A new way of funding a powerful global military?

Obviously a world class military is expensive. Its a big worry that the money is wasted. But its also a big worry that you might have a war ...
and then find you haven't spent enough money.

In a major conflict, you might commandeer civillian ships and planes. And ofcourse conscript civillians and call up reservists.

In the past, especially in "command centred" as opposed to "free market" economies, soldiers would be called upon for large public works projects like dams and irrigation schemes. Even the American army has been used to build dams etc. So this leads me to my thought. And that is, why not have the armed forces perform more civillian type work in peacetime?

Ofcourse most countries have reservists, doing non-mil jobs, then being called up in times of conflict. These reservists are able to draw upon high levels of skill, and fight effectively. Then young conscripts in contrast are obliged to be there, and often lack the experience or mindset of  professional soldiers. You also have the recruiting and laying off cycles, when the demand for soldiers ebbs and flows. And the most experienced, talented soliders are often pensioned off at a fairly young age.

Hardware too is very expensive. And countries are reluctant to buy a lot incase it doesn't get used.... And then they PRAY is ISN'T used.
Its hard to think of use for 1000s of Mig 29s in peacetime, other than training... maybe a little intelligence work. But they ARE essential for national security.

But what about the massive airlift capacity in fixed wing and choppers. What about allowing the army and airforce to bid more on logistics contracts? And what about using the mass of soldiers to do SOME work on grand public works projects like bridges and railway lines. After all, in a war, these would need to be repaired quickly andeffectively. Soldiers were used for construction in the past, so why not today?

Ships like Mistrals and aircraft carriers must be used constantly to keep staff fully trained. But what about using a fleet of aircraft carriers for combined logistics AND naval air work?

Likewise Space Defence and IT/cyber warfare are all related to civillian uses. The Americans sunk vast amts of money into this tech, and the result was the internet companies of silicon valley. Ironically, while bioweapons are rightly viewed as abhorrent in most cases, they would have massively beneficial spin offs, in medical sciences.

Finally, Russia leads the way in supersonic flight (along with the US). But we no longer have a civillian supersonic jet in use ANYWHERE in the world. Perhaps Russia should spend more to have a bomber capable of conversion to passenger use? Even submarines could be used to ferry minerals under polar ice during peacetime.

Old nuclear missiles are already converted to fire satellites into space. I am thinking more of this idea.

I'm not for a second saying the Russian armed forces should be shrunk, or that the upgrade plans should be abandaoned.
But what I'm wondering is... could there be a substantially larger, better, more beneficial military if these factors were considered.
It could also mean more manpower, in the armed forces for longer as well.

You can not run a country if you have no military. Others will eat you up like sharks. Military is a must but at the same time it must be controlled and encourage flow of technology

toward civilian sector that will based on superior military technology make money to support army.

Viktor wrote:You can not run a country if you have no military. Others will eat you up like sharks. Military is a must but at the same time it must be controlled and encourage flow of technology

toward civilian sector that will based on superior military technology make money to support army.

Yes obviously. I'm advocating a substantial enlargement of Russia's military. BUT with it being used more in peacetime too.

If Russia didn't have a military as good as anyone, you could bet America and friends would be causing shit left right and centre. That wasn't what I was arguing.

My pt was, instead of say 1 aircraft carrier currently, or say... 4 in the next 10(?) years, what about 7 or 8 carriers. But being used for civillian work along with military work during the year. This is how things were done in the past.

Unfortunately the American "extreme market forces doctrine" nonsense seemed to shun  the State getting involved in the commerce. The result was that hardware and manpower were massively underused in peace time. And these bizarre politics seem to be infesting the WTO and international trade etc. I wonder how far Russia will veer towards them.

What I think is that perhaps the Ru military could be 50, 60 maybe 70% bigger or more, IF there was a peacetime usage of its resources in a different way.

An example is the aircraft carrier. If its nuclear, its operational costs are lower than a diesel one. It has a large crew to maintain 50 or 70 planes. It may never be used. But its of immense use when it is.

So whats wrong with a fleet of 6 Ulyanovsk type carriers. But rather than rotating 70 planes/choppers on deck, take 10 or 15, and use its cavernous capacity for cargoshipping on a voyage. It doesn't even need to make a profit, it can just use the cargo work to pay down some of the capital cost. The choppers can be used for anti piracy work on the trip.

The big obstacle as I see it isn't common sense and efficient use of resources. I think the problem is private shippers complaining about supposedly "unfair competition" - and then running off to the WTO etc. So the solution there is that naval cargo shipping can be part of a tender process, open to all. Either way, it just seems to be the best way to fund hardware all round.

-Aircraft carriers is about prestige. It will laugh the universe if you carry cargo with your carriers

-Aircraft carriers based navy is the most hideous way of money spending. Not only it's not the way to go for cost reduction but exactly the opposite.

Viktor wrote:You can not run a country if you have no military. Others will eat you up like sharks. Military is a must but at the same time it must be controlled and encourage flow of technology

toward civilian sector that will based on superior military technology make money to support army.

Golden words. It's not only economy, but it's the best school of patriotism. Healthy one, not the perverted fascism.
Even small military with strong tradition and support from public makes the difference. In case of emergency it will be up to army to deal with natural disasters, crime, radicals, bandits or even their own government. I hate when some people in my country talk shit, that we don't need army, NATO will protect us:D There is an old saying - if You don't feed Your own army, You will feed others.

And to Firebird
You have made interesting proposal about cargo submarines. I think there was even proposal to use them in commercial manner. Well that's what I've have read in Soviet book about Navy in 1988. Not sure why it never took off, maybe costs and risks operating submarine are too high form commercial usage.

Regular wrote:

Viktor wrote:You can not run a country if you have no military. Others will eat you up like sharks. Military is a must but at the same time it must be controlled and encourage flow of technology

toward civilian sector that will based on superior military technology make money to support army.

Golden words. It's not only economy, but it's the best school of patriotism. Healthy one, not the perverted fascism.
Even small military with strong tradition and support from public makes the difference. In case of emergency it will be up to army to deal with natural disasters, crime, radicals, bandits or even their own government. I hate when some people in my country talk shit, that we don't need army, NATO will protect us:D There is an old saying - if You don't feed Your own army, You will feed others.

And to Firebird
You have made interesting proposal about cargo submarines. I think there was even proposal to use them in commercial manner. Well that's what I've have read in Soviet book about Navy in 1988. Not sure why it never took off, maybe costs and risks operating submarine are too high form commercial usage.

Well there have been plans for military and civil cargo submarines.

There was a plan by the Rubin design bureau to convert the Typhoon subs into cargo carriers of 15 000 ton capacity - either military supplies or something else.

I think Rubin have also got other plans for cargo subs. I saw one plan for a sub to take oil from bunkers on the seabed under the Arctic icesheets. Ofcourse this would be easier than pumping it to the surface and needing to use an icebreaker to surface ship it away.

The CIA did an interesting assessment of the Boreis and what was considered revolutionary technology to build such a large sub. They speculated that it could secretly carry fuel, supplies or landing troops and equipment. Nowadays, ofcourse it could be used to carry mini-subs, drone subs etc as well.

http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/89801/DOC_0000499611.pdf

The main problem I have is what if you suddenly need your military and it is out picking fruit or delivering cargo?

A smart enemy might book all your most powerful military assets and divert them elsewhere at some critical period (ie before a surprise attack).

Equally... doing civilian work is full time work... if you have soldiers building dams then they are not really soldiers... they are construction workers working for less than minimum wage.

When do they learn to be soldiers?

The idea of having a huge reserve of soldiers is called conscription, the idea of having lots of extra military equipment that is used in peace time for peace time purposes will just put real non military workers out of work... how will a private truck company compete with the Army when the Army has cheap labour and its trucks paid for and maintained for free?

When it is not working in training I agree a few transport aircraft and ships and tankers and support vessels can be used for commercial purposes, but the idea of transport subs... is rather too expensive. Keeping in mind that its main value is using the arctic route from asia to europe... icebreakers and global warming will make subs unnecessary soon enough.