chimera
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Australian Politics
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An interesting view on the Russian economy:
'Concluding a peace agreement, however, poses a different set of problems, as the Kremlin needs to choose between three unpalatable options. If it draws down the armed forces and defense industries, it will spark a recession that could threaten the regime. If Russian policymakers instead maintain high levels of defense spending and a bloated peacetime military, it will asphyxiate the Russian economy, crowding out civilian industry, and stifle growth. Having experienced the Soviet Union’s decline and fall for similar economic reasons, Russian leaders will probably seek to avoid this fate.
A third option, however, is available and likely beguiling: Rather than demobilizing or bankrupting themselves, Russian leaders could instead use their military to obtain the economic resources needed to sustain it—in other words, using conquest and the threat thereof to pay for the military. Plenty of precedents exist. In 1803, French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte ended 14 months of peace in Europe because he could not afford to fund his military based on French revenues alone—and he also refused to demobilize it. In 1990, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein similarly invaded oil-rich Kuwait because he could not afford to pay the million-man army that he refused to downsize. In both cases, the mirage of conquest seemed attractive for sustaining overly large defense establishments without having to pay for them.'
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