Drafting Students Means Trouble

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/01/11/006.html

By Pavel Felgenhauer

Just before New Year's, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced that all draft deferments would be abandoned, including those given to university students. The draft in Russia's unreformed military is the equivalent of a prison sentence: inadequate food, hazing, scanty medical services and, on top of that, the possibility of being sent to war in the Caucasus.
In Russian villages and in many small towns, life is so miserable, and unemployment so widespread, that military service is seen by many as acceptable, as a way to escape. That is where the military gets its soldiers, from the economically underprivileged, badly educated lower class.

In recent years, the number of conscripts was sufficient to fill the ranks. However, generals complained that the conscripts' education was not strong enough to allow them to serve in postings such as radar stations, which require more than basic knowledge. And in a couple of years, a draft crunch is coming, the second generation descended from those born during World War II.

In the Soviet era, university students enjoyed draft deferments, and some were not called up even during wartime. The Kremlin considered sustaining the intellectual potential of the nation more important than getting extra foot soldiers. The first time students lost their deferment was in the late 1970s during the previous demographic crunch when the small generation of the children of those born in the 1940s was called to serve. The measure was highly unpopular, especially among the Soviet elite, and it helped build the public discontent that in the end destroyed the Soviet Union.

breathing really hard there for a moment.

I don't know if this is immediately bad or not - the U.S. already has lots of pressure to increase the ranks of the military and I don't know if this will actually make any difference on our recruiting tactics (the draft, for example).

"That is where the military gets its soldiers, from the economically underprivileged, badly educated lower class."

I noticed that

from the economically underprivileged, badly educated lower class."

Sounds familiar.. hmmm..

"generals complained that the conscripts' education was not strong enough to allow them to serve in postings such as radar stations, which require more than basic knowledge."

Geez, before the 'fall' of communism, Russians were pretty well educated. Ask my wife, educated by them commie bastards, who has an equiv. of two masters degrees here in the states.

I'm glad the move to a 'market economy' has done so much good in Russia.