Paul Goble
Staunton, Mar. 5 – To avoid the
negative popular reaction that any mass mobilization for his war in Ukraine,
Putin has offered enormous bonuses and high pay to those individuals who sign
up, something that “shifted the war from being a shared national burden to a
private matter affecting only a small segment of society, Vladislav Inozemtsev
says.
That has benefitted the Putin regime
enormously, the Russian economist says, because this approach “allowed Putin to
sustain the conflict without encountering serious domestic pushback and to do
so without “launching another wave of full-scale mobilization” that likely
would have provoked that (ridl.io/ru/smertonomika-2-0-pochemu-sistema-nachinaet-buksovat/).
But now this system, which
Inozemtsev earlier defined as “deathonomics,” because the lure of money if one
was prepared to serve even at the risk of death as “the single most
economically efficient use of a human life,” is no longer working as well as
before and likely will have to be dropped in favor of mobilization or an end to
the conflict.
“The key strength” of this system has
been “in its deeply market-driven nature,” the economist says. “The federal and
regional authorities have been offering huge payments – lump-sum signing bonuses
of from one to three million rubles (15,000 to 30,000 US dollars) plus monthly
combat pay of 200,000 rubles (2750 US dollars) or more to attract those” who
aren’t succeeding in the civilian economy.”
Initially, this system worked well,
but it rapidly began to suffer from “a critical weakness – its entanglement
with the irrational bureaucratic machinery of Putin’s ‘state.’” The costs of
using this method rose dramatically but the Russian military did not use those
so recruited more rationally and efficiently, a violation of economic
principles.
Of course, Inozemtsev continues,
“the system was never designed to deliver an outright military victory in the
conventional sense: that would have required far better equipment, commanders
and the ability to rapidly scale up the size of forces.” Instead, “its primary
objective was always to sustain the capacity to wage war without generating
significant domestic protest.”
Up to now, he says, this approach
has succeeded as far as that metric is concerned, but “the Kremlin now
confronts a multi-faceted economic and socio-political crisis. The willingness
to enlist for what is almost certain death is declining, even as losses on the
battlefield continue to mount.”
There are obvious reasons for this
slowdown in recruitment. The original pool of 2023-2024 volunteers – “those
with lower economic integration and few prospects – has been largely
exhausted.” Household incomes have gone up even faster than bonuses for
enlistment, service and in cases of death which are adjusted only on the basis
of understated official inflation figures.
And ever more Russians recognize
that “the war could drag on indefinitely, with no genuine short-term contracts
on offer” and see that the military command isn’t interested in improving
operational efficiency because “when the supply of manpower appears virtually
unlimited, there is little incentive to refine tactics or strategy.”
Absent
a sudden conclusion of a peace or radical shifts in the way the Russian military
operates, neither of which is likely, Inozemtsev says, “the shrinking flow
of contract soldiers can be addressed in only two ways: a
drastic increase in money for those who might sign up or a new mobilization.
There is little money for the former and no political stomach for the latter.
As a result, and because death tolls
on the frontline continue to rise without the prospect for victory,
deathonomics is unlikely to continue to work as well in the future, Inozemtsev
says.
