By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
Also published by United Press International (UPI)
One hundred and eighteen hostages and 50 of their captors died in the heavy handed storming of the theatre occupied by Chechen terrorists four days ago. This has been only the latest in a series of escalating costs in a war officially terminated in 1997. On August 22, a helicopter carrying 115 Russian servicemen and unauthorized civilians went down in flames.
The Russian military is stretched to its limits. Munitions and spare parts are in short supply. The defense industry shrunk violently following the implosion of the USSR. Restarting production of small-ticket items is prohibitively expensive. Even bigger weapon systems are antiquated. A committee appointed by the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, found that the average age of the army's helicopters is 20. Russia lost dozens of them hitherto and does not have the wherewithal to replace them.
The Russian command acknowledges 3000 fatalities and 8000 wounded but the numbers are probably way higher. The Committee of Soldiers' Mothers pegs the number of casualties at 12-13,000. Unpaid, disgruntled, and under-supplied troops exert pressure on their headquarters to air-strafe Chechnya, to withdraw, or to multiply the money budgeted to support the ill-fated operation.
Russia maintains c. 100,000 troops in Chechnya, including 40,000 active soldiers and 60,000 support and logistics personnel. The price tag is sizable though not unsustainable. As early as October 1999, the IMF told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: "Yes, we're concerned that it could undermine the progress in improving (Russia's) public finances."
As they did in the first Chechen conflict in 1994-6, both the IMF and the World Bank reluctantly kept lending billions to Russia throughout the current round of devastation. A $4.5 billion arrangement was signed with Russia in July 1999. Though earmarked, funds are fungible. The IMF has been accused by senior economists, such as Jeffrey Sachs and Marshall Goldman, of financing the Russian war effort against the tiny republic and its 1.5 million destitute or internally displaced citizens. Even the staid Jane's World Armies concurred.
No one knows how much the war has cost Russia hitherto. It is mostly financed from off-budget clandestine bank accounts owned and managed by the Kremlin, the military, and the security services. Miriam Lanskoy, Program Manager at the Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and Policy at Boston University, estimated for "NIS Observed" and "The Analyst" that Russia has spent, by November 2001, c. $8 billion on the war, money sorely needed to modernize its army and maintain its presence overseas.
Russia was forced to close, post haste, bases in Vietnam and Cuba, two erstwhile pillars of its geopolitical and geostrategic presence. It was too feeble to capitalize on its massive, multi-annual assistance to the Afghan Northern Alliance in both arms and manpower. The USA effortlessly reaped the fruits of this continuous Russian support and established a presence in central Asia which Russia will find impossible to dislodge.
The Christian Science Monitor has pegged the cost of each month in the first three months of offensive against the separatists at $500 million. This guesstimate is supported by the Russians but not by Digby Waller, an economist at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a London-based military think tank. He put the real, out-of-pocket expense at $110 million a month. Other experts offer comparable figures - $100-150 a month.