Russian Conscription

Last year, sixteen Russian conscripts were killed during hazing. Another 276 committed suicide, and while not all of those can be attributed to hazing (young people commit suicide at a high rate, especially when they have access to guns, and Russia has a high suicide rate anyway), it may have played a significant role in many cases.

While I’m not surprised that Russian military life in the post-Soviet era is harsh and brutal, I am curious as to why Russia has retained conscription as its primary mode of recruitment. The Russian mandatory service system performs poorly, anyway, with roughly 90% of the male population escaping its service obligation. Given that most Western countries have moved away from conscription (Germany is an exception), I’m not sure why Russia has decided to retain it. The Western military organizations have generally (although not uniformally) decided that all-volunteer forces are both cheaper than and more effective than conscript forces. Given the disaster that Russia experienced using conscripts in the first Chechen War, I would think the latter argument in particular would be compelling.

Answers to the puzzle that I can think of are a) that the Russian military lacks the money to provide sufficient incentive for recruits, and thus that manpower levels would fall to an unsatisfactory level if conscription was abolished, or b) that high ranking Russian officers remain committed to Soviet era operational doctrines, requiring a mass army (this would be connected to a perception of a), or c) the Russian Army wishes to hold onto at least some conscription for domestic political reasons, particularly to retain influence over society at large.

Thoughts? Any experts on Russian military policy out there?

…this old post at Free Republic gives more info about Russian conscription, and the comments supply some reasons for the maintenance of the system:

There are powerful economic motives among Russian officials to keep the draft going in Russia. The corrupt officers also make plenty of money by hiring their conscripts out to work on building sites and road crews. Occasionally, they have allowed their conscripts to be kidnapped for a bribe, so they can be used as slaves. The NCOs also extort money from the junior conscripts, in return for not beating them.