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 age military 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 age working age immigrants tend to be a net benefit in terms of taxes anyway).
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).