January 9, 2009: Russia is having a difficult time maintaining personnel strength in its armed forces. There are currently about 1.2 million troops (these include the paramilitary forces of the Interior Ministry). Over the next three years, that will intentionally be reduced to one million. This will be accomplished by eliminating over 100,000 unneeded officers, and nearly as many lower ranking conscript troops.
The Russians don't need the lost officers, and can't get all the conscripts they need anyway. Currently, about 40 percent of the troops are conscripts, who serve 18 months. Every six months, about a million men (aged 18-27) are eligible for conscription. But 80 percent get taken off the roles for medical reasons (usually by bribing a doctor), or get removed from the conscription database by bribing a government official. Many of the 200,000 who are called up every six months, are those who cannot afford the bribes, and simply don't show up. The police try to catch these guys, but often don't succeed, and eventually stop looking. Most of the volunteers are unenthusiastic soldiers, and the government would like to replace all of them with volunteers. But that costs more than Russia can afford at the moment. Meanwhile, it's estimated that conscripts, and their families, pay about $350 million a year in bribes to avoid service.
Russia is also having problems attracting volunteers to its armed forces. Although the pay is competitive, the reputation of the military is not good. The suicide rate inside the armed forces is more than twice that of the civilian population (currently about 30 per 100,000 people, and that's down nearly a third in the last six years). Even so, most Russian military personnel are career troops, including most officers. These are often people who are unable to get a civilian job, or prefer the predictability of military life.
The volunteers, or "contract soldiers" are paid about the same as policemen. But cops aren't on call all the time, don't have strenuous training exercises, or risk getting sent to places like the Caucasus to battle brutal criminal gangs and Islamic terrorists. This despite the fact that serving in such "combat zones" comes with combat pay that more than triples the contract soldiers income.
The army wants to more than triple the number of contract soldiers from the current 200,000. As in other countries with a volunteer force, the biggest problem has been a booming civilian economy. With the high price of oil, and large oil exports, Russia was awash with cash, and most of it is going into expanding the Russian economy. Every new civilian job, is one more obstacle for the army recruiters. But that is changing now, as the price of oil plummeted, and a recession has set in. But recession means the government is collecting less money. Moreover, the generals want to spend additional cash on replacing Cold War era weapons and equipment. This stuff is worn out, and often obsolete compared to what Western, or even Chinese, forces are using.
The military is trying to make life in uniform less unpleasant, hoping to entice more potential conscripts to do their time, and prevent a personnel, as well as equipment, shortage in the armed forces.
#1
They're going to have to seriously change their horrid habit of badly mistreating enlisted soldiers if they want to come close to the kind of professional force the US has.
And then there's the insistence on holding all decisions at high levels, reducing even mid grade officers to puppets in operational situations.
#3
We have all kinds of really uplifting opportunities today. If the Russians want to have a professional military like the US they have to change so many things about their culture. But once again the Russians have failed to reach escape velocity in their effort to escape their autocratic recidivism. And we've got a better chance of building a civil culture in Russia than Afghanistan or Pakistan. Some places are very hard to change especially when when the people don't want to change or don't really understand to what they could change or what the demands of really making the change are. And now Russia is cursed with oil. The situation in the armed forces is only a miniature of the whole nation. And a symptom.
#4
Agreed. Pay them better and stop the culture of mistreatment, particularly that directed at those in the lower ranks. Treat them as professionals and they will serve like professionals.
#5
Every six months, about a million men (aged 18-27) are eligible for conscription.
Not too sure about this. Implies about 4M individuals (including women) coming of military age each year. Way too many for a country of 140 million with a small, and declining birth rate. In fact the CIA factbook show about 821,000 men coming of military age annually.
The booming economy may have caused fewer volunteers, but the post bubble economy won't be able to afford a stronger military.
Fact is, they will have fewer soldiers and sailors just because of the declining population.
#1
Hey, if you can't blame the Juice, who can you blame? On the plus side, I'd say Israel doesn't have to worry any more about world opinion turning against them.
"In 2007 TROP reported that the Muslim and Jewish holy days overlapped for ten days. During this period, 'Muslims racked up 397 dead bodies in 94 terror attacks across 10 countries... while Jews worked on their 159th Nobel Prize.'"
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/10/2009 19:19 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Hell, they can't blame Chimpy McBushitler for much longer, anyways.
(You are right about that line, though, Barbara! Classic!!)
When conflicts erupt, public opinion tends to divide between absolutists who have decided once and for all who is right and who is wrong, and more cautious people who judge a particular act as appropriate or not according to circumstances, prepared, if necessary, to withhold judgment pending further information. The confrontation in Gaza, as bloody and awful as it is, nevertheless contains a gleam of hope. For the first time in the conflict in the Middle East, the fanatical absolutists seem to be in the minority. The discussion among Israelis (Is this the right time for war? How far should we go? How long?) proceeds as expected in a democracy. What is surprising is that the Palestinians and their supporters are taking part in a similar public debate, to the point that, even after Israels launching of punitive operations, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, found the courage to attribute initial responsibility for the suffering of Gazas civilians to Hamas, which had broken its truce with Israel.
Unfortunately, the reaction of global public opinionthe media, diplomats, and moral and political authoritiesseems to lag behind the thinking of those who are directly concerned. We cannot avoid the word that is on everyones lips and bolsters another kind of absolutismthe word that magisterially condemns Israeli acts as disproportionate. Captions on pictures of Gaza under attack express a universal and immediate consensus: Israel acts disproportionately. News reports and commentaries add other terms as opportunities present themselves: massacre, total war. At least the word genocide has been avoided so far. Will the memory of the so-called Jenin genocide, so often evoked before being discredited as a fiction, continue to restrain the worst of these verbal excesses? In any case, the absolute and a priori condemnation of the Jewish outrage defines the dominant line of thought in most parts of the world.
Disproportionate, of course, refers to what is out of proportioneither because no proportion has ever existed, or because an existing proportion has been broken or violated. It is the second meaning that is intended by those who castigate the Israelis for their reprisals, which are judged to be excessive, incongruous, and inappropriate, a violation of limits and norms. The implication is that there is a normal state of the Israel-Hamas conflict, some equilibrium that the Israeli militarys aggressiveness has disturbedas if the conflict were not, like every serious conflict, disproportionate from the outset.
What is this correct proportion that Israel is supposed to respect in order to deserve the favor of world opinion? Should the Israeli army refrain from employing its technical supremacy and limit itself to the weapons that Hamas usesthat is to say, crude rockets and stones? Should it feel free to adopt the strategy of suicide bombers and the deliberate targeting of civilians? Or, better still, would it be appropriate for Israel to wait patiently until Hamas, with the help of Iran and Syria, is able to balance Israels firepower? Or might it be necessary to level the playing field regarding not only means but also aims? Hamas, unlike the Palestinian Authority, refuses to recognize the Jewish states right to exist and dreams of the annihilation of its citizens; should Israel match this radicalism?
Every conflict, whether dormant or boiling, is by its nature disproportionate. If the adversaries agreed on the use of means and on each others claims, they would not be adversaries. Conflict necessarily implies disagreement, and thus the effort of each camp to exploit its advantages as well as the others weaknesses. The Israeli army is doing just that when it profits from its technical superiority. And Hamas does no differently when it uses Gazas population as a human shield, unhindered by the moral scruples or diplomatic imperatives that constrain its adversary.
To work for peace in the Middle East, we must escape the temptations of absolutism, which entice not only fanatical hard-liners but also angelic souls who imagine that some sacred proportion would bring a providential balance to murderous conflicts. In the Middle East, the conflict concerns not only the enforcement of rules of the game, but their establishment. One has every right to discuss freely the appropriateness of a given military or diplomatic initiative, but not to imagine that the problem is soluble in advance by the ostensible right-thinking of world opinion. To wish to survive is not disproportionate.
André Glucksmann is a French philosopher. Translated from the French by Alexis Cornel.
#3
Let us pray for the safety of Palestinian civilians who held hostages by Hamas and the safety of Israeli soldiers. May this campaign end swiftly and may Hamas be annihilated. May moderate Muslims emerge victorious in the struggle for Gaza!
In Toronto, anti-Israel demonstrators yell "You are the brothers of pigs!," and a protester complains to his interviewer that "Hitler didn't do a good job."
In Fort Lauderdale, Palestinian supporters sneer at Jews, "You need a big oven, that's what you need!"
In Amsterdam, the crowd shouts, "Hamas, Hamas! Jews to the gas!"
In Paris, the state-owned TV network France-2 broadcasts film of dozens of dead Palestinians killed in an Israeli air raid on New Year's Day. The channel subsequently admits that, in fact, the footage is not from Jan. 1, 2009, but from 2005, and, while the corpses are certainly Palestinian, they were killed when a truck loaded with Hamas explosives detonated prematurely while leaving the Jabaliya refugee camp in another of those unfortunate work-related accidents to which Gaza is sadly prone. Conceding that the Palestinians supposedly killed by Israel were, alas, killed by Hamas, France-2 says the footage was broadcast "accidentally."
In Toulouse, a synagogue is firebombed; in Bordeaux, two kosher butchers are attacked; at the Auber RER train station, a Jewish man is savagely assaulted by 20 youths taunting, "Palestine will kill the Jews"; in Villiers-le-Bel, a Jewish schoolgirl is brutally beaten by a gang jeering, "Jews must die."
In Helsingborg, Sweden, the congregation at a synagogue takes shelter as a window is broken and burning cloths thrown in. in Odense, principal Olav Nielsen announces that he will no longer admit Jewish children to the local school after a Dane of Lebanese extraction goes to the shopping mall and shoots two men working at the Dead Sea Products store. in Brussels, a Molotov cocktail is hurled at a synagogue; in Antwerp, Netherlands, lit rags are pushed through the mail flap of a Jewish home; and, across the Channel in Britain, "youths" attempt to burn the Brondesbury Park Synagogue.
In London, the police advise British Jews to review their security procedures because of potential revenge attacks. The Sun reports "fears" that "Islamic extremists" are drawing up a "hit list" of prominent Jews, including the Foreign Secretary, Amy Winehouse's record producer and the late Princess of Wales' divorce lawyer. Meanwhile, The Guardian reports that Islamic nonextremists from the British Muslim Forum, the Islamic Foundation and other impeccably respectable "moderate" groups have warned the government that the Israelis' "disproportionate force" in Gaza risks inflaming British Muslims, "reviving extremist groups," and provoking "UK terrorist attacks" not against Amy Winehouse's record producer and other sinister members of the International Jewish Conspiracy but against targets of, ah, more general interest.
Forget, for the moment, Gaza. Forget that the Palestinian people are the most comprehensively wrecked people on the face of the Earth. For the past 60 years they have been entrusted to the care of the United Nations, the Arab League, the PLO, Hamas and the "global community" and the results are pretty much what you'd expect.
You would have to be very hardhearted not to weep at the sight of dead Palestinian children, but you would also have to accord a measure of blame to the Hamas officials who choose to use grade schools as launch pads for Israeli-bound rockets, and to the U.N. refugee agency that turns a blind eye to it. And, even if you don't deplore Fatah and Hamas for marinating their infants in a sick death cult in which martyrdom in the course of Jew-killing is the greatest goal to which a citizen can aspire, any fair-minded visitor to the West Bank or Gaza in the decade and a half in which the "Palestinian Authority" has exercised sovereign powers roughly equivalent to those of the nascent Irish Free State in 1922 would have to concede that the Palestinian "nationalist movement" has a profound shortage of nationalists interested in running a nation, or indeed capable of doing so. There is fault on both sides, of course, and Israel has few good long-term options. But, if this was a conventional ethno-nationalist dispute, it would have been over long ago.
So, as I said, forget Gaza. And, instead, ponder the reaction to Gaza in Scandinavia, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, and golly, even Florida. As the delegitimization of Israel has metastasized, we are assured that criticism of the Jewish state is not the same as anti-Semitism. We are further assured that anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism, which is a wee bit more of a stretch.
Only Israel attracts an intellectually respectable movement querying its very existence. For the purposes of comparison, let's take a state that came into existence at the exact same time as the Zionist Entity, and involved far bloodier population displacements. I happen to think the creation of Pakistan was the greatest failure of post-war British imperial policy. But the fact is that Pakistan exists, and if I were to launch a movement of anti-Pakism it would get pretty short shrift.
But, even allowing for that, what has a schoolgirl in Villiers-le-Bel to do with Israeli government policy? Just weeks ago, terrorists attacked Mumbai, seized hostages, tortured them, killed them, and mutilated their bodies. The police intercepts of the phone conversations between the terrorists and their controllers make for lively reading:
"Pakistan caller 1: 'Kill all hostages, except the two Muslims. Keep your phone switched on so that we can hear the gunfire.'
"Mumbai terrorist 2: 'We have three foreigners, including women. From Singapore and China'
"Pakistan caller 1: 'Kill them.'
"(Voices of gunmen can be heard directing hostages to stand in a line, and telling two Muslims to stand aside. Sound of gunfire. Sound of cheering voices.)"
"Kill all hostages, except the two Muslims." Tough for those Singaporean women. Yet no mosques in Singapore have been attacked. The large Hindu populations in London, Toronto and Fort Lauderdale have not shouted "Muslims must die!" or firebombed Halal butchers or attacked hijab-clad schoolgirls. CAIR and other Muslim lobby groups' eternal bleating about "Islamophobia" is in inverse proportion to any examples of it. Meanwhile, "moderate Muslims" in London warn the government: "I'm a peaceful fellow myself, but I can't speak for my excitable friends. Nice little G7 advanced Western democracy you got here. Shame if anything were to happen to it."
But why worry about European Muslims? The European political and media class essentially shares the same view of the situation to the point where state TV stations are broadcasting fake Israeli "war crimes."
As I always say, the "oldest hatred" didn't get that way without an ability to adapt: Once upon a time on the Continent, Jews were hated as rootless cosmopolitan figures who owed no national allegiance. So they became a conventional nation state, and now they're hated for that. And, if Hamas get their way and destroy the Jewish state, the few who survive will be hated for something else. So it goes.
But Jew-hating has consequences for the Jew-hater, too. A few years ago the poet Nizar Qabbani wrote an ode to the intifada:
O mad people of Gaza,
a thousand greetings to the mad
The age of political reason
has long departed
so teach us madness.
You can just about understand why living in Gaza would teach you madness. The enthusiastic adoption of the same pathologies by mainstream Europe is even more deranged and in the end will prove just as self-destructive.
#1
Jews need to remember the lessons of the 2oth Century: arm yourselves and fight. Do not depend on others to defend you.
America, under the liberal fascists has turned anti-Jew and is now openly tolerating, and even accepting Jew hatred and bigotry from Mulsims and anti-semites.
The liberals are now no better than the accomplices the Nazis had in the 1930's. They may need to face the same fate, since reason appears to be out of their consideration.
#2
Agreed, Bigfoot Jusoper6812. Trailing daughter #2 led the tai kwan do black belt class today in weapons training. Nonetheless, just now I if I lived anywhere else but here or Israel, I would be in the process of moving either here or to Israel... and we were extremely reluctant to be transferred back to the States a decade ago.
#2
Which great power will recover more quickly? Neither. China's toast. It's economy is based on exports and industrial growth. Exports will drop and they already have too many factories. Environmental destruction is costing output, productivity and lives. A political clampdown will be necessary and that will further depress the economy. The U.S. has decided to pursue a Keynesian neo-socialist policies. The country will stagnate until it reverses course. Which weak state will implode? Pakistan. Zimbabwe. Who cares? Bigger problem is what happens to the EU as Greece and Spain crumble. Which petrostate will get desperate? Venezuela. Chavez already sees the handwriting on the wall and is pushing for a lifetime Presidency. He won't be able to get it legally. What will the military do?
#2
The only thing worse than Lew Rockwell would be a Goldbug and since we've already posted one of those, things are getting better.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
01/10/2009 10:15 Comments ||
Top||
#3
TARP was presaged on the common wisdom that lending had come to a screeching halt. The graph embedded in the article shows otherwise. Someone is telling porkies. Wouldn't be Hank Paulson, would it?
If so, he would make Madoff look like a rank amateur, in pulling off the greatest bank robbery of all times..
#5
I've said it before, but I don't mind saying it again...the events that resulted in this economic collapse were waaay too conveniently timed. Massive increase in subprime-mortgage securitization...followed by oil shock...followed by Bear Stearns and AIG collapses...followed by Fan/Fred implosion...followed by the coronation of the Trillion Dollar Messiah. I don't like finding myself on the same side as the tinfoil-hat crew who think JFK was assassinated by the Illuminati, but there's no pheucking way it was just a series of random events.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
01/10/2009 15:29 Comments ||
Top||
#6
We hit Peak Credit, there's no conspiracy needed.
#8
It's not the facts are wrong, it's that the chart the author is showing us isn't worth much. If anything, it would show that the bailout had the intended effect.
The bailout wasn't because 'all lending stopped' it was because if the worlds largest banks start falling like cards, then lending [i]does[/i] stop. Or if AIG goes, it takes corporate credit ratings all over the world down with it.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
01/10/2009 21:09 Comments ||
Top||
Even by Washington standards, the deterioration in the federal government's budget situation since September has been breathtaking.
The Congressional Budget Office projected Wednesday that the budget deficit for the current fiscal year would total $1.2 trillion. CBO's forecast does not include President-elect Barack Obama's two-year economic-stimulus bill, which is expected to cost $800 billion or more.
Money we don't have. Why not call it an 'economic pillage bill' ...
The CBO report also predicted "a marked contraction in the U.S. economy" in 2009. The gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to fall by 2.2 percent this year, steeper than in any year since 1946, when America was demobilizing from World War II. "CBO anticipates that the current recession, which started in December 2007, will last until the second half of 2009, making it the longest recession since World War II," the report said. "It could also be the deepest recession during the postwar period."
The unemployment rate, which was 6.7 percent in November, is expected to average 8.3 percent in 2009. The jobless rate will average 9 percent in 2010, when the economy will slowly recover, CBO projected. CBO expects the unemployment rate to peak at 9.2 percent in early 2010.
A major factor affecting the slow recovery will be muted consumer spending "as households continue to adjust to the large declines in net wealth of the past few years," the report said. CBO also estimated that the national average price of a home will plunge by an additional 14 percent by the second quarter of 2010. "Foreclosure rates are likely to remain high while house prices continue to fall," the report predicted.
"Things are deteriorating extremely fast at the moment," said Nigel Gault, chief economist at IHS/Global Insight. "CBO is telling the incoming Obama administration that the long-term budget outlook is much worse than previously thought."
After the economy begins to recover, the deficits could be problematic. "The deficit numbers are staggering," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a bipartisan budget-watchdog group. "Long-term deficits can undermine the economic recovery because borrowing so much money can push up interest rates," she said. Higher interest rates could stifle business investment and choke off recovery in interest-sensitive industries like housing and autos.
CBO's economic forecast reflects "the magnitude of the depths of our economic situation," said Stan Collender, a longtime budget analyst who is managing director at Qorvis Communications. "CBO's budget forecast clearly demonstrates that there is a worst-case scenario. It can't get much worse. The budget outlook is a lot bleaker than anybody dared imagine before now."
Diane Lim Rogers, chief economist for the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan organization advocating responsible fiscal policy, expressed concern over "the dramatically bad effect of a bad economy on tax revenues."
CBO reduced its estimate for total tax revenues over the next 10 years by more than $2 trillion since its last budget outlook was issued in September, Ms. Rogers noted. The revenue projections were "very distressing and disturbing because they are based on CBO's forecast beyond the recession, which includes a recovery," she said. CBO expects the next expansion to last at least 10 years.
Budget experts hope Mr. Obama will address the long-term budget problems in the economic speech he is to deliver Thursday at George Mason University in Fairfax. "Obama has been dealt a bad hand, but the time for leadership is now," said David Walker, former head of the Government Accountability Office who now is president and chief executive of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. Nothing is impossible for The One, just let him keep his Crackberry.
#1
"the dramatically bad effect of a bad economy on tax revenues."
This is true for all levels of government, in all developed countries.
Governments are trying to cover their shortfalls by borrowing, but we are on the verge of a lenders revolt as they realize these debts can never be repaid in uninflated dollars/pounds/etc.
2009 will be the year governments ran out of money.
BTW, reading chicken entrails is as accurate as the economic models they are using to predict the end of the recession in 2010.
#3
I dunno. I am seeing pretty good indications of a bottom forming up in the real estate market. Unemployment is more due to states increasing their minimum wage rates on Jan 1 causing many small businesses to cut staff. California's increased unemployment, for example, is probably mostly caused by increases in the minimum wage.
#8
You never hear about federal government layoffs.
Yep, we've seen it when the downsized the military in the 90s. The Army went from around 900,000+ to 480,000 by the time Clinton I moved on. Of course we found out later, that was a little too much but still dawdled around before upping it a mere 30,000, on a temporary basis. Now if Obama wants to create 'new' jobs, how about increasing the force structure by a couple hundred thousand? Nah, were're the handout votes in that? /rhetorical question
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Even by Washington standards, the deterioration in the federal government's budget situation since September has been breathtaking.
