Do not want to serve - pay to the treasury!
According to official data published by the Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of Defense, in our country in 2012, about 235 thousands of so-called draft dodgers were recorded. In this case, evaders are understood to be young people between the ages of 18 and 27 years who use various means and methods to avoid military conscription, and this kind of evasion is in no way connected with official deferments from military service, or alternative civil service. Taking into account the fact that the strength of the Russian army sounded by the authorities should be 1 a million military personnel, the number of draft dodgers looks really impressive. This is a full-fledged problem, which at one, far from perfect, moment can turn into a problem of national security. After all, if you think about it, it turns out that the number of draft dodgers may well exceed the number of those who are ready to fulfill their constitutional duty to protect the Fatherland. This by itself leads to the stratification of society, to the growth of internal tension, to bitterness in the civilian environment. Even among those young people who are ready to turn into 12 months into the Russian army, there may be fair claims to the state's conscription and law enforcement activities, which often quite selectively act in terms of implementing the doctrine for staffing military units with draftees. The controversy of the situation is that some of the state have responsibilities, while others have the ability to ignore their obligations. What is the reason for this differentiation? One may speak about the inexpressive moral character of modern youth, its unprincipledness, but nevertheless the main reason for inequality before the law is corruption scattered around. It is precisely bribery, starting with district medical conscription commissions and military commissariats, and ending with higher-facing spheres, that is the reason why the horde of draft dodgers is growing despite the voiced actions to improve the appearance of the army and increase the prestige of military service.
The Russian legislative system is filled with proposals that would allow to attract young people of military age to the army service - to fulfill those duties that are enshrined in the fundamental law of the Russian Federation. There are a lot of proposals, but so far the legislative machine is not particularly turning in this regard, which makes it possible for thousands of dodgers sounded by 235 to use loopholes to avoid service in the army.
Based on this, it would be interesting to consider one of the proposals, which has recently been expressed quite often by members of the public, as well as domestic legislators. This sentence can be characterized in a military way briefly: “If you don’t want to serve, pay!”
“What does it mean to“ pay ”?!” - excessively democratized strata of the population will be screaming. “By what kind of such a right ?!” - they will be repeated by numerous representatives of foundations, commissions, legal groups who frankly feed on the field of so-called “legal assistance” to deviationists of all stripes. Help those same people who do not want to tear their soft spots away from warm and familiar places, frightened to the horror by literally “inhuman” conditions of service, oppression by commanders, and almost everyday torture in the barracks.
But the idea of a legitimate opportunity not to go into the army only at first glance looks somewhat unfounded. After all, if a young man declares that he does not want to go to work, because he is afraid of losing a prestigious job or his professional (acting, musical, mathematical and other) skills and talents, then for God's sake! - It is possible to finance those who are going to go through this very military service. In other words, the official redemption from the army (however slippery this term may sound) on the part of some could rather actively stimulate other young people in terms of the fulfillment of constitutional duty. Indeed, in this case, the army treasury could be replenished with the help of the very "yesterday's" draft dodgers. Such a solution must be linked with the increase in the material allowance of those who are going to serve under the contract. This would give the necessary impetus to solving the problem with a short supply of professional military personnel of Russian military units.
Someone will call the official offensive from the army a new version of the medieval indulgences, when for a certain amount the Christian church gave sins to those who wanted it. Of course, you can compare as many times as you like, but only the army is not a Christian church, and its funding is based on the payment of taxes by Russian citizens, and not on donations. Therefore, it would be possible to talk about morality in this regard if we had built an absolutely transparent system in which all young people of military age (except those suffering from certain diseases) gave their military duty to the state in which they live. But so far, unfortunately, there is no such system. And if so, then it is completely incomprehensible on what basis a certain stratum of people on a permanent basis declares their rights, but for some reason, without a twinge of conscience, is silent about their duties. If such people are accustomed to measuring relations with the people around only money, then let the official payment for the opportunity to stay at home and not go to the recruiting office will become a kind of military indulgence. And let this paper that the “sitting on the stove” is paid for is stored in a prominent place, better framed on the wall, so that everyone can see the joy for those who, instead of a given citizen, are studying the charter, are engaged in marching and spend day and night scheduled firing.
Someone will say: but let me, perhaps the introduction of the official opportunity to pay off from the military service is no reason to talk about a new round of corruption. Like, if you force the draft dodgers to pay a substantial amount for their unwillingness to perform the constitutional duty, then the same military commissariats can quickly adapt themselves to corruption and under these figures. They decide to collect a lump sum of half a million-million, which means that bribe-takers will have a chance to demand a smaller or three-fold amount in envelopes. The average deviationist, as well as the family of the average deviationist, clearly do not want to part with an impressive amount, if you can “put it where it is necessary” (for a medical examination, for example) a smaller amount ...
This is really a problem. Can you solve it? Can! To do this, of course, you have to sweat: go on the path of attracting third-party experts to the same medical call-up commission, and not just the doctors of the district polyclinics, so that the diagnosis, giving the right to avoid military service, was confirmed by several specialists. At the same time, the district military commissariats need to establish closer cooperation with educational institutions in order to identify the presence of students who use their status for an endless game of "cat-and-mouse". After all, it is no secret that it is often Russian universities, the number of which is infinite, filling their lists with “dead souls” who haven’t been attending classes for years, but receive a deferment from service as students of higher educational institutions. Under the conditions of rigid per capita financing at educational institutions of various levels, each rector (director) tries, among other things, to artificially inflate the number of his students. Obviously, for dodgers of various suits, this is a loophole to bypass the law. Often it comes to something ridiculous: a young man of military age literally every six months enters a new university, being dismissed from the previous one, in order to “stretch” to 27 years and be left behind a call on perfectly legal grounds. The military registration and enlistment offices often simply do not have time to track the movements of such, if I may say so, students who are thoroughly experienced in “catch me if you can.”
So, in order not to chase in hopeless attempts, it is necessary to set such a task, including to the heads of educational institutions whose job responsibilities imply responsibility for their “pets”. After all, if such an approach is worked out in detail and declare the personal responsibility of the head of the educational institution for each draft diversion who is listed only in the list of the educational institution, then the person will move.
However, let us return again to the possibility of official payment of unwillingness to go to compulsory military service. In this regard, legislators are proposing, instead of a lump sum, to levy such persons a life-long additional 13% tax. Option, no doubt worthy of attention. Only the difficulty here lies in the fact that if earlier a draft diver was looking for a military registration and enlistment office, now this person can retrain into a tax evader. Whether the tax administration will chase after him is a big question. Yes, and the additional tax can reduce the work of a citizen evading service to non-transparent, i.e. to conceal the level of its real income. It turns out that the 13% + 13% tax rate for draft dodgers is unlikely to work today, but a one-time monetary repayment of its unwillingness to serve the Fatherland is quite a suitable option.
Moreover, Russia in this regard will not be the first. In the world there are a sufficient number of states where such a practice as an official redemption from the army takes place. In particular, in Turkey, the army of which is one of the most powerful in the region, on official basis you can refuse to serve in the army, in fact, hiring another person instead of yourself for the amount paid. A young man can get into the army of Turkey with 20 age. Service life is 15 months. In this case, fees may be charged for both the full refusal of service (about 10 thousand dollars), and for the reduction of service life (about $ 5000). This practice has been operating for several years, and in Turkey, where, by the way, the level of corruption is no less than in Russia, there is no question of any drop in the combat capability of the Armed Forces. The very idea that young people can be freed from military service came to mind of Turkish lawmakers due to the fact that tens of thousands of people of military age from this country began to travel to Europe to earn money. In order not to stop this flow, which brought and brings a substantial income to the Turkish treasury, the Turkish authorities decided to introduce legalized payoff from the service.
The practice of legalized repurchase from the army for those who stubbornly do not want to serve, exists in other states. For example, in Greece you can stay "in the civilian world" by paying around 8-8,5 thousand euros, in Mongolia - $ 700. There is an opportunity on a financial basis to refuse service in a number of CIS countries, in Georgia.
Of course, the initiative itself to introduce payoff for unwillingness to serve in the army is not a panacea. She is not able to completely solve the problems of the prestige of military service. But at a certain stage, this idea may well have a peculiar educational effect on young people who claim that, say, if everything was okay in the state, they would rush to give up their constitutional duty. Well, and if, in the opinion of the draft dodgers, not everything goes well in the army, so help her with even a ruble.
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