Russian army, so predictable

No army exists in a vacuum. As a microcosm of the country that sends it out, an army reflects and magnifies the salient features of its society.

That’s why it’s odd that so many commentators seem to be baffled by the two principal traits of the Russian army in the Ukraine: its inhuman brutality towards civilians and its general incompetence.

What else did those hapless commentators expect? Let’s look at those two features in order.

Over the past century (I could go further back, but 100 years seems to be sufficient), the Russians have been on the receiving end of the kind of cruelty that, say, Germans didn’t experience even under Hitler.

The communists murdered some 60 million by bullet, torture, artificial famine or inhuman imprisonment. And the same organisation that was guilty of those crimes took over the country in the late 20^th century — and it’s still in power.

The scale of internal violence dished out by Putin’s regime isn’t quite up to Stalin’s levels, but it’s still appalling by any civilised standard.

Sadistic, sometimes lethal, beatings and torture are commonplace in Russian police stations and prisons. (If you don’t remember the Magnitsky case, look it up). Arrested and imprisoned men are routinely raped with broom handles, truncheons and bottles. (Again, I suggest you look up the clips smuggled out of the Saratov prison.)

Arrests are arbitrary, for the rule of law doesn’t exist in Russia – nor has it ever existed, in the Western sense of the word. Since corruption is pandemic, anyone in a position of responsibility is a hostage to the boss’s good graces. If the boss likes him, he can go on thieving. If the boss wants to send him down, he will.

Any psychologist will tell you that a person growing up in a society characterised by sadism and contempt for the individual is more than likely to dish out what he has been conditioned to take.

And if the whole society is brutal, its army will be even more so. The Russian army has an appalling suicide rate because fresh conscripts are invariably humiliated, beaten and tortured by the ‘elders’ (second-year soldiers), with the officers’ acquiescence. Young lads often mutilate themselves just to escape the unbearable suffering.

A friend of mine served in the 70s. He was bullied so badly that he chopped off three fingers on his left hand, only to be sentenced to five years in prison for it. Nothing has changed since then, not for the better at any rate.

Now those same soldiers, themselves ‘elders’, find themselves in a position of power over helpless civilians. They know they can wield this power as they see fit – their officers aren’t going to stop them, just as they didn’t stop the sadistic torture of the conscripts. All in all, the soldiers have been so thoroughly dehumanised that no natural restraints are putting limits on their behaviour.

They haven’t grown up as free moral agents. Instead, they’ve been locked up in a prison of eternal infantilism, and whatever inchoate sadism is lurking in their heads is encouraged to come out. So they torture, murder and rape, rejoicing in their freedom from grown-up limits. It’s Lord of the Flies all over again, and there are no limits.

Their martial incompetence is just as predictable. Why would the Russian army develop any standards of organisational nous that don’t exist in Russian society? Why do you suppose the country blessed with the greatest natural resources in the world has never been able even to feed its people properly, never mind creating a thriving economy?

A modern army is even more complex an organism than a modern economy. It’s the distillation of the country’s spirit, intellect, character, morale, initiative and managerial talent. If such virtues are lacking in society, they will be absent in the army.

Now Gen. David Petraeus, known to his intimates as ‘Peaches’, says he is bewildered by the muddled performance of the Russian army. I am surprised he is surprised.

The general, who certainly knows what he’s talking about, points out that the Russian troops are unable to perform the “most basic tasks”. What happened to their training?

Troops on the ground aren’t being led by officers in command. Those officers have to wait for instructions from the Kremlin, hundreds of miles away. “Presumably the leaders in Moscow thought they could do a better job,” added the bewildered general.

So what else is new? That’s how the Russian army functioned in the Second World War, which explains why it lost more men than all the other combatants together.

Soviet officers and generals were scared to show any initiative for fear of summary execution. Hence the buck was passed on and on until it ended up in the Kremlin, with Stalin.

At the beginning of the war, the entire high command of the Western Front, starting with the best Soviet tank strategist, Gen. Pavlov, were executed for letting the Germans break through. The cull of generals continued throughout the war, which severely limited their ability to respond rapidly to constantly changing situations.

They knew that if they got it right, they’d get another medal – and if they got it wrong, they’d be shot before the ranks. Is it any wonder that they didn’t so much pass the buck as hurl it all the way to Moscow?

As we go down the organisational structure, exactly the same tendencies were observable. Officers were trained to follow orders and, in the absence of such, to do nothing just in case.

And Russian NCOs weren’t trained at all, that is in anything other than sadistic bullying of the rank-and-file. They too passed the buck to officers, who were insanely numerous.

The Soviet army regulations specified one officer for six privates and NCOs. In the Wehrmacht, the same ratio was one for 29. Their officers knew they could rely on their sergeants; Soviet officers knew they couldn’t.

It was Friedrich Engels who pointed out that the Russian army had never won a battle against a German, French or Polish adversary in conditions of even approximate parity. Had Engels lived another 100 years, he wouldn’t have seen anything to make him change his mind.

Petraeus also pointed out that the Russian troops can’t achieve “combined arms effects”, something that the forces under his command demonstrated so well in Iraq and Afghanistan. This meant they can’t coordinate the action of armour, infantry, artillery and air force to produce the synergy essential for a modern fighting force.

The Ukrainians are better trained and infinitely better motivated. If they were comparably equipped, they’d quickly rout the Russian army. That would probably put paid to Putin’s regime, although I’m not certain it would put paid to Putin’s fascism.

Yet Joe Biden is stubbornly denying the Ukrainians the tanks, planes and AA systems they so badly need. Tanks, explains Biden, are offensive weapons, rather than defensive ones. And the Ukraine is only allowed a defensive war, meaning she has to fight with one arm tied behind her back.

Now, Joe is of course a military strategist of no mean attainment. That’s why he can perceive a clear distinction between offence and defence, which has so far escaped most experts. They still wonder if, say, a counterattack is offence or defence. It could be either or both, depending on how one looks at it.

No such problems for Joe. He has a toggle switch in his mind that clicks to say “thus far, but no farther”. It almost looks as if Biden wants Putin to stay in power to the end of his natural life.

I can only repeat what a frustrated fan shouted at ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson, the baseball player accused of fixing the 1919 World Series: “Say it ain’t so, Joe!”