to military technology.
Just trying to figure out what the Soviets had up their sleeve, if anything, or even if they even had a sleeve, was a nuisance and a nightmare for Western intelligence agencies. There is, however, a decided downside to being such damned good liars and illusionists. Sooner or later, one begins to believe one's own lies, and even worse, to lose the capacity to recognize truth when they see it. Putin, a former KGB officer, had the world believing his military was aces, second only to the United States in power. That was a brilliant coup. However, he himself believed it, or something close to it: and this belief probably shaped his advisors' reports to him about his strategic ambitions in Ukraine. After all (and here we see how this point builds off my last), nobody wants to upset The Boss when The Boss can ruin you, imprison you, have you sent to a penal colony in the Arctic Circle, or simply shot, just because he feels like it. So of all the thousands and tens of thousands of ministers, officers, agents, analysts, plants, moles, spies, and traitors in Putin's employ, there was not one to tell him that Ukranians didn't want to be "liberated," that they actually liked their independence and freedom, that they did not consider themselves Russians as he did, and might actually fight back harder in 2022 than they did in 2014, when he stole the whole of the Crimea from them. The combination of lies served up from below and lies cooked up from above led Putin into a kind of blind man's bluff, except that Putin believed he could see. As Legasov says in CHERNOBYL, "Where I once would fear the cost of truth, now I only ask: What is the cost of lies?"

3. Brutality. The army of Russia, whether in Tsarist, Soviet or Federative guise, has always been known for its brutality and cruelty. Most people think of this savage behavior as being directed at its enemies, whoever they might be: it is less well known that the Russian army has an equally terrible reputation for behavior towards its own troops. In "Inside the Soviet Army," Vladimir Rezun wrote of how the conscripted private soldier in Russia could expect to be beaten and humiliated regularly starting on his first night; how he could expect to have his personal property stolen and his pay extorted; how he would be expected to do the work of 2 - 3 men at all times; and how he would have to wait hand an foot upon older, more experienced soldiers or face yet more beatings and humiliations. His food was terrible and insufficient, his barracks criminally overcrowded, he had no recreation of any kind, and discipline was extremely harsh, and could include special prisons in which conditions could drive a man insane or to suicide with astonishing rapidity. And this he had to endure for the whole two years of service. When the Soviet Union collapsed, I wrongly assumed all of this brutality would disappear with the coming of democracy, but Putin killed Russian democracy and he also failed, or perhaps ignored or even encouraged, his army's terrible legacy of both brutalizing and neglecting its soldiers. But it gets worse, because ever since the ages of the Tsars, Russian generals, who permitted this brutalized outlook, have also viewed the common soldier as little more than cannon fodder, and have made their tactical dispositions accordingly. Instead of clever plans, Russian generals were notorious for using human wave assaults on their enemies, wearing them down by sheer force of numbers without regards as to casualties. Coupled with rampant corruption that robs the soldier of his weaponry and equipment, the Russian Army finds itself a completely dysfunctional system in which the soldier is basically worthless in the eyes of his own leaders. There is no loyalty, no humanity, in either in the general or the private: the deeper motivations that make soldiers fight well are absent from these debased, exploited, warped creatures. Since the opening phase of the "special military operation," we have seen the awful tactics of 1914 and 1941 repeated again: masses of men thrown mindlessly at enemy guns to be mowed down, only to be replaced by fresh masses, similarly slaughtered. We have seen anguished, angry communications by Russian soldiers complaining about clumsy tactics, lack of food, lack of ammunition, lack of equipment, lack of care. And we have seen horrible atrocities perpetrated against Ukrainian men, women and children by those soldiers, who lack any sense of restraint or decency. This climate of savagery could be forgiven if it produced results, for results are all that matter in war, but it has not only failed Russia, it has served Ukraine. The Ukrainians hate the Russians for what they have done, and have every incentive to keep fighting them and not to quit. The Russians, on the other hand, have every possible incentive to desert or to surrender. Captivity is probably preferable to service in many Russian units nowadays, and certainly carries with it higher chances of survival.

This is obviously a very complex subject and this missive only skims the surface of the deep-seated cultural issues which persist and bedevil the Russian army. There is much more to analyze and discuss. But these three points, if nothing else, serve as a salutary warning to all the would-be dictators and oligarchs in this country, and all those who enable them at the ballot box. Power for its own sake is not merely corrupting, it is weakening: there is a reason why democracies and not dictatorships tend to win wars. Certain people have worked hard in recent years to normalize brutality, corruption and lying in our society, probably because in their misguided minds all of it equates to strength: but I believe I have shown here, if only in brief, that it equates to precisely the opposite.