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White House: Russia is executing soldiers who refuse to follow orders
(www.reuters.com)
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this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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Conscription is always a horrible thing... but conscription in Russia is batshit insane. I read Arkady Babchenko's account of it (he was conscripted into the 1st Chechen War, and essentially a mercenary during the second one) and it's as bad as you can imagine - recruits in USMC bootcamp don't know how luxurious their lives are in comparison. It's a carnival of corruption, extortion and unrestricted abuse - and that's just the basic training.
After reading that, I was no longer surprised at the Russian military's failure in Ukraine - I'd say the Russian military is in as bad a state now than they were during the ill-advised invasion of Finland in 1939.
I beg to differ. Finland has conscription. And it is the backbone of Finnish defence. People here willingly perform their mandatory military service. You can get out of it if you want to*. But most don't. People trust that they won't end up in wars of conquest. It's in our constitution.
Now with NATO there is an ongoing discussion about whether reservists can be sent out on NATO operations. It'll probably end up with calling for volunteers and then using reservists if there aren't enough volunteers.
Conscription is a necessity for us. And we've done it "right" IMHO.
*) You can perform "civil service" just by asking. But you can go to jail if you don't want to do even that. Or wear an ankle monitor for a while.
Mandatory service and forced conscription during wartime are vastly different.
Mandatory service doesn't create modern soldiers. The reason the US is the best (besides money) is because they've had a professional military since WW2.
All commissioned officers go to college and many enlisted careers are decades long. Even the technology and logistics people have experience. This extra knowledge allows the US Military to do things others can't. All the pioneering astronauts were fighter pilots with years of experience.
Anyone can fire a gun but that's easy. It takes experience to do all the hard logistics and tactical work. Pay real soldiers instead of forcing kids to work.
The US doesn't border a hostile nation 30 times it's size. Finland has two options, either spending an inordinate amount of money maintaining a massive standing army, or having a smaller professional cadre that can be filled with conscripts.
Obviously they went for option B, leaving them room for things like a working social safety net, universal healthcare, etc.
Is that why the US couldn't defeat the Taliban? Because they're the best?
You mean... like being defeated by the Taliban?
Mandatory service doesn't exclude a professional military.
It's a hot topic now but politics aside, Israel famously has mandatory service for both men and women. That doesn't mean they don't have a core of professionals under contract.
Switzerland also has mandatory service but they have a core of professionals. Officers at a certain level have to be professionals and fighter pilots can't just train a few weeks a year.
Shooting a gun is easy but keeping a large conscript army with a good level of marksmanship isn't. Hence Switzerland has its conscripts regularly trained in shooting on top of their regular military training. Plus a whole culture of facilitating the sport of shooting with tiny villages having shooting ranges, many competitions, and shooting clubs.
Ugh. Fine.
It's terrible for everyone except Finnish people.
Happy?
Yes, we’re finnished.
you've found quite possibly the worst source of information on the russian army besides the russian government
I don't really see anyone challenging his accounts of his experiences during the 1st and 2nd Chechen Wars - you want to provide some?