Paying Russians to not invade Ukraine
I know nothing about war except that horseback archers were OP for a long time. But from my point of view, which is blatantly uneducated when it comes to war, being a Russian soldier seems like a miserable experience. It therefore makes me wonder why 300,000 Russian soldiers are willing to risk it all in Ukraine.[1] Why don’t they desert? How does the Russian regime get so many people to fight a war when my home government is struggling to convince me to sort my trash? If the Russian regime can convince so many people to have a shit time in Ukraine, I’d argue that the West could convince these people to go live an easier life. The idea is so simple that by now I mostly wonder if my inability to figure out why NATO isn’t already bribing Russian soldiers to desert is a sign that I’m officially off the proverbial rails.
Suppose I’m correct in assuming that even Russian soldiers are somewhat rational and self-concerned actors. In that case, the Russian war apparatus is putting on a masterclass in how to get thousands of people to do something that I assume they don’t particularly feel like doing. Based on some superficial research, I get the impression that the motivational methods of the Russian regime partly are offering a giant carrot to people who have very little. I base this conviction entirely on salary statistics and this NYT opinion piece[2] that states that the Russian armed forces are recruited from the bottom rung of the societal ladder.
The price of making the Russian army vanish
In 2022, prospective recruits were being offered 2,700 USD[3] a month – which I assume is an outrageously sweet deal in a country where the median wage is less than 500 USD a month. Where I live, the median salary is roughly 3,000. I don’t think I would invade Ukraine for 15,000 a month but fuck if that isn’t a fat pile of cash. I’ve seen other articles stating much lower numbers, something like 1000, but all make the same point. It is a ton of money for those who sign up compared to what they otherwise could expect. One even states that it is more than a dozen times higher than wage than the average regional wage of where the recruits typically come from.
I don’t think that it matters to my point whether 1000 or 3000 is a more accurate description of what a Russian soldier earns. I think the West could do better either way. I think we could provide a much bigger carrot. Considering how beneficial it would be if the Russian army just vanished, I’d argue that it is worth every penny. My not-further-elaborated plan would be something along the lines of granting Russian soldiers asylum in EU countries. If you come from the bottom of Russian society, I’d think that access to European education and healthcare is an attractive proposition, especially if we throw in a monthly bribe of 2,700 USD for deserting.
According to my napkin math, paying 1.1 million active Russian soldiers and their 1.5 million colleagues in the reserve[4] 2,700 USD a month to not invade Ukraine would come with a price tag of roughly 85-ish billion USD a year. If, like me, you have no idea how expensive 85 billion USD a year is, that is roughly the amount of financial aid the EU has provided Ukraine so far. Mostly in budget support for the Ukrainian government. US aid comes in at the same magnitude, but much of it is military support.[5] To me, it sounds like spending money at this order of magnitude isn’t out of the question.
How exactly do you pay 2.6 million Russians to desert?
Exactly how you pay 2.6 million Russians, I have yet to figure out. I’m guessing helping soldiers and their dependents migrate is essential. I have no idea whether it is feasible at scale. Apparently, a Ukrainian intelligence agency has had some luck helping Russian soldiers desert.[6] I imagine the political will in the EU is going to be a serious bottleneck if NATO ever attempts to implement this plan. More than a million Syrians now live in Europe, mainly because of mass migration due to the Syrian Civil War. Mostly at the grace of the German and Swedish governments.[7] While we basically lost a member country due to the refugee crisis, the union still exists. Except for political fallout, I don’t think the EU would suffer unreasonably from housing another 2.1 million Russians and their families. I wonder how far we could take this.
What could go wrong?
Of everything that I have written, I’m most confident that the Russian regime would retaliate somehow. But I don’t think they pose any threat. They could respond by making life nicer for Russian soldiers, which I wouldn’t mind. They could track down deserters in foreign countries. While it doesn’t sit well with my morals, a more cynical strategist probably wouldn’t mind if Russian intelligence officers spent their time planning the assassinations of Russian soldiers in foreign countries instead of doing whatever intelligence officers usually do at war.
I expect that there are reasons why paying the Russian army to get up and leave isn’t feasible. It seems suspiciously simple for no one to have suggested it yet. Perhaps the Russian soldiers are motivated by other reasons and giving them money and Western comforts isn’t that attractive to them. Maybe I’m underestimating the importance of patriotism. Or maybe you are begging to be trojan-horsed if you invite 2.6 million military-trained Russians into your borders. But I also wonder how far we could take this. Could we drain Russia entirely of people by offering them benefits for emigrating? It would probably take generations, but I guess the only serious stopping block is our willingness to pay and integrate millions of Russians.
Yeah, this is an interesting proposal. It would make being a Russian soldier in Ukraine more attractive than being a Ukrainian soldier (who’s stuck in the trenches) or a Ukrainian male of military age (who can’t leave the country). Also, antiwar Russians would find that the fastest way to move to Europe is to enlist and defect (skipping the normal multi-year process of getting citizenship). Also, everyone along the way would want a cut: Russians would start paying money to recruitment offices when they enlist, and paying more money to Ukrainian soldiers when they defect. The economic incentives of the whole thing just get funnier and funnier as I think about it.
This sounds like a quick way to have families of Russian soldiers pressured, harassed, imprisoned, or otherwise targeted by authorities or even other civilians.
Furthermore, quite a lot of soldiers actually care about their country and don’t want to betray it so completely as would be required here. There’s a very large psychological difference between a few groups deserting under intolerable conditions, and wholesale permanent paid defection to assure the failure of their home country’s military.
The fact that they are military trained doesn’t seem like much of a problem (at least recently the new recruits seem to receive minimum training); maybe I am underestimating this. If Russia wants to send lots of FSB agents to EU, they can probably do it anyway.
But having 2.6 million new voters who grew up with Russian values, and would probably keep watching Russian media, that sounds like a possible problem. The fact that someone doesn’t want to die for Russia in a war doesn’t necessarily make him aligned with Western values.
Caplan has been saying this intermittently for the past two years.
I think the Trojan Horse situation is going to be your biggest blocker, regardless of whether it’s a real problem or not. At least in the US, anti-immigration talking points tend to focus on the
working agemilitary age men immigrating from a friendly country in order to get jobs. I can’t imagine how strong the blowback would be if they were literally Russian soldiers.There’s also a repeated-game concern where once you do this, the incentive is for every poor country to invade its neighbors in the hopes of getting its soldiers a cushy retirement and the ability to send remittances.
One practical concern from the other side is that if soldiers start defecting, the Russian government can hold their families hostage. This is likely already sort-of the case but could be done in a more heavy-handed way if necessary.
That said, I think something like this is probably a good idea if you could someone get past the impossible political situation. US residency alone is worth so much that you might not have to pay soldiers at all (and
military ageworking age immigrants tend to be a net benefit in terms of taxes anyway).If Ukraine and its allies succeed in inducing a soldier to leave the Russian army, that frees up money (namely, the salary that the Kremlin used to pay the soldier that left) that Russia can use to hire another soldier, so the only monetary cost you’ve imposed on the Kremlin is the cost of training the soldier that left.
Currently money is the most important resource for the Kremlin (probably by a large margin) and if the supply of young Russian men ever becomes the critical resource, then the scale of the war has increased so much that we should probably start calling it World War III.
There was just an European election where the vote swung right and one huge factor is that the average European wants less immigration. The political cost is likely too high for European governments that might lose elections over it.