#3
Itogi
February 12, 2002
Voluntarily And Singing All the Way
A strong army is an army built upon honest principles that are fully accepted by society
By Leonid Radzikhovsky
(therussianissues.com)

I remember a speech by an opponent of the alternative military service, which I heard while watching a televised discussion on that theme. He said okay, if this alternative service is to be allowed, at least it is necessary to introduce the same kind of hazing, it is necessary to send alternative servicemen thousands of kilometers away from home (for some reason, he specified where: to the north. Well then, the northerners should accordingly be sent to the south). In short: "I will teach you how you should love your Motherland!"

The cynicism of this speech rather accurately expresses the psychological impasse at which the institution of military conscription finds itself in our day and age. The draft is a military duty, which the overwhelming majority of young men find hard to perform. Certainly, there was nothing like this kind of attitude towards military service some fifteen years ago. Understandably, conscripts did seek to avoid being drafted, but not on as massive a scale and as openly as they do now. Some needed to do a tour of duty in the Soviet Army since it gave them an advantage when trying to enroll in a university, some saw other career opportunities, and some were really serious about claims concerning military duty. On the whole, however, society saw obligatory military service as a hard and unpleasant, if generally inevitable and at least partially rewarding, affair. Now that the service gives no career advantages (the contrary is usually the case today), there is nothing left of the romantic army legend and the attitude towards it has changed. It looks like it has changed irreversibly.

However, no one has abolished the draft. There are two nationwide referendums on attitudes towards conscription held each year. These are genuine referendums without voting slips, slogans or entertainers. People vote in earnest too, giving bribes, declaring themselves Baptists, and attempting at any cost to enroll in universities, which they need like they need a hole in the head, all in order to give the army the slip. All this means that further debates are unnecessary: the institution of compulsory military service is really dead in Russia, it is a relic of the past, and society sees it as such. Certainly, there are situations where the living, timeserving interests of selfish people are totally at variance with the interests of the country, to wit, their own long-term interests. If this is so, the state has to practice violence, justified violence, vis-?-vis its citizens. The draft situation is something from an absolutely different category.

The military themselves know it full well. They are absolutely unprepared to oppose these public moods. They are in no hurry to abolish the draft. They are unable to improve the real state of things in the armed forces. They have no idea how to make military service attractive for most young men. In consequence, the military plays the same mutual deception game, walks the same vicious circle (the conscript runs, the draft officer is hot on his heels) that compulsory military service has generated.

What consequences does all of this have for the state?

The first consequence of the draft system is common knowledge. We have an army that does not measure up to 21st-century problems. Local conflicts and anti-terrorist operations involving the use of precision weapons require a compact professional army of voluntary enlistees. The modern army organism is all nerve and muscle, not a mound of cannon fodder. Alexander Suvorov said in the 18th century, "Not with number, but with skill." At that time, it was perhaps some ideal, unattainable wish. At that time, commanders sent big battalions in against enemy fire. In the 21st century, however, a huge unprofessional army is not only unable to defend the country, it actually is a threat to its own security.

That is the military-technical aspect of the problem, which no one is contesting. The main obstacle is allegedly the lack of money and, therefore, it is necessary to wait. But here we are faced with the vicious circle of bureaucratic logic. Waiting will never bring money. If someone displays political will and says "We have nothing to choose from, the draft is dead, we are starting on a professional army right away," money will be found.

The next consequence is political. The mutual deception known as "the draft" (we pretend we are ready to serve, generals pretend they believe us) is steadily widening the gap of alienation between society and the state. This is the same kind of alienation that killed the Soviets with their subbotniks ("voluntary" unpaid work on days off, usually on Saturday, in the USSR - RI), slogans, party meetings, and rotten vegetables. Civic duty to the state must be realistic, reasonable and feasible.

This is the logic seen in Russia's recent tax reform in which exceedingly high taxes no one paid have been replaced by low and reasonable taxes, which people are ready to pay. The same should be done with the army: an end must be put to the well-organized chaos of the draft that is unfolding behind the smokescreen of the authorities' verbiage. A strong army is an army built on honest rules that society accepts in full.

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