I asked, basically, because it assumes Russia’s military is a juggernaut capable of successful physical invasion of multiple major countries at the same time, even without the nukes. Kind of an interesting example of common assumptions at the time.
The Soviet armed forces in the 1970s and 1980s might have had equipment that was far less capable than presumed, and a cannon-fodder attitude towards their enlisted personnel, but no one doubted that the USSR’s military establishment was, by top-down mandate, professionally competent and non-corrupt. The same is evidently not true of kleptocratic Russia. Plus the Warsaw Pact countries had at least elite units that were highly regarded because the client governments were acutely aware that their survival depended on the Soviet government remaining in power.
The Soviet military - and the Soviet political system as a whole - has always had problems with corruption. It became far worse with the implosion of the Soviet system, and is probably much worse in today’s Russian kleptocracy than it ever was in the USSR, but the problems Russia’s military is now facing is nothing new.
For example, My Time in the Soviet Army: ‘We Had to Bribe Officers to Get Basic Necessities’ | Law.com International
I was drafted to the Soviet army at the age of 18 after I finished my first year at the Engineering school. The Soviet Army was an extreme version of the Soviet regime where we were brainwashed to hate the West (especially the U.S.) and to protect the “workers’ paradise” against the western aggressors. In reality, the army was demoralized by a losing war in Afghanistan, heavy corruption and common thievery. We often missed important components of our equipment, and had to bribe the officers to get the basic necessities. My two years of service were mind numbing, but I was fortunate to return home relatively unaffected with my freedom-loving notions securely in place.
There’s an article in this month’s US Naval Institute’s Proceedings that touches on a lot of this in a look at assessing military capabilities.
Some relevant bits:
In 1980, however, Richard Gabriel published his “attitudinal portrait of the Soviet soldier.”2 His survey of émigrés to the United States who had served in all branches of the Soviet military revealed high rates of alcoholism, absence without leave, assaults on officers, desertion, and suicides, indicating “grave problems of morale and discipline.”
…
Viktor Belenko, who flew his MiG-25 Foxbat to Japan in 1976, reported that Soviet Air Force units in the Far East were plagued by desertions, suicides, disease, and alcoholism, including drinking alcohol meant for aircraft. Living conditions were abysmal, and the food was bad.
…
Fellow defector Alexander Zuyev, who flew a MiG-29 Fulcrum to Turkey in 1989, echoed Belenko’s comments on the dismal living and working conditions of the ground crews and described a growing black market in aircraft alcohol in some units. Maintenance officers had to do the work themselves because their enlisted subordinates were hopeless.
…
Not long after the invasion of Afghanistan, the Red Army prepared for another intervention, this time into Poland, and three military districts were ordered to mobilize. But not all the reservists could be located, and many deserted. Units were moved around the countryside for no apparent reason. Senior officers criticized the readiness of the forces, noting problems with “drunkenness, abuse of rank, corruption, mismanagement, waste, and bureaucratism,” and cited the need to fix the army’s reserve system.
It also mentions that
Compounding the misery in a military that almost exclusively relied on conscripts—and with a near negligible reenlistment rate—was the unofficial hierarchy that allowed conscripts with more service time to run a reign of terror on the junior troops.7 The juniors were essentially slaves to the seniors, and failure to comply meant physical punishment—which was sometimes fatal. One Soviet sergeant admitted that this practice had “eaten away” at the military, and nothing would change until a professional noncommissioned officer corps was developed.
This system of abuse was and is so prevalent that there’s a word in Russian for it, dedovshchina, lit. reign of grandfathers. Even though the Russian military today has a core of contract soldiers and no longer relies entirely upon conscripts, it remains a huge problem:
Many young men are killed or commit suicide every year because of dedovshchina .[5][6] The New York Times reported that in 2006 at least 292 Russian soldiers were killed by dedovshchina (although the Russian military only admits that 16 soldiers were directly murdered by acts of dedovshchina and claims that the rest committed suicide).[7] The Times states: “On Aug. 4, it was announced by the chief military prosecutor that there had been 3,500 reports of abuse already this year (2006), compared with 2,798 in 2005”. The BBC meanwhile reports that in 2007, 341 soldiers committed suicide, a 15% reduction on the previous year.[8]
In 2019, according to the Russian military prosecutor office the situation with dedovshchina is getting worse. Incidents of hazing in the army during 2019 have increased. 51,000 human rights violations and 1,521 sexual assault cases.[11] In the same year, Ramil Shamsutdinov shot 10 of his colleagues at a Gorny military base, 8 of them fatally. In court, he alleged that he was subjected to beatings and threats of anal rape.[12]
I stand corrected. Evidently the Soviet Union was already for more decayed internally than most knew. Still the myth of the hyper-disciplined Red Army was widespread.