Paul Goble
Staunton, Nov. 29 – Vladimir Putin’s radically increased military spending is putting Russia at risk of an economic collapse like the one Russia suffered after the demise of the Soviet Union if and when peace is achieved, something few are yet talking about but a danger that Moscow must face up to now, Igor Lipsits says.
One of the founders of Moscow’s Higher School of Economics says that the increase in military spending is already creating problems, including migration flows driven by the collapse of the civilian economy and the pursuit of higher incomes in military factories (currenttime.tv/a/uvenlichenie-voennyh-rashodov-v-rossii/32706713.html).
Such people will have to reverse course if peace comes, and that will create serious problems if indeed this shift can be achieved at all, Lipsits says. But far more serious will be the fate of the economy as it is forced to move away from giant military factories and increase civilian production.
That was a task that Russia faced in the 1990s, and everyone recognizes that it did not handle it well. Unless the government begins to think about how to address this issue in the future, the likelihood that something similar awaits Russia in the future will only grow, the economist says.
But unfortunately for the country, no one in the Putin regime seems concerned. Indeed, it is taking other steps that recall those in the 1990s that are likely to make the situation worse even before peace happens: the Kremlin has frozen wages except for those in the military and security agencies, an approach that will exacerbate tensions between them.
Lipsitz doesn’t mention that this danger, one that officials appear afraid to touch, may be one of the reasons why the Kremlin doesn’t see any other option but to further militarize the country and why that in turn makes the expansion of current military operations and the addition of new ones more likely as it tries to stave off disaster.
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