The Chechen Theatre Ticket
The Cost of the War in Chechnya
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
Also published by United Press International (UPI)
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October 27, 2002
Updated March 7, 2005
One hundred and eighteen hostages and 50 of their captors died
in the heavy handed storming of the theatre occupied by Chechen terrorists three
years ago. Then, two years later, hundreds of children and teachers were
massacred together with their captors in a school in Beslan. This has been only
the latest in a series of escalating costs in a war officially terminated in
1997. On August 22, 2002 alone 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.
Similarly, Jane's Defense Weekly put the outlay at $40-50 million a day - but
most of it in cost-free munitions produced during Soviet times. A leading Soviet
military analyst, Pavel Felgengauer, itemized the expenditures. The largest
articles are transport, fuel, reconstruction of areas shattered by warfare, and
active duty bonuses to soldiers.
The expense of this brawl exceed the previous scuffle's. The first Chechen war
is estimated to have cost at most $5.5 billion and probably between $1.3 and
$2.6 billion. Russia allocated c. $1 billion to the war in its 2000 budget.
Another $263 million were funded partly by Russia's behemoth electricity
utility, UES. Still, these figures are misleading underestimates. According too
the Rosbalt News Agency, last year, for instance, Russia was slated to spend c.
$516 million on rebuilding Chechnya - but only $158 million of these resources
made it to the budget.
Russia has been lucky to enjoy a serendipitous confluence of an export-enhancing
and import-depressing depreciated currency, tax-augmenting inflation, soaring
oil prices, and Western largesse. It is also a major producer and exporter of
weapons. Chechnya serves as testing grounds where proud designers and
trigger-craving generals can demonstrate the advantages and capabilities of
their latest materiel.
Some - like the Institute of Global Issues - say that the war in Chechnya has
fully self-financed by reviving the military-industrial complex and adding
billions to Russia's exports of armaments. This surely is a wild hyperbole.
Chechnya - a potentially oil-rich territory - is razed to dust.
Russia is ensnared in an ever-escalating cycle of violence and futile
retaliation. Its society is gradually militarized and desensitized to human
rights abuses. Corruption is rampant. Russia's Accounting Board disclosed that a
whopping 12 percent of the money earmarked to fight the war five years ago has
vanished without a trace.
About $45 million dollars in salaries never reached their intended recipients -
the soldiers in the field. Top brass set up oil drilling operations in the
ravaged territory. They are said by Rosbalt and "The Economist" to be extracting
up to 2000 tons daily - double the amount the state hauls.
Another 7000 tons go up in smoke due to incompetence and faulty equipment. There
are 60 oil wells in Grozny alone. Hence the predilection to pursue the war as
leisurely - and profitably - as possible. Often in cahoots with their ostensible
oppressors, dispossessed and dislocated Chechens export crime and mayhem to
Russia's main cities.
The war is a colossal misallocation of scarce economic resources and an
opportunity squandered. Russia should have used the windfall to reinvent itself
- revamp its dilapidated infrastructure and modernize its institutions. Oil
prices are bound to come down one day and when they do Russia will discover the
true and most malign cost of war - the opportunity cost.
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