Putin Spending Big On Military Modernization Despite Russia's Economic Woes
Source: AP / Huffington Post
MOSCOW (AP) — Hundreds of new Russian aircraft, tanks and missiles are rolling off assembly lines. Russian jets roar through European skies under NATO's wary eye. Tens of thousands of troops take part in war games showing off the military's readiness for all-out war.
The muscle flexing suggests that Russia's economic woes so far are having no impact on the Kremlin's ambitious military modernization program.
Most Russian economic sectors face a 10 percent cut this year as Russia heads into recession. The military budget, meanwhile, rose by 33 percent to about 3.3 trillion rubles (some $50 billion). The buildup reflects President Vladimir Putin's apparent readiness to raise the ante in a showdown with the West over Ukraine — but it is unclear whether Russia can afford the modernization drive amid slumping oil prices and Western sanctions.
The new Russian military doctrine, endorsed by Putin in December, names NATO as a top threat to Russia and lays out a response to what the Kremlin sees as the alliance's expansion into Russia's sphere of interests. In the Ukraine crisis, Moscow for the first time demonstrated its new capacity for what experts call "hybrid" warfare, a combination of military force with a degree of deniability, sleek propaganda and political and economic pressure.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/04/russia-military-modernization_n_6612418.html
The kleptocracy kicks into high gear, following the path that caused the USSR to collapse.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)collapsed? Also show how little putin gives a crap about the Russian people.
Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)The propaganda that Reagan brought the Soviets down by just talking about "Star Wars" or the Strategic Defense Initiative is pure malarkey. The Soviets were already spending far more than they could afford on the military and had been since after the Russian Revolution. Gorbachev entered negotiations with Reagan not simply because he was scared of the SDI, but because he had a different vision of the Soviet Union than his predecessors. He didn't think -- can you imagine this? -- that the Soviet Union was living up to its hype as a workers' paradise. Of course Gorbachev wanted to negotiate with Reagan about mutual defense spending cuts so that he could go ahead with a program to reorient the Soviet economy to ordinary people. Unfortunately for the various peoples of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev's plans were way too late to do any good. The Soviet Union was already doomed by the time he took power.
It's a ways off yet, but I think sooner or later the Russian people are going to realize that Putin is a demagogue and a tyrant, not a real leader. The only thing he cares about is his power and personal wealth. Get your torch and pitchfork ready, Ivan Ivanovich.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)I'm less optimistic about the Russian people than you are....they are very nationalistic.
Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)They didn't let Gorbachev's corrupt rivals restore hard line Communism is 1991 and, as a result, Communism fell.
The results of "People Power," as Cory Aquino called it, may not always be as good as hoped, but my faith in the people to overthrow tyrants is unshakable.
[center]
[/center][font size="1"]Liberty Leading the People (1830) by Eugène Delacroix from Wikipedia Commons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eugène_Delacroix_-_La_liberté_guidant_le_peuple.jpg)
(Public Domain)
[/font]
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)and I'm just a cynical pessimist. I remember seeing that print during the Charlie Hebdo gatherings.
tridim
(45,358 posts)
love_me_some_pickles
(35 posts)
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)The transformation of the armed forces has been a personal priority of Mr. Putin, who as prime minister from 2009 to 2012 and more recently in his return to the presidency has overseen billions of dollars in new military expenditures. The military was one of the few areas of the Russian budget to receive big spending increases, along with preparations for the Sochi Olympics, the 2018 World Cup and improvements to the railroad system, which is also a military asset.
Since the start of 2012, salaries for most military personnel have roughly tripled, to between $700 and $1,150 a month for privates and sergeants — a respectable amount in Russian terms. The Kremlin has also expanded housing and education benefits.
In a speech to military officers in February shortly after the raises were enacted, Mr. Putin declared, “I have always believed that military servicemen should be paid, as has always been the case in Russia, by the way, even more than skilled specialists in the sphere of economics or administration or other civilian sectors.
..
It was a sharp contrast to the brief war with Georgia in 2008, when Russia overwhelmed its much smaller foe on a tiny patch of ground, but also revealed the sorry state of its own forces — problems that stretched back to the two military campaigns in Chechnya. (In Georgia, Russian military vehicles were commonly seen broken down on the roads, with cursing soldiers beside them.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/world/europe/crimea-offers-showcase-for-russias-rebooted-military.html?_r=0
love_me_some_pickles
(35 posts)Drunk Russians with tanks.....what could go wrong?
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)Maragos's thinking was also in line with that of the higher-ups at Fort Bliss in Texas. There, underage service members were allowed to drink on base until 2008, when the practice was banned under new leadership in a decision that cited car crashes, arrests, and fights.
...
"We see a higher proportion of veterans that are seeking services for alcohol versus other substances or drugs," she said in sober tone at the bill's hearing.
That's in line with national trends, which since 2008 have shown slightly increased rates of alcohol use and abuse among veterans, especially those returning from combat zones. The New York Times, in a 2008 piece on former soldiers with drinking problems, summed it up this way:
Increasingly, these troubled veterans are spilling into the criminal justice system. A small fraction wind up in prison for homicides or other major crimes. Far more, though, are involved in drunken bar fights, reckless driving and alcohol-fueled domestic violence. Whatever the particulars, their stories often spool out in unwitting victims, ruptured families, lost jobs and crushing debt.
http://www.vice.com/read/should-underage-soldiers-be-allowed-to-drink-alcohol-203
Bugenhagen
(151 posts)You'll go far.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)Last edited Wed Feb 4, 2015, 06:01 PM - Edit history (1)
He once called in said he was out of fuel, he as out of it, he did not even THINK of taking the hose connected to the fuel tanks on the bed of his truck to his own fuel tank.
I bring it up for soldiers like that exists in EVERY ARMY, you may not like it but it is actually more common in Volunteer armies like the US Army today then in draftee armies live the Russian Army. The reason for this is simple, it is hard to get someone to enlist, but there are always more warm bodies to draft, Thus Volunteer armies keep someone like this person, while draftee armies get rid of them,
love_me_some_pickles
(35 posts)2012 in Colorado we trained with Russian troops. Most of them were drunk by 10am, passed out before 5pm. Their NCO's were the worst. WE cut short many exercises for our own safety.
We had our own "drunks", but they carried vodka 24/7.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)On the other hand I have NEVER trained with Russian Soldiers so I have to defer to you.
love_me_some_pickles
(35 posts)I wish it were only the "freshman" syndrome, but it really seemed ingrained in their life. I can only imagine how they might be if the vodka tap was turned off. They seemed to be very "capable" drunks, though.(until they fell over) .
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)there were some good NCO's and officer's, but for the most part, the majority of Russian Military were a bunch of drunks and incapable of war fighting.
Munificence
(493 posts)in the late 80's.
We were out "in the field" and here they come rolling in like bunch of Starsky and Hutch's in a their armored vehicles. Back of vehicles opened and out come a bunch of laughing drunk fellas with bottles in their hands. We just walked away, (knowing no meaningful training was going to occur)....they seemed pretty content with it all.
ladjf
(17,320 posts)Fuzzy Slipper
(25 posts)Or as Nobel Prize Winning economist Paul Krugman put it...
What saved the economy, and the New Deal, was the enormous public works project known as World War II, which finally provided a fiscal stimulus adequate to the economy’s needs.
This history offers important lessons for the incoming administration.
Vlad must be a student of FDR and Krugman.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/opinion/10krugman.html
Manifest Destiny
(139 posts)It points out also exactly what the US is doing regarding the whole Ukrainian conflict. All the NATO saber rattling and the coup that accompanied it has paid off big time for the Military Industrial Complex and the NeoCons that orchestrated the whole thing. People seem to be forgetting that Putin never annexed Crimea until after the US financed coup which brought neo-nazis to power. Obama admitted the US financed the Ukrainian opposition in an interview with a CNN host last week.
Having done a little checking, I note that Russia is providing the same cuts across the board, including in the military sector, at 10% in order to adjust for sanctions and the fall in oil prices. I don't think anything has really changed.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)FDR Stimulus package was passed in March 1938, but its affect did not become apparent till 1939. Thus the Democratic Party lost its overwhelming majority in the 1938 election (but kept working majority in both houses of Congress). That Stimulus package NOT WWII is what pulled the US out of the Great Depression.
http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/new-roosevelt/2010-mid-terms-1938-all-over-again
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/01/30/why-fdr-matters-now-more-than-ever/
Here is an excellant article on that spending program:
The recovery from the Depression is often described as slow because America did not return to full employment until after the outbreak of the second world war. But the truth is the recovery in the four years after Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933 was incredibly rapid. Annual real GDP growth averaged over 9%. Unemployment fell from 25% to 14%. The second world war aside, the United States has never experienced such sustained, rapid growth.
However, that growth was halted by a second severe downturn in 1937-38, when unemployment surged again to 19% (see chart). The fundamental cause of this second recession was an unfortunate, and largely inadvertent, switch to contractionary fiscal and monetary policy. One source of the growth in 1936 was that Congress had overridden Mr Roosevelt’s veto and passed a large bonus for veterans of the first world war. In 1937, this fiscal stimulus disappeared. In addition, social-security taxes were collected for the first time. These factors reduced the deficit by roughly 2.5% of GDP, exerting significant contractionary pressure.
http://itsoureconomy.us/2013/01/the-lessons-of-1937/
In short, the US was out of the Depression by 1936, then do to a decision to embrace "Austerity" i.e balance the budget, Government spending was cut and we saw the massive 1937-1938 Recession, that took the 1938 Stimulus package to end. Thus by WWII, the US was out of the Depression and do to the fact the US was out of the Depression the US could EXPAND to fight the Nazis.
Fuzzy Slipper
(25 posts)Of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
I don't see Nobel Laureate after your name so I'll go with his theory.
No offense intended.
Bugenhagen
(151 posts)It says that Russia's defense budget is jumping to $50B, which seems like a lot, but that is about the same as England and France have each spent recently as well. It is dwarfed by the US at $700B or so. Someone can probably find better numbers than that, but they seem reasonably accurate from my quick skim of google search results (Google results actually put Russia around $70B in the last couple of years, so I am going to guess that the falling ruble makes multi-year comparisons difficult).
If you ask me, most global defense spending is linked to kleptocracy. I certainly think it is here in the US, and I think it is true for Russia as well. I have heard Russia exports a lot of weapons though, so from the cold blooded economic stand point modernization might be an advantageous economic move in the long run.
Manifest Destiny
(139 posts)They actually have made a cut of 10%. I think the article is more propaganda. I did note that they are increasing the allocation for more GRAD launchers (as they have proven to be the most effective weapon in the war) and the new Terminator 2's which are similar to the British Scorpions but have more firing power and durability. Having said that, they obviously haven't employed any new GRADs or T-2's into Ukraine, for if they did it would be quite obvious and the war would have been long since over.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)It has been estimated that a max a country can spend in defense and NOT hurt their economy is about 10%, thus Russia has a lot of room to expand. In 2010 Russia spent 3.9% of its GDP on Defense.
It is estimated the US spend 3.8% of GDP on Defense in 2014, down from 4.7% in 2010.
Thus Putin has some room before he can cause problems for his economy.
Please note some people challenge the official spending on Defense. The spending on defense by Russia and the US appears to be correct, but Israel spending that says it spends only 5.6% of its GDP on defense is considered questionable.
In 2009 Israeli Defense was 6.7% of its GDP AND 18.7% of its annual government budget:
http://www.haaretz.com/business/israel-shells-out-almost-a-fifth-of-national-budget-on-defense-figures-show.premium-1.503527
One person said actual Defense spending by Israeli, including US Aid, which generally comes in the from of Equipment and parts, may equal 40% of the Israeli GDP, i.e. Israel could NOT maintain its arm forces if Israel had to rely on its own resources for it would be in the same situation the Soviet Union found themselves in, in the 1980s, a need to cut back military spending do to a drop in revenue do to the drop in the price of oil during the oil glut of the 1980s.
Putin is no where near the dangerous number of 10% defense spending and thus can increase defense spending without do much harm to the Russian Economy. Putin could double spending before it would near the 10% figure. Putin is suffering from the problems Gorbachev faced in the 1980s, but Gorbachev had to cut back Military Spending to reflect the loss of revenue from oil, Defense spending was the largest expenditure and had to be cut.
Russian defense spending is no where near what Soviet Spending was in the 1980s and thus NOT the item that HAS to be cut to balance the budget. Thus Putin can increase defense spending, how much will be restricted by the present economic problems within Russia but Putin can increase spending of Defense without hurting his economy to much.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)
nilesobek
(1,423 posts)when a country is militarily weaker than the USA. Iraq, Libya etc. Good for them. Stand up to the power.
BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)Of the nearly two hundred countries in the world, all are militarily weaker than the USA. The vast majority of them are happy to be so and aren't threatened by the USA.
This is bad for Russia. Bad for them. They should be using their resources to raise the standard of living of their people, not military adventurism and seizure of other people's land. The power they need to stand up to is Putin's. He's got them on the road to ruin.
nilesobek
(1,423 posts)that they have a strong enough defense to keep the USA from ever violating its sovereignity like the USA likes to do, even cooking up false evidence to do so, and did it to numerous countries? Putin sucks, RT sucks, but so does the American media, just look at the NBC idiot today for proof. I am a firm believer in MAD. Why is there hysteria and lying about Russia in the American media? Have you kept up with the Sunday news programs and the Republican, Neo-Con talking points? They mirror the whole propaganda campaign against Russia. The accusations are frequently presented against the facts whilst they provide no facts.
How are our oligarchs, family political dynasties rife with nepotism, our secret police, our deeds any different, better or worse than Russia's? When the Neo-Cons take back over our country because of our rigged system gasoline will be 5-6$ a gallon and Russia will benefit.
hack89
(39,171 posts)their conventional military is so bad and their defense industries so corrupt and inefficient that it is doubtful they could protect Russia for decades to come.
Their navy, for example, is literally rotting at the pier and seldom goes to sea.
pampango
(24,692 posts)Ever since Vladimir Putin invaded Crimea, American pundits have strained to understand his view of the world. Putin’s been called a Nazi; a tsar; a man detached from reality. But there’s another, more familiar framework that explains his behavior. In his approach to foreign policy, Vladimir Putin has a lot in common with those very American hawks (or “neocons” in popular parlance) who revile him most.
1. Putin is obsessed with the threat of appeasement
To Kristol, McCain, and their ilk, the United States is a nation perennially bullied by adversaries who are tougher, nastier, and more resolute than we are. ... In his (Putin's) view, it’s Russia that has been perennially bullied by tougher and nastier countries—in particular, America and its NATO allies. “They have lied to us many times, made decisions behind our backs, placed us before an accomplished fact,” he explained in a speech announcing Russia’s incorporation of Crimea. “They are constantly trying to sweep us into a corner.” But now, finally, the era of appeasement is over. “Russia found itself in a position it could not retreat from,” Putin said. “If you compress the spring all the way to its limit, it will snap back hard.”
2. Putin is principled—so long as those principles enhance national power
For Putin, an anti-Russian government in Kiev is illegitimate regardless of how it takes power. For many American hawks, the same is now true for a pro-Chávez government in Latin America or an Islamist government in the Middle East. ... In the United States, both hawks and doves like to claim that they’re promoting cherished principles like democracy and freedom. The difference is that doves are more willing to acknowledge that these principles can undermine American interests. For most hawks, by contrast, the fight for democratic ideals must serve American power.
3. Putin doesn’t understand economic power
This indifference to the economic aspects of statecraft was a defining feature of the Bush administration, where treasury secretaries played a marginal foreign-policy role ... Seeing “economics” as separate from “foreign policy issues” is precisely what Clinton decried in the 1990s, and it’s the weakness in Putin’s strategy today. But it’s a weakness that many American hawks share. For decades now, Kristol and McCain have insisted that America relentlessly expand its global military footprint and relentlessly boost its defense budget. I’ve never seen either make a serious effort to explain how this should be paid for.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/vladimir-putin-russian-neocon/284602/
Like American hawks Putin sees a strong and assertive military as a symbol of national power. "For Putin, too, overcoming appeasement requires overcoming the soft, unmanly culture that made Russia unwilling to fight. The fall of the Soviet Union, he argued last year, “was a devastating blow to our nation’s cultural and spiritual codes” that led to “primitive borrowing and attempts to civilize Russia from abroad.”
Like American hawks if Putin likes a government he supports into matter how it came to power. If he does not like it, it matters little how it came to power.
Like our hawks he cares little about economics and the quality of people's lives. Pressuring or invading weak neighbors - Granada, Panama, Georgia, Ukraine - is more their style since it enhances national power and prestige, at least in the eyes of fellow hawks.
Putin has been very effective in pursuing Russia's "national interest". If he has been similarly successful at enacting new domestic social legislation or progressive taxes, I have missed it. What he has done domestically is sign repressive legislation against gays, dissidents and separatist movements within Russia. IOW, he has been very effective from a "hawk" point of view but he is no liberal.
