Ukraine is offering amnesty plus five million rubles (about $48,000) to anyone who deserts from the Russian army and agrees to go to a Ukrainian prison, and Bryan Caplan suggests some improvements to this deal:
On the surface, this sounds like a sweet deal, but on reflection, it’s anything but. Put yourself in the shoes of a Russian soldier. First, you have to elude the Red Army, knowing you could be shot for desertion. Then, you have to surrender without getting killed by Ukrainians. After that, you’re stuck in prison; maybe they’ll deposit you in a regular POW camp, complete with Russian loyalists ready to kill you when the guard’s not looking. Wherever you languish, you know your fate hinges on the outcome of the war.
[…]
But let me propose a Version 2.0 to better fulfill the intent of the original offer.
Version 2.0: The EU, in cooperation with Ukraine, offers $100,000 plus EU citizenship to any Russian deserter. Russians can either go directly to the EU, or surrender to Ukrainian forces for speedy transport to the EU border.
The key gain: Deserters no longer have to gamble on Ukrainian success. As long as they escape from the Red Army’s zone of control, they survive. A much better gamble.
Extra benefits: Instead of going to a Ukrainian prison or POW camp, you get to enjoy freedom in the EU. And the EU is far more likely to swiftly hand over the promised monetary bounty.
How much of a burden is this on the EU? Chump change, really. Even in a magical scenario where all of the roughly 200,000 Russian troops in the vicinity take the deal, $100,000 per soldier is a mere $20 billion. That’s less than one-fifth of what Germany now plans to spend on defense in 2022 alone. It wouldn’t be crazy to go up to $1,000,000 per deserter. You could even do a classic multi-tier offer, where the first 10,000 deserters get a million bucks each to compensate for the high initial risk, followed by lower payments for late-leavers who get to desert in comparative safety.
[…]
Scary countries are deeply vulnerable to paid desertion, while the nicest countries are almost immune. How much would Russia have to offer Germans to desert to Russia? Nein, danke!
Caplan displaying his usual lack of understanding of human nature yet again. The idea that someone might not be willing to sell out their country and their people for cash seems alien to him. As always, Caplan gives libertarianism a bad name.
…and that there would be no problems opening the border to tens of thousands of foreigners, in this case trained and organized agents of a hostile state. They’d have to be detained until the end of the war, at which point they’d just be sent back.
Some would gladly take this deal, some wouldn’t.
Will they be able to function in the “west” or will they end up as welfare cases?
Wilson raises a good point, but I doubt the authorities can bring themselves to consider this angle.
I’m of the opinion that those who emigrate purely to escape bad governments ought to stay put and overthrow their local tyrannies. Not because that would be fair – I readily admit it’s unfair – but because it would be a lesser unfairness, and might make the world a better place in the long run.
Altitude Zero hits the nail on the head: Caplan is a rootless cosmopolitan, has not the ability of self-reflect or feel shame, and thinks everyone else is the same emotionally and morally stunted creature he is.
In other words, he is a the worst sort of (((caricature))) and can be embarrassing to read. As in: I feel embarrassed for him that he wrote these things other people are going to see and realize what an ashkepath he is.
I don’t see any appreciable number of Russian soldiers taking up either deal.
“… you get to enjoy freedom in the EU.”
The article is a joke, right? “Freedom” and “the EU” in the same sentence???
American soldiers in Korea were offered a reward if they deserted to the communists. “Shoot officer and bring tank and we pay you $10,000. Sums they offer now paltry in comparison when considering inflation?
Is this whole entry a joke? It must be.
Why, you ask?
Because Russia is clearly winning fast. They have surrounded, reports say, the entire Ukrainian South Eastern forces who are out of fuel and Russians are about to capture Odessa. At the rate the Russians are moving they will over run the entire, bigger than Texas, country by the end of the month if not before.
Dan Kurt
“…Russia is clearly winning fast…”
I don’t think this will happen. I have been criticized for saying that big invasions are much more difficult now than in the past. The reason is antitank and antiaircraft weapons. I’ve read countries are rushing large quantities of both into western Ukraine.
I got a break down of Russian planes from here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Air_Force#2021%E2%80%93present
Call it 1,500 or so. These can all be shot down with infrared antiaircraft missiles. To keep from being shot down they have to fly high, which ruins their ability for close air support or accurate bombing.
I hear Putin has limited the number of aircraft over Ukraine. I’m sure it’s for the same reason I just mentioned. He doesn’t want his whole air force wiped out overnight.
No tanks today can stop antitank weapons.
This means a bloody slog.
If Putin had been smart he would have tracked all the top Ukrainians, you know who I’m talking about, I don’t have to name them, and taken them out with drones and cruise missiles from the very beginning.
The normal Ukrainians want nothing to do with their conquer the world global homo Russia attacks and the whole thing could sorted out.
As it is, Zelenskyy is shooting people out of hand who try to flee Ukraine and shelling everything he can to make it look like the Russians did it.
There will e a lot of civilian casualties, Which of course doesn’t bother Zelenskyy at all.
These are seriously evil people.
If I was Putin I would ship as many antitank, antiaircraft and missiles to Hezbollah, Iran and Syria that I could possibly gather up and see if that makes an impression. Tit for tat.
I have no doubt that this could turn into a bloody slog, but it’s also important to remember that the German “lightning” conquest of France in 1940 actually took over a month and a half. There’s no doubt that the Russians have almost certainly encountered more resistance than they were counting on, but a Russian victory is still probably the way to bet.
You have a wicked sense of humor, Isegoria. More comedyposting, please.
Someone send me a picture of Caplan’s face when war begins here and he sees it.
This is comedy but the King of Comedy for all time is our CIA man in Keev, Buddy Israel Zelensky.
The man who on February 19th at Munich threatened to make Ukraine a nuclear power, funny thing a few days later..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueN5It0EU7o
In support of Ukraine I’m going to watch Smoking Aces again. Now it could have happened, had he not made it a punch line. Ukraine has the missile and engineering expertise to do it and 15 nuclear reactors. The thing is, if you’re not a coked-up comedian serving as the front act for the CIA and the Kagans, you DO IT. Then, only when you have the nukes do you let anyone know.
Altitude Zero says,”…I have no doubt that this could turn into a bloody slog, but it’s also important to remember that the German “lightning” conquest of France in 1940 actually took over a month and a half…but a Russian victory is still probably the way to bet…”
Just so no one gets the wrong idea, I think Russia will prevail, but not for the reasons people think. It’s not their military power, though formidable, it’s that the Ukrainians couldn’t care less about defending the rotten crooked people at the top that stole the country out from under them. A Russian sponsored leader would probably be a vast improvement as the Russians would likely put someone in that doesn’t want to loot the country, as bad, and might even care about the people in the country unlike the present group of gangsters.
If there were a really serious national leader. A real guy who people would see worth fighting for to keep Ukraine separate, it’s likely the Russians would be in serious trouble.
I bet a lot of the people that are attacking the Russians with advanced weapons are mercenaries or other such people from outside the country.