Category Russia

Coronavirus in Russia

I know some people who are in Moscow right now. Their observations are that:

1. No one is wearing masks.

2. They are still congregating like normal.

3. Even though the signs at the subway are saying they should wear masks, no one is wearing masks.

4. But don’t take my word for this: here is a video of downtown Moscow on 4 June 2021: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjP4Vkf_V1w

5. Probably the reported number of cases for Russia (5,408,744 cases total) is low because most people don’t get tested.

Now this last point is always an issue. Part of the reason I focus on mortality rates is because I am guessing that the expected mortality rate should be around 0.5% or 1 death per 200 cases. In the case of the United States the mortality rate is 1.80%. This probably means that number of actual cases is up to four times higher than the number of reported cases. In the case of Russia, the mortality rate is 2.43%. This probably means that the number of actual cases is maybe five times higher than the number of reported cases.

But, the number of deaths in Russia is also grossly under-reported. This has been “known” for many months. The reported number of deaths is 131,671. On 1 May 2021, The Moscow Times reported that “excess deaths” estimates place the number of cases at 460,000. More to the point, 460,000 more people died in a twelve month period from April 2020 to March 2021 compared to the number that died during the same period the previous year. Certainly the vast majority of those excess deaths were due to Coronavirus. So 460,000 deaths versus 5,408,744 reported cases or a mortality rate of 8.5%. That would make the argument that the number infected is actually more like over 60% of the country (assuming the mortality rate is actually around 0.5%, less if it is higher). If there is 460,000 excess deaths from Coronavirus, then with a population of 146.2 million, we are looking at 3,146 deaths per million people. In contrast, the United States has 604,006 deaths in a population of 331.9 million or 1,820 deaths per million people. Just to compare to a more competent response, Canada has 26,188 deaths in a population of 38.3 million or 684 deaths per million people.

Copy of The Moscow Times article:

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/05/01/russias-pandemic-excess-death-toll-passes-460k-a73804

It is worth while looking at the chart of excess deaths in that article. I was not able to to add it to this blog post.

A lot of Russian have been vaccinated: 39.2 million doses administered out of a population of 146.2 million (including Crimea and Sevastopol) according to John’s Hopkins. Right now the number of cases in Russia is on the rise, about 20K cases a day as of last Friday compared to the United States at 7K cases last Friday and Canada at 606 cases last Friday.

Variable 4: Is there a problem with internal turmoil and unrest in China?

Depressions begat revolutions. Now it ain’t so simple as that, but there is a big enough correlation here that every time there is a economic downturn, a nation’s leaders should be looking over their shoulder in concern. If they are a democratic government, it probably means they will now have time to write their memoirs. If they are a dictatorship, they could end up dangling from a meat-hook.

The seminal quantitative work on this subject was two separate studies done in the 1960s by Ted Gurr and the couple Ivo and Rosilind Feierabend. Ted Gurr’s work was summarized in his book Why Men Revolt, while the Feierhabend’s never issued out a book (which is a shame as their work was as significant). There has not been much of significance done since then (which I think is fairly bizarre actually… it is not like revolutions are a dead subject). We have blogged about this before.

So Variable 3 is “How is the economy of China doing?.” As long as the China economy is growing and thriving over the next 20 years, then this only increases the danger to Taiwan. On the other hand, there are lots of reasons to doubt that their economy will continue to thrive over the next 20 years. If the economy is not growing, then this fourth variable comes into play: Is there a problem with internal turmoil and unrest in China? This affects the odds that China will decide the invade Taiwan in five ways:

The reduced economic growth probably reduces their “defense” budget.
If there is unrest or political turmoil, it probably distracts the government to worry about internal issues, vice invading their neighbors (although it some cases, it can actually do the reverse).
It may result in a leadership change:
1. This leadership could be even more internally absorbed.
2. This leadership could be even more nationalistic.
3. This government could be unstable.
It may result in a change of the form of government:
1. Communism collapses.
  1. It becomes a democracy
  2. It becomes a dictatorship.
  3. The new government could be unstable
  4. Central government may collapse entirely.
2. Communism is reinforced (sort of another cultural revolution)
3. Communism is de-stabilized, but returns back in control.
It may result in no government at all (more on this later).

So, what are the odds that China will have a economic slow-down in the next 20 years? Is it 25%, is it 50%, is there no chance at all?

If there is an economic slowdown, what is the chance of political turmoil, and then what is the extent, nature and virulence of this political turmoil? Is it a bunch children of “princelings” that can be run over with tanks, or is something more broadly based.

The problem with revolutions, is that once they start, they gets pretty hard to predict where they are going to go. For example, when the Shah of Iran abdicated in 1979, much his vocal opposition came from the left, often college students. The country ended up being taken over by Ayatollahs. The Russian revolution started in 1917 with the moderately liberal Cadet Party and Alexander Kerensky running the country in a somewhat democratic manner and ended up with Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin in charge. The Russian revolution of 1991 ended up with Boris Yeltsin in charge of a developing democracy and ended up with Vladimir Putin in charge. The Arab Spring of 2010-2012 resulted in demonstrations and revolts in 17 or so different countries. In four of those countries the governments were overthrown (Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen). Only one ended up with a democratic government in its aftermath.

And then there is always the possibility that China could end up with no central controlling government at all. This is not all that far-fetched. China has spent almost of much of its history broken up into smaller states as it has spend unified as a single state. There is no strong reason to assume that over the next decades that China will remain unified. There is no history that suggests such a pattern.

Modern countries do break up. Yugoslavia comes to mind. There are significant independence movements in Catalonia (Barcelona) and Scotland. So the image of China as a dominating unified state may not be the image moving forward.

Anyhow, I suspect we are looking at maybe a 50% chance of a major economic slowdown in the next 20 years (this is just a wild guess, I have no idea what the odds of such an event are). If there is an economic slowdown, then I am guessing maybe a 50% change of unrest and turmoil. So….there is no guarantee that China will be in a position or place to even consider invading Taiwan in the next 20 years. Maybe a 50% chance that this is the case.

Proposed Defense Budget for 2022

Christopher A. Lawrence
June 1, 2021

The president has proposed his defense budget for 2022. The budget has not gone down, which may not have been what some people expected. The Department of Defense (DOD) budget is $715 billion. This is an increase in the budget of $10 billion from 2021, or about 1.6 percent. Inflation in 2020 is estimated to be 1.5 percent. The overall budget for “national defense” is $753 billion, with expenditures for the Department of Energy and other federal agencies included.

Don’t have details of the budget. It may be out there, but I have not chased them down yet. So, I don’t know what the Army’s share of the budget is. Budget for 2021 included supplemental spending bills and funding transfers and the expenses for combat operations were separately funded. For this proposed budget, these are included in this budget and are $18.4 billion. This is apparently a drop of 21 percent from last year.

There is a renewed focus on conventional war against near-parity opponents. We are now looking at a 296-ship fleet vice a 355-ship fleet envisioned by the previous administration. The 355-ship fleet was kind of a wasteful pipedream that was not easily achievable. It harkened back to the movement for a 600-ship fleet that was envisioned in the 1980s. This was briefly attained before it was cut back. They are also decommissioning two Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), which always struck me as a bizarre expenditure of money. Then there is the controversial F-35 program, which has been reduce from 60 new planes this year to 48. They are retiring 42 A-10s, leaving the Air Force with 239. Artillery is back in fashion with $6.6 billion to develop and field long-range fires. Overall, they are spending a lot on R&D, the “largest-ever” R&D spending according to the SecDef (I have not tested statement against inflation). There was $107 billion R&D requested in 2021. For 2022 it is higher (but I did not see an exact figure).

By the way, the budget for the State Department and international programs is proposed as 63.6 billion.

This is a proposed budget. It is a recommendation sent to congress and congress can choose to do whatever they wish with it. As it is a Democratic controlled House and a bare Democratic majority in the Senate, it may be passed close to as is, but probably will not be unscathed. Most likely, if it is significantly changed it will be to reduce it in general or to maintain or restore hardware (LCS and A-10s) that DOD is trying to reduce. I don’t expect the final figures to be much lower than what is proposed.

The total active and reserve component of the military is planned to be 2,145,900, which is a slight reduction (4,475 less) than last year. Chinese active personnel is 2,185,000 in 2021. Russia’s active personnel is 1,454,000.

In contrast the estimated defense budget for the Chinese armed forces for 2020 or 2021 is given as $193.3 (IISS-2020), $209.4 billion (Wikipedia-2021) or $252.0 (SIPRI-2020). This is between 1.3% to 1.7% of GDP. In contrast the U.S. defense budget is 3.4% to 3.7% of GDP. The Chinese budget in purchase parity (PPP) figures I gather would be some 1.6 times higher.

The defense budget for Russia is given as 61.7 billion in 2020. This is around 3.9% to 4.3% of GDP (as of 2019). The Russian budget in PPP figures is probably around 2.5 times higher.

See: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-look-at-what-s-inside-biden-s-6-trillion-budget-request/ar-AAKuAdi?ocid=msedgntp

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/28/pentagon-asks-for-715-billion-in-2022-defense-budget.html

https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/2639101/dod-budget-request-boosts-research-nuclear-modernization-and-includes-27-pay-ra/

https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2021/05/27/pentagon-budget-will-shake-up-legacy-systems-lawmakers-are-shaking-back/

https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2021/5/28/air-force-proposal-would-shift-funding-to-new-aircraft

https://breakingdefense.com/2021/05/secdef-rd-spending-to-skyrocket-in-22-budget/

Older related blog posts:

GAO: “We’re 26 ships into the contract and we still don’t know if the [Littoral Combat Ship] can do its job.” | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

The Challenge of Getting to a 350-Ship Fleet | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

The Saga of the F-35: Too Big To Fail? | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

U.S. Army Invests In Revitalizing Long Range Precision Fires Capabilities | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Status Update On U.S. Long Range Fires Capabilities | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

China National Security Policy Net Assessment Russia

So should Ukraine join NATO?

I gather that we are on the path for Ukraine to NATO at some point in the future. It is clearly something that the current government of Ukraine wants, although Russia is hostile to the idea and the west is wary. Ukraine was in the Partnership for Peace program and working towards joining NATO until Viktor Yanokovich was elected President of Ukraine in 2010. He shut that effort down but was thrown out of power in 2014. The efforts of Ukraine to join NATO has now been re-activated.

Now, it is clear that Ukraine is back on the path to joining NATO and probably will at some point. Needless to say, Russia is not very happy about this. I gather the real question is whether this will be something that will be done sometime in the next 10-20 years or whether it is something that needs to be accelerated to maybe the next three years.

Russia’s saber rattling last week does sort of make the argument for three years vice 20 years. On the other hand, NATO has become an alliance of 30 western democracies, although a couple are what I call “troubled democracies” (Turkey and Hungary). Gone are the days when dictatorships like Portugal were part of NATO. So, it is now sort of expected that countries that join will have democratic structures and low levels of corruption. Ukraine posses several problems in that it is still a fledgling democracy, there is a lot of corruption, there are two “people’s republics” in an armed warlike state, and part of Ukraine (Crimea) has been occupied by Russia.

If a country joins NATO that is fighting a separatist movement, does NATO have an obligation to help? England was fighting in Northern Ireland for three decades and it was never a NATO problem. On the other hand, if a country joins NATO that has territory occupied by Russia, what is NATO’s responsibility for that? NATO is a defensive alliance. Does Ukraine joining NATO give it a free hand to try to change the status of Donetsk, Lugansk or Crimea? What if Russia responds? What are the requirements of the alliance then? Maybe entry into NATO needs to be delayed until these issues are resolved. As we have seen through, these can sometimes take a while (the Transnistia republic in Moldovia has been independent for 30 years, Taiwan has been independent for over 70 years).

So, should Ukraine join NATO
1. In the near team (3-5 years)?
2. In the long team (10-20 years)?
3. Not until all major outstanding international issues are resolved (which I gather means not in our lifetime)?
4. Never?

A few links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria

So the Russian-Ukrainian Crisis is Over for now?

Well, it looks like Russia has pulled back some of its troops and equipment for the moment. So a lot of noise, but no action.

One does wonder why this occurred. Possibilities include:

1. They wanted to make a little noise to make some point to Ukraine. Possibly anger over President Zelensky banning three pro-Russian media channels and imposing sanctions against individuals and companies.

2. They wanted to make a little noise to tell the Biden administration that they needed to respect them (especially after Biden’s comments about Putin and the additional sanctions imposed).

3. They wanted a public test of their ability to respond to a crisis in Ukraine/Crimea.

4. They wanted a public test of their ability to respond to a crisis in Kaliningrad, their isolated city between Lithuania and Poland.

5. This may have been a “routine” training exercise.

6. They wanted to distract from the internal issues, especially Navalny and their shutting down of protests.

7. They just wanted to make a little noise so people still “respect” them.

8. Some or all of the above.

Anyhow, looks like things will be “peaceful” for another year. That said, there is still two armed and active “People’s Republics” in Donetsk and Lugansk, and there is still sniping and shelling and other activities. Ukraine is still losing a couple of soldiers of month from all this. They are still armed and active war zones.

Some stories:

https://news.yahoo.com/russia-orders-troops-withdraw-ukraine-162144377.html

https://www.unian.info/politics/sanctions-zelensky-enacts-nsdc-decision-against-95-companies-13-individuals-11396413.html

https://www.unian.info/politics/sanctions-zelensky-enacts-decree-on-27-ex-officials-incl-yanukovych-azarov-11383270.html

Over 120,000 Russian troops?

Christopher A. Lawrence
April 21, 2021

Ukraine is saying that Russia will soon have over 120,000 troops on its border. See: https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-reach-over-120-000-122611381.html

“The figure….is higher than Ukraine’s previous estimate of 80,000 Russian troops, of which 50,000 were new deployments.”

Do I read that to mean that they started with 30,000 troops and have added over 90,000 more troops?

150,000 Russian Troops?

Christopher A. Lawrence
April 20, 2021

Well, the European Union’s (EU) top diplomat is now saying that “It is more than 150,000 Russian troops massing on the Ukrainian borders and in Crimea.” This is an increase from the 93,000 figure being bandied around last week.

Not sure of the source for his figures, perhaps from Ukraine.

Anyhow, 150K vs Ukraine’s 255K? Starting to look serious.

Related articles and blog post are here:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-has-150000-troops-near-ukraine-s-borders-eu-estimates/ar-BB1fOVQ9

83,000 Russian Troops? | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Ukraine vs Russia | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Eastern Europe Net Assessment Russia

83,000 Russian Troops?

On Monday, apparently Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s spokeswoman told AFP that Russia now has 41,000 troops on Ukraine’s eastern border and 42,000 soldiers on the Crimean peninsula.

Lets take that at face value for the moment. Ukraine has around 255K troops in active duty. So 83K vs 255K? Not exactly overwhelming force, yet. In response the United States is sending 500 additional troops to Germany. Now, last year we had 36K troops in Germany, but President Trump ordered a draw-down of 12K. I gather the drawdown was never really done and President Biden froze it in February of this year.

So, we are probably not looking at tanks rolling towards Kiev next week, but that does not ,mean there may not be trouble. In addition to Russian troops, there are also the armed militias of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic.

Related articles and bog posts are here:

https://www.ibtimes.com/two-ukrainian-soldiers-killed-war-torn-separatist-east-3179386

Ukraine vs Russia | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Pentagon chief: US sending 500 more troops to Germany (msn.com)

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/537374-biden-to-freeze-germany-drawdown

Ukraine in NATO?

Christopher A. Lawrence
April 6, 2021

NATO currently consists of 30 members. This includes three members of the former Soviet Union (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) and all former members of the Warsaw Pact except Russia (Poland, East Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania). Ukraine borders Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania.

Noticed in the news today that President Zelensky of Ukraine has urged NATO to speed up his country’s membership into the alliance: see: https://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-urges-nato-speed-membership-110245606.html

This has been a long drawn out process. Ukraine joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace program in February 1994. In 2002 the President of Ukraine Kuchma declared that Ukraine wanted to join NATO and in 2003 sent Ukrainian troop to Iraq. They were also part of the peacekeeping effort in Kosovo. Ukraine applied for the NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) in 2008. Viktor Yanukovich was elected president in 2010 (which was a free and fair election) and shelved plans to join NATO shortly thereafter. He nuzzled up to Russia, cancelling the attempts to get Ukraine to the join the European Union and instead decided to join Russia’s Eurasian Union. There were then massive protest against him that cost lives of over a hundred protestors and Yanukovich fled the county in February 1914. There was then multiple secessionist movements in Ukraine (Donets and Lugansk) and a Russian engineered seizure of Crimea and Sevastopol, which Russia has now annexed. So…..

See: Ukraine-NATO Relations

Needless to say, Russia does oppose this.

P.S. The previous President of The Dupuy Institute, Major General Nicholas Krawciw (U.S. Army, ret.), also worked as the Secretary of Defense Senior Military Representative to Ukraine. MG Krawciw was born in Lvov in 1935. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_S._H._Krawciw

Eastern Europe National Security Policy Russia

Ukraine vs Russia

Christopher A. Lawrence
April 2, 2021

There seems to a little noise in the news reports and on twitter about Russian military build-up near the Ukrainian border areas with Russia. Yesterday, President Biden talked to President Zelensky of Ukraine. I do not know how serious this is, but it might be worthwhile for a moment to take a look at how big is Ukraine compared to Russia.

Ukraine Russia
Population 41.5 M 146.7 M

GDP 161 B 1,584 B

GDP (PPP) 420 B 4,226 B

Area (sq. km) 603 K 17,098 K

So, basically Russia has three and 1/2 times the population and ten times the money.

Note: Ukrainian population excludes Crimea and Sevastopol. It was 48.4 M in 2001. Russian population includes Crimea, which is 2.4 million.

Armed Forces

Ukraine Russia

Active 255 K 900 K

Reserve 1,000 K 2,000 K

Deployed 60 K

.

Budget $ 5.4 B $ 65.1 B

Percent of GDP 3% 3.9%

So, Russia two and 1/2 to three and 1/2 times the personnel and over ten time the budget.

And let us look at three of the other “players” in the area:

Belarus Germany United States

Population 9.4 M 83.2 M 328.2 M

GDP 57 B 3,780 B 20,807 B

GDP (PPP) 186 B 4,454 B 20,807 B

Area 208 K 357 K 9,833 K

Active 62 K 184 K 1,386 K

Reserve 345 K 29 K 849 K

Deployed — 2,697 165 K

.

Budget $ 0.78 B $ 57 B $ 738 B

Percent of GDP 1.2% 1.3% 3.4%

These are all just figures grabbed from Wikipedia without any further analysis or cross-checking.

Eastern Europe Net Assessment Russia

Ukraine Russia Population 41.5 M 146.7 M