This international commentary by Uncle Mu is to analyze some of the views of Israeli media after Russia announced its mobilization.
On October 15th Uncle Mu saw an article from the Soviet Jews, now an economist and writer, about the issue of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Recently, it was well clicked on the Israeli media. The author Ariksey has been paying attention to the economy of the Soviet Union and Russia, especially industrial activities, and explored Russia's role in the Russian-Ukrainian war from this perspective.
Mu Mu noticed that Ariksei's article believes that Russia will not achieve obvious victory in the Russian-Ukraine war in the long run. The fundamental reason is that the country's industrial demilitarization process from the late Soviet era is irreversible, which brings difficulties to Putin today.
This article recalls Russia's history and says that one thing Russia has always been good at is accumulating territory.
Someone calculated that it expanded at an average speed of 3 square kilometers per hour from the founding of the Grand Duchy of Moscow in about 1450 to the demise of the Russian Empire in 1917. After World War I, the Russian Revolution declared the principle of national self-determination, but retained Ukraine, the Transcaucasus and Central Asia within the "Russian World", thus forming the Soviet Union until the early 1990s.
When the Soviet Union faced external pressure, it had a strong guarantee, that is, industrial militarization. An example of the author is that in the 1930s, before Hitler's German reorganization gained momentum, the Soviet Union produced more tanks than the rest of the world combined. About 15-20% of the Soviet Union's GDP was once used in military-industrial complexes.
Even after defeating the Nazis and winning World War II, the Soviet Union still maintained its strong industrial militarization capabilities.
and launched many wars within decades. At the same time, it also used this powerful military capability to indirectly control many Asian, African and Latin countries with military aid.
After Gorbachev came to power, he decided to get rid of this situation because he saw that no matter how powerful the military is, there was no hope for the Afghan war.
He announced the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and carried out various reforms at the same time, which broke the large-scale combination of industrial militarization and made Russia unable to expand its territory through military means.
In the 1990s, Russia's economic model shifted from self-sufficiency to the integration of the global economic system. With the rise in prices of oil, gas and other commodities, Russia's export revenues have increased, and imports have become easier than establishing domestic production. Russia becomes an example of textbooks for "Dutch Syndrome" when a country exporting natural resources suffers from deindustrialization.
Putin is not an economist. When he decided to restore Russia's past land, he did not realize how much weapons Russia produced and how relied on imported parts. In the period of powerful industrial militarization in the Soviet era, these were not needed, but now they must be considered.
Because Russia has been integrated into the world for 30 years, the face of global industrial production has undergone great changes.
technology revolution has made manufacturers rely on high-tech and American-centered high-tech enterprises. Globalization opens up borders and creates international division of labor and cross-border supply chains. Russia is not only a beneficiary, but also a restrained person.
However, over the years, Russia's propaganda has ignored economic impact, especially the forgetting of industrial militarization, and still regards itself as a super military power. But in the Russian-Ukrainian war, ideals and reality were disconnected.
An example is that for a long time, the risk of Russian military is not only reflected in the sharp decline in production capacity, but also in the environment. For example, corruption, legal supervision is invalid, etc. According to a recent survey by Russian journalists, a defense contractor specializing in radar and navigation facilities has recently produced only a quarter of the contracted construction, and the rest has been rented or converted into shopping malls and residential buildings.
It is precisely because Russia has mobilized, but it cannot restore its military production level in the short term. Coupled with the high-tech sanctions from the West, Russia can no longer do everything in the Soviet era.
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