Why Are Russia’s Arms Sucking So Badly?

So why is Russian miltech performing so badly in Ukraine? In addition to some of the reasons we’ve already covered, this video provides additional answers (skip to 1:35 in to avoid the sponsor blather).

  • Russia has 2.5 to 3 million people in arms manufacturing, “20% of the country’s industrial jobs.”
  • “We all thought Russia had the military muscle to be able to take over Ukraine in a matter of days. However, the real way to test a country’s military power is not in a parade but a war. And with the invasion of Ukraine we are seeing something that has become the norm in the Russian economy. Something like an Expectation vs Reality meme.”
  • 60% failure rate for some Russian missiles?
  • “After a month of the Ukraine invasion, we can say it clearly: Russian armament falls far behind the expectations and hype they had created.”
  • Modernization of the armed forces was supposedly a priority for Putin, with up to 5% of GDP spent on defense.
  • Russia should theoretically have military equipment better than anyone but the U.S.
  • One reason they don’t: Attempted capitalism without privately owned arms companies.
  • “The Soviet military industry was full of unprofitable State enterprises, obsolete factories and, above all, a great deal of corruption.”
  • The U.S. bids out contracts. The Soviets depended on state monopolies.
  • “Russia has never embraced free market capitalism.”
  • According to Vladimir Putin, the problem with communism was not the centralized economy but an economy based on ideological principles. In other words, if you want to improve the efficiency of the system, it is enough to change the managers and put technocrats in charge. Technocrats who have been forged in the bosom of the KGB and who have a pragmatic mentality, totally free of the romanticism of communism or any other ideology. This type of person has a name: “SILOVIKI”. And so, just what was Putin’s formula for bringing his military industry into the 21st century? Very simple: To put Silovikis in all managerial positions. This is how Rostec was conceived in 2007, a conglomerate of companies designed to be the great umbrella of Russian defense. Under this umbrella are more than 700 armaments companies: all of them State-owned. By grouping companies together, a lot of duplication can be eliminated. All following purely technocratic criteria. And who is the CEO of Rostec? None other than Sergey Chemezov, who was a colleague of Vladimir Putin himself when they were both in the KGB offices in East Germany. In other words, a textbook SILOVIKI.

    Yes, in this, as in many other areas, Putin is a complete dumbass.

  • “By acquiring more and more companies, Rostec has ended up consolidating even more monopolies. For example: fighter jets. The United States works with four major manufacturers: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Airbus (Yes, Airbus is European but it also has contracts with Washington). In the case of Russia, practically all fighter jets are manufactured by the same company: UAC which, of course, is under the umbrella of Rostec.”
  • “Another major Russian defense company is Almaz-Antey. This company does not depend on Rostec but is directly owned by the Russian Ministry of Finance. The CEO of this company is another textbook Siloviki. In this case we are talking about Viktor Ivanov, another former KGB agent. Almaz-Antey is the giant where NPO Novator, the manufacturer of almost all Russian precision missiles, is located. Yes, those very missiles that are proving to be so flawed in the invasion of Ukraine.” Try to contain your shock.
  • “In 2017, NPO Novator could only produce 60 Kalibr missiles in six months. As you can imagine, these figures are ridiculous if we take into account that, in just one month of war, Russia has launched more than 1,200 missiles.”
  • I know you’ll also be shocked to learn that Yevgeny Prigoshin, another friend of Putin’s, was in charged of the company responsible for providing expired food to Russian troops. “As Alexei Navalny reported, Prigozhin dodged all public tender systems to become the army’s caterer. Today, Navalny is in jail and Russian soldiers are receiving expired cans of food.”
  • Russia hasn’t achieved air supremacy because Russia doesn’t have enough precision munitions for its planes to use, which is why they do stupid things like hit hospitals with dumb bombs and fly low enough to be shot down. “Russia’s best planes are dropping like flies because they don’t have adequate ammunition.”
  • “Are you really saying that the Russians are stupid and have gone to war without ammunition? Well, no: the problem is not that the Russians are stupid. The problem is that a political system with bad incentives generates nothing but failure.”
  • In closing, he wonders just how well-maintained those nuclear weapons and ICBMs are.
  • All this accords with what we have observed in Russia’s operation failures, and with what we know about the basic incompetence and economic misallocation of command economies.

    (Sorry about the delay in getting this up. BlueHost was down earlier today.)

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    18 Responses to “Why Are Russia’s Arms Sucking So Badly?”

    1. Peachy rex says:

      In separate interviews last year, the Chiefs of the French and German militaries said that in a near-peer high intensity conflict, most countries would expend their stocks of advanced munitions in a week or less. Both further pointed out that countries thus have three options – buy more weapons in order to extend this window, plan to fight for no more than a week, or be prepared to fight effectively *without* the latest whizbang gadgets. They both expressed a strong preference for option C. Russia pretty clearly chose B.

    2. David Emami says:

      “In the case of Russia, practically all fighter jets are manufactured by the same company: UAC which, of course, is under the umbrella of Rostec.”

      UAC. That sounds familiar. I know I’ve heard it somewhere. Ah well, I suppose I’m Doomed not to remember.

    3. wickedpinto says:

      I don’t believe it at all. Russia is just enough for what it needs, but to say the Ukraine is more advanced than Russia is silly. If the US cuts out Ukraine Ukraine is just a meat Grinder, it’s the same with China. China is NOT a world power.

      What Russia, China and India and have is not capability. they have Nukes.

      Stop pretending that they are our equal, they are just Nuclear powers.

      In fact the TERM “Superpower” is about being capable of building Nuclear weapons, not just atomics.

      No nation could stand a chance against he US EVER. they NEEDED Nukes, or even atomics.

    4. CplRock says:

      I was drafted in August, 1972 just two months before the end of conscription. Sent to Germany, I was assigned to VII Corps HQ and we had twice yearly war games vs. Paper invaders through the Fulda Gap.

      All of that must have been for naught, I’m guessing as the Soviet Armed forces couldn’t have been that much stronger then. True smart weapons weren’t really in place, but the same corruption and incompetence we are seeing now surely was.

      Crap, I could have stayed in college?

      Wicked Pinto:

      Read this article from the WSJ on the Ukraine military and the effect of training they received from Western forces:

      https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-military-success-years-of-nato-training-11649861339

    5. Brad Mueller says:

      I suspect that the Russian nuclear arsenal is in equally as bad shape as it’s military. However. There’s always a’ However’. It doesn’t need to be in top shape to be a threat. It would only take a couple of successful launches to prove Putin’s point.

    6. Eric Raymond says:

      Way too much advertising and puffery that video and way too little content. I don’t care about the narrator’s face or his Hawaiian shirt, and I saw way too much of both.

    7. Marc Melissas says:

      I guess Vietnam and Afghanistan didn’t stand against the U.S. either?

    8. Polly mathick says:

      Hey, @David Emami, I highly recommend you book an appointment with one Dr Samuel Hayden to help recover your memory—he’s great at this kind of thing. Of course, these days Dr Hayden resides on a space station (though depending on how closely you’ve been following the news, you may have seen the rumors he was transformed into a Seraphim) so you likely will need SpaceX’s help to reach your appointment.

    9. Rob in Solana says:

      Clearly years of NATO training and
      the decision of Ukrainians not to be be reabsorbed into the Borg
      that is Russia, had a profound effect.

      Given our own astonishingly stupid and weak leadership,
      we have been lucky to see Russia
      drive into the hornets nest and then the ditch again.

      We saw something similar in Afghanistan

      Looks to me like Russia / Soviet Union has chosen badly and
      been badly damaged twice over by smaller countries that
      “resisted”

      Karma

      Rob in Solana

      The second issue here is how badly we have been and are still
      being informed. Hidden agendas and disinformation are everywhere.
      It continues to be hard to see clearly.

      I still don’t fully understand Ukrainian strength and skill,
      the sell out by the Germans anxious to suck NordStream Russian gas,
      what impact Ukrainian corruption has on the whole situation
      and what is going to happen in Moldovia.

    10. JohnnyC says:

      Considering the way our strategic industries and country’s patriotism has been hollowed out, Russia’s performance in Ukraine is something we’ll be lucky to achieve in the future.

    11. Daniel Mark Stalling says:

      Based on what you have just said do you think we will see a large-scale shake up of China’s defense industries in the near future?

    12. Lawrence Person says:

      I doubt it. Too many CCP officials are getting their bread buttered under the current arrangements.

    13. Kirk says:

      The Russians have always had a separate logic to how they designed and used their equipment, which westerners have a hard time getting their heads inside.

      Most of their designs and the resulting production weapons are examples of a totally different, competitive worldview. The choices made, the emphasis… All of that. Russian equipment is just… Different.

      The real question has to be settled out on the battlefield: Does it work? From the evidence of the last forty-odd years, I’d have to say “Mostly not…”.

      The other question to be asked is whether or not the Russians are using the equipment as design foresaw, which was as pieces of a war machine dedicated to total war, inclusive of chemical and nuclear weapons. The BMP series, for example, was meant to be used to roll infantry across an irradiated, chemically-contaminated hellscape. Absent said nightmare battlefield, does the entire system complex make sense? From the way you see so many BMPs rolling around with the troops riding on top, rather than within the things, I’d say that it does not make sense off the nuclear battlefield. Apparently, the users agree with me.

      I’ve spent an afternoon banging around inside a BMP-1, for training and familiarization purposes. I’m here to tell you that if you put me inside one of those things for more than that, you’d need to put a gun to my head to get me back in it for more of the same. You need to picture being crammed inside a washing machine on its spin cycle with six or so of your closest friends, plus all your military gear. Add in NBC gear, and I think there would have been a whole bunch of Soviet troops simply suiciding to end the pain, long before they reached the English Channel. It’s that bad. I can’t see anyone being able to fight after a day or so of rolling around countryside and then having to assault some objective. Most of the “guys in back” would probably flop out and just be laying there trying to regain the will to live. It’s bad in the back of a Bradley or M-113, but the BMP series is just orders of magnitude worse.

      Like I said, designed from a different paradigm to solve different problems. The question is, do they have a better handle on what the problems of modern war actually are, or do we?

    14. Boobah says:

      Re: “large-scale shake up of China’s defense industries in the near future?”

      Because just like putting the silovki in charge, the problem is still, clearly, the people behind the big desks, not the system. The CCP has different people in charge than Putin, so crisis averted!

      One ‘advantage’ is that you get to reward allies and generate future scapegoats in one move. As long as you’re OK sacrificing effectiveness for internal politics. Assuming you’re capable of recognizing the connection at all.

    15. Kirk says:

      The basic problem boils down to “system”.

      Every bureaucracy and hierarchy has within it the seeds for its own destruction and the inevitable failure of its mission. The problem with authoritarian regimes is that it’s way more deeply institutionalized, and unlike we’ve been up until lately, nobody could tell the emperor he was wandering around buck-ass naked.

      In both China and Russia, the reflexively totalitarian impulse in the culture leads to dysfunctional bureaucracies growing up. China under the various Imperial dynasties is a perfect example. Every one of them fell to misadventure and poor long-term decisions. Look at the example of the decision to shut down Zheng He’s explorations and mercantile efforts in the Indian Ocean. The Chinese could have been the ones approaching Europe, not the other way around. As it was, poor and short-sighted decisions were made, resulting in eventual failure. Same with the Tsars and their inept operations against the Japanese…

      Hierarchies are not effective, over the long haul. We don’t do them very well; they all wind up sclerotic and corrupt. The current Russian issue in Ukraine shows what goes wrong with them, and the more reliant you are on them, the worse off you’ll be.

    16. DonM says:

      There is reality, and there are the metrics that bureaucracy uses to measure reality. For an honest organization, attempting to produce a product, metrics are useful indications of two things:
      1. what the boss thinks is important and
      2. how well the organization is doing.
      For a dishonest organization, metrics are what you need to falsify so you can keep your position. The story is told of an old Soviet shoe factory, that couldn’t get enough leather to make their quota of shoes for the year, but only half that much. The solution: Use the leather they could get and make very tiny shoes, only 3 inches long. They thus met their quota, but noone had new shoes, and a year’s supply of leather, manpower, and tooling was wasted.

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