[StrategyPage] Russians are frequently reminded that its armed forces are not nearly as effective as the government would like them to be. The most embarrassing cases tend to show up on the Internet, often in spite of government censorship efforts. But some problems are openly discussed in the state run media. Such is the case with the sorry state of Russian railroads. Before the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the railroads, and not a large road network, was the primary means of cross country travel. The rails and the rivers (plus canals as needed) where what held the country together. Starting in the 1990s more roads were built. People wanted cars and the government found it could not build new roads and maintain the rail system at the same time. For over a century well maintained railroads had been a Russian government priority.Since the late 19th century the railroad system was seen as an essential component of the Russian military. In 1991 there were several hundred thousand troops whose primary job was ensuring that the railroads were ready to handle wartime needs. The railroad troops, and nearly a million other support personnel (military and civilian) were available to keep the railroads going despite any wartime attacks or peacetime natural disasters. All that was very expensive and by the late 1990s most of it was gone. The railroad troops no longer belong to the military and most (about 90 percent) are no longer available at all. Military logistics experts do not believe this is a major problem in peacetime. For one thing the railroads no longer have to be able to move over 200 combat divisions in wartime. There are only a few dozen combat brigades available now. What is a problem is repairing railroad system damage. There are barely enough maintenance personnel available to keep the system operational in peacetime. In wartime a few well-placed bombs, or terrorist attacks, would halt rail traffic in some areas for weeks, or longer.
Military logistics experts are calling for some action, even if it is only planning on how to quickly shift military personnel and gear normally moved by rail to boats (via rivers and canals) or trucks. There is some urgency to these public discussions because the Russian government has been accusing NATO and the United States of secretly attacking Russia and planning all sorts of bad things meant to harm Russia. This makes no sense in the West, but it is widely accepted as fact inside Russia. So pundits getting on the mass media there are insisting that efforts to deal with wartime damage to the railroads is something that must be taken seriously inside Russia.