Russia's war against Ukraine got off to a shaky start. But there’s one particular aspect the Russian army struggled
with immensely: supply chains. Nobody could’ve predicted that such a mess and such incompetence were actually possible.
Picture this: the world’s second-best army, a formidable force that had NATO on edge.
A force whose Commander-in-Chief had been appeased multiple times.
And, lo and behold, its troops were stealing potatoes from Ukrainian grocery stores.
Its tanks would run out of fuel and be ditched in Ukrainian fields.
Sure, eventually food and fuel were provided, but the problems persisted. Now, the soldiers are no longer stealing potatoes —
they’re pilfering Ukrainian SIM cards and phones.
Their own military-grade devices are so bad, it's easier to use a stolen phone, which is a trade-off for safety.
Back in September, during the mobilization effort, we had already caught a glimpse of the grim situation.
The army was lacking essentials for mobilized recruits: no food, no functional weapons,
no body armor, and not even adequate barracks at training facilities.
Now, instead of deploying cutting-edge T-90 battle tanks, we see outdated T-55s being sent to the frontlines.
Instead of swarms of advanced drones from Russian R&D dept’s, we're witnessing Iranian Shaheds in action.
You might be curious: what if they were to mobilize the economy?
If they were to do so, wouldn't military essentials like helmets, rifles, ammunition, radios,
and everything else become available? Well let's delve deeper into the matter.
6 FACTORS
First, it's not like Russia has much to mobilize — the year’s not 1941 when the Eastern Front of WW2 kicked off.
Back in '41, full-scale industrialization was underway, aimed at producing military-grade goods.
Only half of the available factory machinery was imported, and most were multi-purpose machines.
Lathes that skilled operatives could use to churn out pots, shell casings, and whatnot.
The country could totally provide for the entire military supply pipeline. And yet, Lend-Lease was still necessary.
Remember, Lend-Lease wasn't just about battle tanks and boots.
Under it, the USSR received innumerable machines, countless tons of fasteners and tools, mining and steel mill equipment,
and even entire assembly lines for chemical plants.
Fast-forward to 2023, and no one’s offering Lend-Lease to Russia.
Most of the available machines are either highly specialized or precision-controlled, and predominantly imported.
If you were to step into a cookware factory today and place a shell casing order,
they’d need a retrofit of the entire machinery.
It’d be easier to build a new factory from scratch.
However, new machines would be a challenge, and Russia hardly produces any.
Domestic output covers a mere 8% of domestic demand!
Second, Russia doesn't exactly have a large pool of factory ops to mobilize.
This isn’t the USSR under Stalin. It's a country with a market economy that employs as many workers as needed.
A million new hires won't just materialize at the drop of a hat.
These workers would need motivation and training, which could take years to get done.
If 1,000 new workers were brought to a factory repurposed for military production to operate in three shifts,
you'd be missing 1,000 workers in other industries.
They would no longer be producing cooking pots, bicycles, or surgical pins.
And by the way, all these mobilized factories have owners.
These owners have a payroll, pay suppliers, and maintain R&D. How would it all function in a mobilized economy?
Would the government pay the workers? Would the government pay the suppliers?
Or would suppliers be mobilized, too?
Can the government handle it all, given a black hole it has for a budget?
Of course, they could go overboard: charge factory owners, force workers
to toil away in three shifts for a minimum wage and emergency food rations,
and hire extra workforce from local employment offices' lists, with a prior one-month training course.
Now, picture a modern factory where all management has been fired and hastily trained unemployed deadbeats
have been brought in for three shifts, working for a minimum wage at gunpoint.
Seem plausible? Yeah, I woudn’t say so, either.
And there are also security matters to consider.
A modern military factory is a closed-off facility with multiple layers of protection, radio and electronic detection systems,
strict employee checks, and thorough inspections of incoming shipments.
A civilian factory repurposed for military-grade goods would resemble a makeshift checkpoint
with a fence for security and ill-qualified regular Joes for personnel.
This factory wouldn't be able to afford proper checks and control of its staff and premises.
Third, Russia doesn't have enough factories and workers for an effective mobilization.
Like I’ve said earlier, it's not 1941. Russia, like any European country, is no longer a production-based economy.
The non-planned economy in modern Russia revolves around wholesale and retail trade, services, healthcare, education,
construction, and the primary sector.
Only 8% to 10% of Russia's working-age population is employed in the manufacturing industry.
The most common jobs in Russia are salespeople and drivers.
And while mobilizing drivers could probably be of use, mobilizing eight-digit numbers of salespeople
wouldn’t benefit the frontline situation in any way.
Instead, it would create an additional burden on the state, as someone would have to feed all those workers.
Next, such a scheme can only work when citizens are highly motivated and ready to achieve victory at any cost.
It requires people to voluntarily line up for jobs at defense factories,
fully aware of the risks and hardships, just to help the country in its war effort.
Forced labor, especially when it serves no clear purpose, can only result either in subtle acts
of sabotage or in deliberate wrecking.
And no matter how hard TV propagandists, PMC owners, or former warlords try, their audience
doesn’t seem to be sold on the idea of a victory-driven people's war.
If the economy were to be mobilized, the most likely outcome would be that any job requiring extensive training
and a specific skillset would degenerate into a game of pretense.
This would slow down even the functioning production facilities, bringing more harm than good to the frontlines.
Besides, there are entire sectors of military production in Russia where buying substandard components
on AliExpress is considered to be a pinnacle of engineering.
For example, the pervasive weak spots of the Russian army in the current war are unmanned aviation
and digital communications.
While the drone issue is somewhat addressed, however poorly, by pro-war volunteer efforts, bulk-buying
from Chinese online stores, and purchasing Iranian drones powered by piston engines,
the problem of encrypted communications remains unresolved.
The importance of communications in modern warfare cannot be overstated,
and having a reliable and secure communication channel even more so.
Volunteers cannot plug that gap. Only the government and specialized agencies can.
Of course, you can MacGyver solutions based on Chinese Baofeng radios,
which are, after all, better than the Russian Azarts.
However, the security level they provide is well below military grade.
Moreover, they only function at the company-brigade level and aren’t universally available.
To this day, Ukrainian forces are able to intercept Russian military communications
as if they were reporting directly to the Ukrainian army.
It is highly unlikely that these problems could be solved even if the economy was mobilized.
Russia neither produces the essential digital equipment nor possesses the machinery required for its manufacturing.
It lacks even the machinery needed to produce such machinery.
Lastly, swindlers and opportunists of all stripes would certainly hog this kind of initiative.
It would create a perfect opportunity for the redistribution of property.
The chances that those who’ve been building their fortunes at the nation's expense for decades
will suddenly reform their ways are next to none.
The severity of the situation would easily dwarf corrupt privatization schemes from the 1990s.
Putin is probably well aware of this.
PROSPECTS
Mobilizing the economy is a bit more complex than just replacing tourniquets in first-aid kits with sanitary pads,
like the Russian army did.
Rather, it involves extensive and intrusive interference in the economy,
which could ultimately and irreparably destroy thousands of production and supply chains.
When a Western supplier says adios, you may worm your way out of it by procuring their products
at a higher cost through a middleman in Turkey.
It may be slow, risky, and require paying upfront, but it's doable.
However, when you have to convert a cookware production line into a helmet production line or
when all your truck drivers are diverted to military-oriented missions along with their rigs,
you can give up on your business and customers for good.
So this kind of move could become an axe cutting down the already shaky tree of Russia's economy.
It wouldn't go down slowly or quietly. It'd happen fast, spurring sky-high inflation and a host of other economic disasters.
So, what’s going on? A state led by a man who’s trying to airbrush a lost war in the run-up to the election.
A state with a fairly modern economy, dominated by the service and trade sectors.
An economy still reeling from the impact of the sanctions.
A state that’s highly dependent on imports, especially in machine-building and digital tech.
A state with citizens that actively ignore what’s going on and are just waiting for this whole clusterf**k to end.
Switching the economy to a war footing for such a state is an endeavor that offers unclear benefits
while putting the entire system at a very clear risk.
Does this mean it won't happen, though?
Not at all. We’ve already seen that the most self-destructive decisions are made in a bid to find a way out of the lost war.
Despite claims that Russia is about to wage war for real now and launch all its industries into overdrive,
it seems unlikely that putting the economy on a war footing will turn the tide in Russia's favor.
We’re currently witnessing a remarkable phenomenon.
We see Russia adapting to the new reality, albeit slowly and sometimes only by a sheer miracle.
Entire sectors of the economy are being restructured, supply chains reforged, and suppliers replaced.
Yes, the state of Russia’s economy is far from perfect.
But, to be honest, it's quite tolerable for a warring nation besieged by sanctions on all sides.
The situation is, to put it mildly, only unbearable for ordinary Russians.
And they’ll be the ones to bear the brunt of the costs of economic mobilization.
See you tomorrow!