深评：从哈以战争谈美国大学言论自由

编者：“ 斯特凡尼克问的是“在你们的校园里，呼吁对犹太人进行种族灭绝是受保护的言论吗？”，如果最高法院裁定它是，那么它就是受保护的言论。大学校长没有义务，也没有能力，去代替最高法院回答任何法律问题。

自10月7日哈马斯对以色列发动突然袭击以来，美国舆论就处于极其分裂的状况。其中大学校园首当其冲，支持以色列强力反击的和同情巴勒斯坦人的双方都有过激言论，带来了强烈的社会反响。以致于哈佛大学、麻省理工学院(MIT)和宾夕法尼亚大学的校长被叫去国会听证。

听证会的一个很严重的后果是，宾大校长因此而失去了这份工作。另两位虽然至今还保住了工作，但肯定也曾有过职位难保的时候或时刻，更不知是否还会有后续事件发生。这对大学还能不能维护言论自由的环境有不可估量的后果，值得我们所有人格外关注。

听证会上的灾难时刻      

三位校长在听证会上申明的内容是高度一致的，其大意是，我们反对反犹太主义，并谴责在我们的校园或社区内出现的任何反犹太主义言论，哪怕只是一点痕迹。打击反犹太主义是我们坚定的承诺。10月7日后，我们加强了安全措施，扩大了举报渠道，并增加了咨询、心理健康和支持服务。但与此同时，我们必须确保学校保护每个人的言论和观点多样性。我们也必须保护校园内的言论自由，允许人们发表言论，即使我们认为这些言论令人反感。大学的价值观与作为学术机构所允许的言论是两个不同的概念。我们既需要安全，也需要自由表达，只有这样，大学乃至民主制度才能蓬勃发展。 

她们试图把言论自由和骚扰区分开来。言论自由是受保护的，骚扰则不。有时言论自由会成为骚扰，这是一个非常重要的区别。煽动暴力的言论是不可接受的。大学这样的机构，要对学生的言论采取行动，必须有一个门槛，即具有普遍性，而且已经成为骚扰。      

平心而论，三位校长的听证都说得不错，但却被公认为是灾难性的，因为三位校长在回答纽约共和党众议员埃莉斯·斯特凡尼克(Elise Stefanik)的一个问题时，都给人一种顾左右而言他的感觉。 

斯特凡尼克问的是“在你们的校园里，呼吁对犹太人进行种族灭绝是受保护的言论吗？”这本来也不是一个那么难的问题，只是，斯特凡尼克问得咄咄逼人，而且要求用“是”或“否”来回答。问题是，这不是一个是或否的问题，而是取决于具体情况，看是不是过了那个门槛，从纯粹的言论自由上升到骚扰了。所以，没有一个校长回答了简单的“是”或“否”，坚持要视具体情况而论。但斯特凡尼克不饶不让，一定要一个“是”或“否”的答案。 

斯特凡尼克这样问是有目的的，也是设了一个陷阱。      

三位校长既不敢说是也不敢说不是，当然被大部分人解读为她们心中有鬼。而这让我想起了当初《纽约时报》因为发表政府机密文件《五角大楼文件》被政府告上法庭(United States v. New York Times Company et al.)后，在最高法院的那场庭辩。   

《纽约时报》的这场官司打得惊心动魄，有很多看点，很多故事。不过，最令人难忘并一再被提起的是这样一个时刻：大法官波特·斯图尔特(Potter Stewart)问代表《纽约时报》的宪法诉讼律师、耶鲁大学教授亚历山大·比克尔(Alexander Bickel)：“假设我回去打开这些文件，我发现100名美国军人将因为《纽约时报》将要发表的内容而失去生命。你会继续发表吗？”

那一刻，全场一片死寂，如果一根针掉下来你也能听见。这个问题很可怕。根据第一修正案，正确的答案应该是：“那又怎样？”但你不能在一个重大案件中这样大声说出来。这将是人们唯一会记住的事情。但比克尔回答得如此之好。他说：“不，我对人性的忠诚大于我对法律原则的忠诚。但我要告诉你，如果你因为这个改变意见，那将是非常糟糕的法律。” 

对照比克尔充满智慧的答辩，这一回，三个大学校长听证会上对斯特凡尼克问题的答复也真的成了人们唯一记得的时刻，一个灾难性的时刻。很多人说，三位校长不是错在法律上，而是错在公关上。如果学习比克尔的做法，就可以拿满分了。

但我要说，这里的问题不是三位校长回答得对不对，而是她们该不该被要求回答这样的问题。或者还是以时报的官司为例，最后美国诉纽约时报案以政府败诉收场，等于是说，媒体不再需要回答斯图尔特大法官提出的问题。

其实，关于如何把握大学校园言论自由的问题，早在1967年就有了非常好的答案。

大学是批判者的家园，但它本身并不是批判者

60年代的美国大学校园是个特别混乱的场所，各种集会、静坐等抗议活动此起彼伏。学生们要求大学从与南非有关系的金融机构撤资，抗议征兵，反对越战，全国各地一触即发的种族矛盾爆发成骚乱......当时的美国大学，无论从字面上还是从象征意义上来说，都正处于抗议、世代动荡和内乱的风口浪尖。

1967年2月，芝加哥大学校长召集了一个由著名的第一修正案学者小哈里·卡尔文(Harry Kalven, Jr.)担任主席的教师委员会，就该校以怎样的原则对待“政治和社会行动”提出建议。这是一项极具挑战性的任务。在举国骚动之际，委员会成员们思考着他们的责任：大学应该如何应对当下炙手可热的政治和社会问题？当形形色色的党派分子要求大学选边站队并采取行动时，大学应该说什么或做什么？

委员会回顾、评估了一些与言论自由相关的历史事件，最后交出了《关于大学在政治和社会行动中的作用的报告》（也称为“卡尔文报告”）。该报告的核心结论是，大学的核心使命是“发现、改进和传播知识”，而保持中立是大学忠于其核心使命的必要条件。今天读来，报告中的不少论点，仿佛就是为当下的辩论焦点量体定制的：

“行使异议和批评这一工具的是教师个人或学生个人。大学是批判者的家园和赞助者，但它本身并不是批判者。”

“它不可能就当今问题采取集体行动，否则就必然危及其存在和有效性。没有任何机制可以让其达成集体立场，而不抑制促使其茁壮成长的充分的异议自由。”

“大学作为一个机构保持中立，既不是因为缺乏勇气，也不是因为漠不关心和麻木不仁。它源于对自由探索的尊重，源于珍视观点多样性的义务。”

“不应误解一所名牌大学的权力来源。大学的声望和影响力是建立在正直和知识能力的基础上的，而不是建立在它可能富有、可能有政治关系、可能有有影响力的朋友的基础上的。”

“卡尔文报告”强调：大学，作为一个机构，任何形式的参与或站队，都必然带来有损言论自由的副作用。只有保持中立，坚持不站队，大学机构才能真正成为提供言论自由的场所。对有争议的言论，教师和学生可以有鲜明的立场，但作为一个机构的学校却不该参与。

所以，要求大学校长对有争议的言论表态本身就是一个错误。政客是在玩政治游戏，但大学没有义务陪着一起玩。三个校长都拒绝在听证会上公开站队，不管在那个场合表面看来多尴尬，这样的回答完全正确。

相反，个别校长事后道歉，说明感受到了某种压力。这才是危险的信号。

大学的言论自由不该成为巴以冲突的牺牲品

从30多年前来到美国后就一直听说犹太人在美国势力极大，控制着很多东西。这次巴以冲突是真正见识了犹太人“金主”的厉害。

首先看见的当然是“金主”对大学的不满，取消或停止捐款的威胁就不说了，宾大校长不得不辞职的事情都发生了，可见学校承受压力之大。而这也正是“卡尔文报告”中强调的一点。

在“卡尔文报告”的最后，委员会成员之一，乔治·斯蒂格勒(George Stigler)教授，特意加了一个个人的注，说他同意报告的所有内容，唯一例外的是关于大学在以法人身份行事时的作用的说法。他认为，正确的表述方式应该是：“当大学以雇主和财产所有者的法人身份行事时，它当然应该体面地处理其事务。大学不应利用这些企业活动来促进任何道德或政治价值观，因为这样使用其设施会损害其作为知识自由之家的诚信。”

简单来说，就是大学不该被“金主”绑架。

以此来衡量现在的美国大学，我不认为它们在这方面是合格的。（当然，哈佛和MIT顶住了压力，两个学校的校长都保持了职位，这一点还是可喜可贺的。据说，这也是部分因为众议员斯特凡尼克“完成了一个，还剩两个”的推文给了另两个学校的校董极大刺激，让他们认识到这一行动的利害攸关。）

纽约共和党众议员埃莉斯·斯特凡尼克的一条推文说：“一个倒下了。还有两个。这仅仅是解决反犹太主义泛滥的开始，反犹太主义已经摧毁了美国最“著名”的高等教育机构。宾夕法尼亚大学校长被迫辞职只是最起码的要求......”

在美国，反犹的言论和思潮从来没死过，一有风吹草动就会冒头，2017年川普当选后，右翼势力抬头，在弗吉尼亚州夏洛茨维尔市(Charlottesville)举行拥护纳粹游行，高呼反犹口号，就是一个证明。所以，反对反犹是必要的，也是一个长期的斗争。但这并不意味着不能批评以色列政府。如果对以色列政府的批评受到犹太“金主”的压力，这不是一个健康社会的状况。

2007年，芝加哥大学和哈佛大学两位教授合著的一本揭露以色列游说势力对美国政策影响的书《以色列游说团与美国外交政策》(The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy)最初无法在美国出版，必须去欧洲出版，也从一个侧面说明了以色列游说势力在美国有多么强大。

研究和撰写以巴冲突问题的学者一直处于走钢丝的境地，说话必须小心再小心，早就是公开的秘密了。但10月7日之后，环境更加恶化。马里兰大学和乔治华盛顿大学的一项调查发现，66%的受访者表示在谈论中东问题进行了自我审查，高于2022年秋季的57%。首先，57%已经是一个非常高的数字了，在此基础上又提高了9个百分点达到66%，非常令人担忧！下面分别为两个调查图表。

这个图表的问题是：在以学术或专业身份谈论巴以问题时，您是否觉得有必要进行自我审查？[仅限美国境内受访者］这些结果来自936位受访者，他们是2023年11月10日至17日通过马里兰大学Qualtrics平台在线进行的“中东学者晴雨表”调查的结果 

自2023年10月7日以色列-加沙战争开始以来，您是否直接或间接地需要更多地进行自我审查？[仅限美国境内受访者］这些结果来自936位受访者，他们是2023年11月10日至17日通过马里兰大学Qualtrics平台在线进行的“中东学者晴雨表”调查的结果。

11月中旬，《哈佛法律评论》评审会投票决定不发表巴勒斯坦学者兼人权律师拉贝亚·埃格巴利亚(Rabea Eghbariah)的文章。（该文最后发表在The Nation。）

《纽约时报》报道，民权组织“巴勒斯坦法律”(Palestine Legal)的律师拉迪卡·赛纳特(Radhika Sainath)说，自哈马斯袭击事件以来，她所在的组织已收到450多起与校园相关的求助，比去年同期增加了十倍多。求助者包括被取消奖学金或遭到诽谤的学生、受到纪律处分的教授以及受到校董压力的管理人员。

在过去几个月里，最著名的亲巴勒斯坦校园团体“巴勒斯坦学生争取正义协会”至少被四所大学暂停，包括哥伦比亚大学、布兰代斯大学(Brandeis)、乔治华盛顿大学和罗格斯大学(Rutgers)。

在佛罗里达州，佛罗里达州立大学系统的校长于10月底致函各学校校长，要求必须“叫停”该州的“巴勒斯坦学生争取正义协会”分会。民权组织称这一命令明显违反了第一修正案。

塞纳特说：“这确实是我们从未见过的。无论是打压还是学生动员的规模，我们都迎来了60年代水平的时刻。”

CNN主持人法里德·扎卡利亚在《华盛顿邮报》发表标题为“战争的另一个牺牲品：校园言论自由”的观点文章。（《华盛顿邮报》截屏）

美国著名作家、CNN主持人法里德·扎卡利亚(Fareed Zakaria)感叹，美国大学的言论自由已经成为“战争的另一个牺牲品”。他说，在过去：“美国的言论自由如此强大”，……法院裁定允许一群纳粹分子游行。《哈佛深红报》能发表社论，赞扬波尔布特接管柬埔寨。他在上世纪80年代初上大学时，在校园里经常能听到煽动性的观点，从共产主义革命到狂妄地论证“黑人种族低劣”的科学家威廉·肖克利(William Shockley)。“在本世纪，我记得很少有大学就伊拉克战争，甚至2001年9月11日的恐怖袭击，发表官方声明。” 

而现在，扎卡里亚说道：“美国的顶尖大学不再被视为卓越的堡垒，而是党派的外衣，这意味着它们将不断受到这些政治风暴的冲击。”

美国大学的言论自由环境已经离上世纪的60-80年代相去甚远，大学作为一个机构的中立立场也岌岌可危。

“卡尔文报告”中有这样的阐述：“大学的使命是发现、改进和传播知识。它的探究和审视领域包括社会的方方面面和所有价值观。一所忠于其使命的大学将对社会价值观、政策、实践和制度提出持久的挑战。从设计和效果上讲，大学是对现有社会安排产生不满并提出新的社会安排的机构。简而言之，一所好的大学，就像苏格拉底一样，会让人感到不安。”

大学是新颖理论和观点的试验田，有激进、出格甚至奇葩的言论很正常。很多时候，这样的言论就是社会进步的原动力。一个连大学里都没有任何激进言论的社会，一定是一个死气沉沉，没有生命力的社会。那才是需要令人担忧的。

言论自由是会给社会带来一定的风险。但限制言论自由的风险更大，很可能是大到我们无法承受。如果说，怎么做都会有错，那么，宁可错在给予过多的言论自由吧。这也是大学作为一个机构需要保持中立的意义所在。

——————

附：《关于大学在政治和社会行动中的作用的报告》

卡尔文委员会

关于大学在政治和社会行动中的作用的报告

由乔治·W·比德尔(George W. Beadle)校长任命的，小哈利·卡尔文(Harry Kalven，Jr.)任主席的委员会的报告。报告发表于《记录》(Record)第I卷第1期第I页，1967年11月11日。

该委员会于1967年2月由乔治·W·比德尔校长任命，要求其编写“一份关于大学在政治和社会行动中的作用的声明”。委员会认为其职能主要是为大学社区讨论这一重要问题提供一个出发点。

委员会回顾了大学在以下事务中的经验：参与社区重建；在20世纪40年代的布罗伊莱斯法案(Broyles Bill)调查中以及50年代初的詹纳委员会(Jenner Committee)听证会上捍卫学术自由；反对1958年《国防教育法》中的免责声明；其对校外房屋出租标准的重新评估；以及在向选拔服务局提供男生军衔问题上的立场。委员会在内部讨论中发现，他们对大学在政治和社会行动中作用的适当性有着深刻的共识。但委员会感觉到一些人对大学这一角色的误解，因此希望重申一些古老的真理和宝贵的传统。

大学在促进社会和政治价值观的发展方面发挥着巨大而独特的作用。这种作用是由大学的独特使命所决定的，也是由大学作为一个群体的鲜明特点所决定的。这一角色的作用是从长远角度来看的。

大学的使命是发现、改进和传播知识。它的探究和审视领域包括社会的方方面面和所有价值观。一所忠于其使命的大学将对社会价值观、政策、实践和制度提出持久的挑战。从设计和效果上讲，大学是对现有社会安排产生不满并提出新的社会安排的机构。简而言之，一所好的大学，就像苏格拉底一样，会让人感到不安。

异议和批评的工具是教师个人或学生个人。大学是批判者的家园和赞助者，但它本身并不是批判者。再次回到经典的说法，大学是学者的社区。大学要履行其社会使命，就必须维持一个非同寻常的自由探索环境，并保持独立于政治时尚、激情和压力。一所大学，如果要忠实于自己的求知信念，就必须接纳、包容和鼓励自己社区内有最广泛的各种观点。它是一个社区，但只为教学和研究这一有限但伟大的目的而存在。它不是俱乐部，不是行业协会，也不是游说团体。 

由于大学只是为了这些有限而独特的目的而成为一个社区，因此它不可能就当今问题采取集体行动，否则就必然危及其存在和有效性。没有任何机制可以让其达成集体立场，而不抑制促使其茁壮成长的充分的异议自由。它不能坚持要求其所有成员都赞成某一社会政策观点；因此，如果它采取集体行动，就必然是以谴责任何持不同观点的少数人为代价。简言之，它是一个不能通过多数表决来就公共问题达成立场的社区。

因此，大学作为一个机构保持中立，既不是因为缺乏勇气，也不是因为漠不关心和麻木不仁。它源于对自由探索的尊重，源于珍视观点多样性的义务。作为一个机构，这种中立性与师生个人参与政治行动和社会抗议的充分自由相辅相成。大学有义务提供一个论坛，对公共问题进行最深入、最坦诚的讨论，这也是对大学的一种补充。

此外，不应误解一所名牌大学的权力来源。大学的声望和影响力是建立在正直和知识能力的基础上的，而不是建立在它可能富有、可能有政治关系、可能有有影响力的朋友的基础上的。

在历史的长河中时有这样的事件发生——社会或社会中的一部分，会威胁到大学的使命及其自由探索的价值观。在这种危机中，大学作为一个机构有义务反对那些威胁到大学的使命及价值的举措，积极捍卫自己的权益和价值观。也有另外一种情况，即涉及大学财产所有权、资金接收、荣誉授予、其他组织成员资格的情况时，可能会出现大学的角色怎样才适当的问题。在这种情况下，大学无论如何行动，都必须以法人身份作为一个机构行事。在特殊情况下，大学的这些法人活动可能会与最重要的社会价值观相抵触，因此需要对其后果进行仔细评估。

除了上述这些特殊情况之外，在我们看来，还有一个重要的推定，即反对大学采取集体行动，或就当今的政治和社会问题发表意见，或改变其企业活动以促进社会或政治价值观，无论这些价值观多么令人信服和吸引人。

诚然，这里谈到的都是涉及重大原则的问题，将原则应用于个案并非易事。

因此，教师、学生或行政部门都有不容置疑的权力通过现有渠道，如理事会委员会或校董会，质疑大学在特定情况下是否根据这些原则发挥了应有的作用。

我们的基本信念是，一所伟大的大学可以为改善社会做出巨大贡献。因此，大学不应偏离本身的使命，而成为二流政治力量或次影响力的角色。

小哈里·卡尔文，主席

约翰·霍普·富兰克林(John Hope Franklin)

格温·J·科尔布(Gwin J. Kolb)

乔治·斯蒂格勒(George Stigler)

雅各布·格泽尔斯(Jacob Getzels)

朱利安·戈德史密斯(Julian Goldsmith)

吉尔伯特·怀特(Gilbert F. White)

施蒂格勒的特别评论意见：

同意所起草的报告，但对倒数第五段关于大学在以法人身份行事时的作用的说法除外。关于这个问题，我希望采用以下形式的表述：

当大学以雇主和财产所有者的法人身份行事时，它当然应该体面地处理其事务。大学不应利用这些企业活动来促进任何道德或政治价值观，因为这样使用其设施会损害其作为知识自由之家的诚信。

学者：中国经济困境——债毁中国

 11月30日我在本网站发表本文的上篇之后，12月5日《华尔街日报》也刊登了一篇报道，《中国的巨额隐性债务问题已到紧要关头》。中国债务问题的严重性现在已经引起了华尔街的高度重视；而且，华尔街进一步把视角扩展到了中国金融系统的巨大风险，穆迪投资者服务公司最近下调了对中国的信用评级。由此可见，如何观察中国经济的前景，再单纯看被官方操作的GDP增长率，已经变成十分幼稚的眼光了；而穿透中国潜在金融危机的本质，才是了解当下中国问题的关键所在。

一、聚焦金融部门

 金融系统包括商业银行、专业银行以及非银行金融机构。中国的商业银行分国内银行和外资银行。国内银行的主力是大型国有商业银行，如工商银行、农业银行、中国银行、建设银行、邮政储蓄银行和交通银行；此外还有一些规模较小的股份制银行，其中排名在前的是招商银行、浦发银行、中信银行、光大银行等，还有一批城市银行和农村商业银行。

    在中国开设过业务的外资银行曾达到47家，主要是美国的花旗银行、摩根·斯丹利和摩根·大通银行，香港的渣打银行，英国的汇丰银行，日本的三井住友银行和三菱东京联合银行等，台湾有12家银行在中国开办业务。花旗银行曾经多年来在中国开展高端客户服务（理财账户开户需50万元人民币起跳），去年底花旗已关闭中国的个人银行业务。今年12月8日《华尔街日报》刊登消息指出，华尔街金融机构已大幅减少对华投资。

    非银行金融机构包括保险、公募基金、私募基金、信托、证券、保险、融资租赁等机构以及财务公司等。其中也有一些外资机构，比如著名的美国先锋领航集团(Vanguard)，其全球资产管理规模超过6万亿美元，相当于中国前十名基金公司管理资产总和的六倍。这家曾活跃在中国公募基金市场上的机构最近决定，把已经收缩得很小的上海办事处关闭，退出中国。过去十年，面向中国市场的外企私募股权基金平均每年募资近一千亿美元，而今年这些基金仅募资43.5亿美元，业务大幅度萎缩。

    金融部门是国民经济的“心脏”，它不断为各行各业“输送血液”；然而，六年前上海证券交易所发布研究报告提出，要警惕中国经济的过度金融化。其背景是，中国的金融部门正在“脱实向虚”，走在不健康的扩张道路上，导致中国的经济重心逐渐从产业部门转移到金融部门。中国金融业增加值占GDP的比重，从上个世纪八十年代末金融业不发达时代的1.9%，快速上升到了现在的8.3%，这意味着金融风险的来临。

二、金融部门的债务风险迅速升高

    中国的银行是和政权的存亡绑在一起的，中共会不择手段地不让银行破产。实际上，中国的金融系统是中共最后的经济“救命药”，财政的债务主要靠银行认购地方政府的债券，国有企业的坏账靠银行消化；而银行唯一靠的就是政府信用，中国的民众倾向于相信政府不会让国有银行垮掉。正因为如此，为了维持银行业的声誉，银行奉命不得公布真实的坏账数目，也不会如实减记银行的资产。所以，中国的金融部门之债务是个黑箱，没办法准确算出来；也就是说，各家银行，主要指大型银行，它们的债务到底是多少，无法按账面数据来判断。

    今年11月23日中国的全国人大常委会公布了《对2022年度国有资产管理情况综合报告和2022年度金融企业国有资产管理情况专项报告的意见和建议》。这份官方文件指出，中国金融业增加值占GDP的比重已明显超过了欧盟的3.9%，也超过了经济合作与发展组织（OECD）成员国的4.9%；中国金融业规模巨大，但净资产收益率、不良贷款率、资本充足率等重要指标存在问题，资本金补充渠道不通，上市国有金融企业的股价普遍跌破每股净资产价值。因此，全国人大常委会要求，现在要建立重点领域金融风险识别、预警和应急处置机制。

    全国人大是中国宪法上的“国家最高权力机关”，但在中共的政治体制中，它实际上是中央领导者手中的“橡皮图章”。全国人大既没有真正的权力，也没有真正监督政府的资格；它唯一的任务就是，为中共领导者交代下来的文件走一个“议政”的过场，然后盖上一个“奉旨照准”的“图章”。因此，全国人大的公开文件中，对政府行政之弊，从来都是用温柔的语词“挠痒痒”。当这样的文件开始质疑金融风险的时候，自然就意味着金融风险已经在“叩门”了。

    虽然国际金融界无法了解中国金融部门债务黑箱的状况，但还是凭种种讯号看出了一些端倪。最近，国际信贷评级机构穆迪嗅到了中国金融风险的味道，于是将中国的主权信贷评级由“稳定”降至“负面”，同时将八家中国的重要银行之信贷评级由“稳定”降至“负面”，这八家银行包括农业银行、中国银行、建设银行、工商银行及邮政储蓄银行等五大国有商业银行，以及农业发展银行、国家开发银行及进出口银行这三家政策性银行。这种负面评价标志着，中国的金融部门潜在的风险正在显性化。

三、中国的金融“大锅饭”体制

    自由经济国家的读者不容易了解中国的金融制度，他们往往用自由经济之下私营银行的管理运作体制去看待中国的银行。其实，中国的金融体制与自由经济国家实在是天差地别的。如果说，中国的经济改革曾经改变了共产党传统的计划经济，那么，共产党传统的金融“大锅饭”体制，其实质则没有多少改变。

在共产党制度下，政府是把银行当“ATM（Automated teller machine）”来用的，财政没钱了，国有企业亏损了，一律都是靠银行用贷款来喂养的。中国改革之前，国民经济当中的资金，八成由国有企业和财政来掌控；民众非常贫困，1978年人均新增储蓄存款只有5元钱，因此，银行能运用的居民储蓄非常少。在这种状况下，银行实际上主要靠国有企业的存款和财政存款来维持经营，它服务的对象也主要是国有企业，所以银行实际上不过是财政和国有企业的“出纳”。

    中国开始经济改革以后，财政能控制的资金占国民经济的比重越来越小，而随着民众收入的增加和购买耐用消费品的需要，银行的资金来源逐渐转变成主要依靠民众的存款，银行也替代财政而成为经济成长的推手。但是，八十年代和九十年代前半期，国有企业依然占据中国经济的绝大部分江山，而国有企业依赖国有银行贷款来维持运转的局面并未改变。

    由于地方政府可以影响国有银行在各地的分行、支行，银行不能拒绝国有企业无穷尽的贷款需要，国营企业则把银行贷款看成是“政府拨款”。因此，虽然银行的很大一部分资金来源变成了居民的私人存款，可是银行贷款仍然是面向国有企业的“大锅饭”机制。这就为中国的银行体制埋下了一个致命的“地雷”，一旦银行被国有企业掏空了，银行的巨额坏账就必然动摇金融部门的安全，诱发金融危机。

四、中国银行业的第一次危机

    当前中国面临的潜在金融危机其实是改革以来的第二次，而第一次发生在1996年。

    上个世纪九十年代前半期，城镇就业者中86%是国有部门和具有国有部门特征的集体企业员工。中共为了政治稳定，试图稳定国有经济，为此江泽民提出了“安定团结贷款”这个金融方针，即为了稳定城市的国有企业，要无条件地为国有企业提供它需要的银行贷款。然而，国有部门的效率却持续下降，当金融资源里国有部门占用份额占八成时，这个部门对GDP的贡献只有四成多。这代表着国有部门的生存靠的是“汲取”国民经济资源，同时国有部门负债累累，越来越多的国企开始向银行“打白条”，即不仅不再偿还贷款，连利息也不再支付。从1979年到1994年，国有部门的净资产率（equity rate）从76%降到25%，1994年12万个国有企业的资产负债率达到了83%。

    在中共的这种经济政策之下，当时金融系统进入了危机状态，四大银行贷款的两成已成坏账，若加上逾期呆滞贷款，贷款总额的七成实际上已沦为无法归还的烂账。1991年四大银行的呆帐约4,300亿元，而同期这些银行的资本金只有1,500多亿，银行系统已严重地资不抵债。1994年中国银行业出现了历史上第一次严重的全面亏损，银行的资金平衡表上出现了历史上首次的自有资本减少，也就是银行的自有资本快要被国有企业吞噬殆尽。

    当时中国银行业的不良贷款比例是发达国家商业银行的10到15倍，而坏帐准备金几乎为零。面对这种危险局面，中共在1997年不得不采取了激进的国企全面私有化方针，目的是为银行系统“止血”。当局掩盖私有化的词语是国企“改制”，至于改成什么所有制，则故意避而不谈。

    朱镕基1997下半年开始全面推行国企“改制”（即私有化），把十多万家国有工业企业的绝大多数都作为“包袱”甩掉，迫使几千万“全民所有制”职工低补偿或无补偿下岗，借此让中小企业私有化，同时让大型国企上市、实行部分私有化。

五、国企私有化暂时救了中共

    在中国的国企私有化过程中，当局让国有企业的厂长经理和地方政府官员充当“改制”和裁员下岗的操作者，同时也把私有化可能产生的社会不满和愤怒，从政府身上转移到了国企的厂长经理身上。当然，国企的厂长经理们不会白白当“替罪羊”。国有私有化，企业都卖给谁？事实上，国企厂长经理们的家庭积蓄根本无法满足收购企业所需要的百万、千万、甚至上亿元的资金需要，而外资在国企私有化过程中的作用微乎其微。

    在这种情况下，朱镕基鼓励国企的厂长经理们使用非法手段，摇身一变而成为各自企业的新老板。近百万国企管理者用企业作担保，从银行借款，“购买”了自己主管企业的国有财产，把企业注册在本人或家族成员名下；然后以企业所有者的身份，动用企业公款，归还他们私人购买企业的贷款。此外，许多国企管理者逼迫员工购买企业的部分股份，职工为保住饭碗，只能拿出家庭储蓄来购买本企业的股份；但普通职工拥有股份后，企业管理层并不许职工股东过问企业经营和资产转让，等于让职工出资帮企业管理层获取企业的所有权。同时，当局纵容红色权贵家庭的妻子儿女，利用关系网帮助大国有企业获准上市，以此无偿获得上市公司的股份，然后通过抬高股价大获其利。

    中国1996年有11万家国有工业企业，2008年底只剩不到1万家，其中还包括已实行部分私有化、但政府仍控股的大型国企。中国的私有化分为两个阶段。第一阶段是中小国企的私有化，从1997年下半年到2001年，历时4年。究竟谁成了国企“改制”后的新老板？据世界银行等国际组织所做的两个全国性抽样调查，大约50%到60%的国企都变成企业管理层私人拥有；约四分之一的企业的买主来自国内其他行业的投资者，其中外资所占份额不足2%；由管理层和职工共同私有化的仅占一成。

    朱镕基推动私有化的时候，中国正急于加入WTO，以扩大出口。WTO接纳中国的前提是，中国必须取消计划经济并实行国企私有化。因此，中共当时为了向世界银行等国际组织提供中国私有化进展状况的资料，为中国加入WTO铺路，特别准许境外研究人员对国企私有化做调查，因此，中国国企私有化的结果早已在国际社会公开。但当局在国内对私有化真相掩耳盗铃，不许国内媒体报道私有化的结果，也禁止国内学者研究这个专题。

    此后中共迎来了外资涌入的高潮，外企帮助中国的银行把坏账打包处理，度过了中国银行业的第一次危机；同时，借助大规模出口和“世界工厂”的形成，中国经历了经济繁荣的二十年。

六、中国银行业的第二次危机

    国企私有化确实帮银行从此甩掉了为中小型国企“输血”的任务，但并没改变大型国企“汲取”金融资源的运行特征。不仅如此，地方政府为了通过开发房地产赚钱，发行了大量债券，大部分让银行认购，因此，2010年开始，各级地方政府都加入了从银行“吸血”的行列。中国的金融“大锅饭”体制并没被改变，相反却成了地方政府赖以生存的“生命线”。连民营的房地产企业也学会了吃金融“大锅饭”，最终引发了大型房地产公司接连爆雷，戳破了房地产泡沫。

    房地产泡沫破灭之后，地方政府的巨额债务、国企和民企的巨额贷款坏账，再加上民众无法归还的大量贷款，最后都把压力集中到银行系统，导出了中国改革以来的第二次金融危机。本文提出的“债毁中国”现象，从根本上讲，就是共产党统治下吃金融“大锅饭”的结果。中共为了控制金融资源，只让银行上市圈钱，却把大一点的银行之主要所有权掌控在自己手里，结果中国的第二次金融危机，与第一次金融危机一样，仍然构成了政权的危机。

    2023年10月底全国金融机构账面上的贷款是235万亿，承购债券是64万亿，合起来是300万亿。目前官方承认的坏账率是1.8%，实际上，因为地方政府的债券很大一部分还不了，仅仅按地方政府债券的坏账率50%，企业贷款的坏账率为10%来计算，金融部门的坏账就有56万亿。

    如果把中央和地方政府的债务114万亿，加上国有非金融企业的债务220万亿，再加上金融系统的最低债务56万亿，合起来就是390万亿，将近400兆。这个数字是中国GDP的3倍多。假如把中国比喻成一家中共控制的大公司，营业额是每年120万亿，负债则高达400万亿，这家公司是不是已经快要破产了？

七、重新审视中国的债务

    我估计的中国债务，比国际货币基金组织公布的计算结果要高很多。IMF预测的中国负债占GDP的比重似乎不算高，比美国和日本的这个数值低一些。但是，IMF的统计有三个错误。第一，IMF低估了中国地方政府的隐性债务；第二，IMF的计算排除了国有非金融企业的巨额债务，而国有企业以其政府背景、向银行大量借的不会归还的贷款，其实也是中共的政府债务；第三，IMF的计算完全没考虑中国的国有金融系统的巨额坏账。

    由于美国和日本都没有中国的这三种状况，所以美国和日本的负债占GDP的比重，其实与中国并没有可比性。中国的负债占GDP的比例实际上早已是世界第一，而且是美国的两倍多。

    此外，中国的大量国际债务是不能用人民币偿还的，因为人民币不是硬通货。而中国三万亿美元的外汇储备，除了要偿还外债，还要应付数万亿美元外企投资（包括直接投资和金融投资）汇出盈利和撤回投资的需要。单从这个角度看，中共的债务危机就很难化解了。

    那中共能象度过第一次银行业危机那样，再一次把国企私有化，从而化险为夷吗？私有化靠私营企业的实力，美国和日本的私营企业都是世界级大公司，主导着本国经济和国际经济；但中国的私营企业除了房地产公司之外，大部分都是小公司，完全没办法把国有的巨无霸公司民营化。一句话，此路不通。

    中共的第一次银行业危机是靠美国帮忙解决的，而这一次银行业危机就没有美国帮忙了。地球上只有一个WTO，中共无法再找到另一个脱身危机的外助。其实，中共的第一次银行业危机，美国是不知道底细的，糊里糊涂地帮了忙；而这第二次“债毁中国”，美国的华尔街已经比较了解中国经济的真实状况了，当然不会再上当。《华尔街日报》发表的文章就是一个信号，这篇报道的标题是，《“不碰中国”的投资战略行之有效》。

Is Vladimir Putin right to think he’s winning in the war against Ukraine?

 Vladimir Putin says more than 600,000 Russian soldiers are in Ukraine, almost twice the number he started the war with. His “freeloading” adversary will soon run out of Western support. And in a sign of his growing confidence at his traditional end-of-year press conference, he insists that Ukraine’s forces have “failed everywhere” in their counter-offensive. But as the snow starts to fill trenches at the end of a second year of fighting he initially expected to be over in days, is he right?

Fading optimism

It is certainly true that summer optimism around Ukraine’s ability to retake land down to the coast by Christmas wilted as autumn turned to winter. Now burnt-out equipment, some Western donated, slowly rusts in sleet splashed red with blood.

But that blood is Russian too. Kyiv’s forces continue to repel waves of morally repugnant “meat assaults” from Putin’s troops: ill-equipped Russian men running terrified and occasionally drunk at Ukrainian guns. Even as the ground freezes such attacks continue. The MoD today revealed that a newly formed Russian paratroop division “suffered exceptionally heavy losses” when it tried to dislodge Ukrainian forces from the left bank of the Dnipro river. The MoD said the 104th Guards Airborne Division (104 GAD) was “poorly supported by airpower and artillery, while many of the troops were highly likely inexperienced”. Russian bloggers demanded the officer in command resign.

That’s the kind of criticism that Putin likes to pretend does not exist, and which forced him to cancel last year’s press conference. Even today’s press conference was not immune to domestic barbs aimed at him – with critical questions from the public mistakenly displayed behind him on the big screen including: “I’d like to know, when will our president pay attention to his own country? We’ve got no education, no healthcare. The abyss lies ahead...” Mr Putin may like to present Ukraine’s backers as divided and Russia united, but – as he apologised for the price of eggs in his own country – the conflict is certainly not all going his own way.

The failed counter-attack

Ukraine’s counter-offensive culminated in November. Culmination is a military term essentially meaning a force is exhausted, either physically or in terms of logistics expended. It needs a pause, a regroup, a replenishment.

To culminate is not to be defeated – it doesn’t follow that just because a force cannot keep going forwards it will automatically be pushed back. Rather, culmination is a routine and expected phase of any military advance. The trick for military commanders is to anticipate when it will occur and plan accordingly, so that the last objective is taken and secured against enemy counter-attack just as the force has to pause.

Kyiv will have taken many lessons about planning, force integration and training from the counter-offensive, but in geographic terms the advance has not reached any of the major objectives it was likely designed to: Tokmak, Melitopol, perhaps even, although this would always have been a bit ambitious, the Sea of Azov.

There’s no denying Ukraine wished for more from the counter-offensive on land, but those saying the culmination of this operation shows Ukraine’s effort is finished and President Zelensky might as well just take his chances with negotiations are very wrong. War doesn’t work like that. Look at Dunkirk. Or, look at the failed raid in 1942 on the port of Dieppe. Canadian-led Operation Jubilee, the first large offensive in Europe after Dunkirk, was criticised as having been launched out of a desire just to “do something”. The operation was a disaster with over half the force killed, wounded or captured, but the experience there did influence the success of D-Day two years later. Lessons such as prioritising the landing on wide open beaches to allow space for large numbers of troops and vehicles to be offloaded quickly and to develop vehicles (known as “Hobart’s Funnies” after the ingenious Major-General Percy Hobart) specifically to breach the fortifications of the Atlantic Wall, led Lord Mountbatten, an architect of the raid, to claim “the battle of D-Day was won on the beaches of Dieppe”.

Russian soldiers walk through a destroyed part of a Mariupol steel plant - AP

Take another famous battle: Operation Market Garden, immortalised in the film A Bridge Too Far, was the effort in September 1944 to push across the Lower Rhine river to create an invasion route into northern Germany. Lessons from that operation – to drop paratroopers in a single lift instead of numerous waves over a number of hours and only a short distance behind enemy lines to make the link-up with ground forces all the swifter – directly fed into the conduct of Operation Varsity six months later, the successful airborne effort that did get over the Rhine.

The military lesson here is that even a well-planned, well-equipped and well-led operation can fail, or at least not meet all of its objectives, and should from time to time in war be expected to, but if the correct analysis is applied - which could result in reorganisation and even the removal of senior leaders – lessons will be learnt that should lead to more successful operations in the future.

Undoubtedly though, Ukraine ends 2023 in a precarious position on the battlefield. Defence analyst Konrad Muzyka says Russia is slowly regaining the initiative following the culmination of Ukraine’s counter-offensive.

“The tables may have turned for the foreseeable future,” he says. “It’s incredibly important for Ukraine now to start building their own fortifications, as deep as they possibly can.”

Ukraine’s priority now should be thinking about a “theory of victory”.

“How would they like to end this war? Is getting Crimea back still on the table? Or just retaking territory Russia captured since February last year? The political leadership needs to articulate that one way or another.”

Stasis on land, triumph at sea

With both sides dug in, the war in Ukraine is entering a phase of what General Valery Zaluzhny, the head of Ukraine’s armed forces, referred to recently in an essay, as “positional warfare”, i.e. largely static. This is opposed to manoeuvre warfare, when lines can shift rapidly and dramatically, and which we witnessed last year when Ukraine broke through Russian lines near Kharkiv and dashed eastwards for about 50 miles, or when Moscow pulled its troops back from Kheron and across the Dnipro river.

Positional doesn’t mean stalemate, however; Gen Zaluzhny chose his words carefully.

Putin – pictured with Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov, commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy – oversees the launch of new nuclear submarines - Kirill Iodas/Pool Sputnik Kremlin

Even if the land campaign hasn’t seen any major breakthroughs, the overall direction of the war – which is, of course, the ability of one country to impose its will on another through military means – is governed by many more factors.

Look, for example, at the Black Sea. The risk of being hit by long-range missiles such as Britain’s Storm Shadow or the French equivalent, SCALP, means the Russian fleet has been forced to move many assets – including, it is thought, its entire fleet of Kilo-class diesel electric submarines – out of Sevastopol. The headquarters of Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet was also destroyed a few weeks ago in a strike that reportedly killed its commander, Admiral Viktor Sokolov.

The Emperor Alexander III is one of Russia's new nuclear submarines, built to showcase the country's naval power - Kirill Iodas/Pool Sputnik Kremlin

Russian naval assets have been shown to be incredibly vulnerable away from port, too. Ukraine’s modified Neptune missiles and naval drones have proven adept at hitting ships at sea. The consequent reduction in the number of Russian vessels deployed that are capable of firing Kalibr cruise missiles into Odessa and other ports has enabled Ukraine to revive its international trade in grain, a vital economic lifeline. Russia’s de facto blockade of Ukrainian ports on the sea and the Danube river has been broken; an astonishing result for a country without a navy.

Stalemate and wavering allies

Prof Timothy Snyder, Levin Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University, takes issue with the very notion of “stalemate”. “I hate and despise, with my entire being, the metaphor of ‘stalemate’,” he says. “War is not a game of chess.”

He says the word allows us to move away from the “grimy, difficult truths” about war. It is also a false reference, he adds, noting that “in a war, I can give you five more kings. Britain, the US or the EU could say, ‘Okay, we’re going to give you a lot of counter-battery [artillery]. Or instead of giving you 20 Bradley (a US-made infantry fighting vehicle) we’re going to give you 300.’ Rules don’t actually exist.”

At this stage of the war, Prof Snyder says Russia doesn’t have meaningful offensive potential, a situation that will endure if Ukraine’s international partners continue to send arms.

“In a long war the economic advantage the Ukrainians indirectly have should eventually be telling,” he says, pointing out that even if US support was withdrawn the combined economic heft of the EU and Britain substantially outmatches Russia.

He is not the only one to highlight the potential economic and industrial advantage Ukraine could enjoy, if the resolve of partner nations endures. Although, “right now, that’s a pretty big ‘if’,” he cautions.

At the Lucerne Dialogue, held in Switzerland each November, Sir Richard Barrons, a retired British general, said: “The only way Ukraine wins is if we mobilise our industry and our will behind that.”

Addressing business and political leaders he criticised the lacklustre efforts to ramp up European defence industrial production: “Do not tell me it’s unaffordable, because you represent an economy of 15 trillion euros a year and I can feed the Ukrainian army on about 75 billion euros for two or three years and I can make them win,” he said. “This is not about affordability, this is about choice.”

Similar warnings have been sounded in a new paper for the Royal United Services Institute.

Professor Justin Bronk, senior research fellow for Airpower and Technology, says Russia’s economy is now on a war footing, with armament production rising sharply.

“The Kremlin’s strategy is to conquer Ukraine by continuing to fight until the West gives up, so forcing Kyiv to ‘negotiate’ won’t end the war, it will only encourage Russia to fight on.”

Another push?

When will Ukraine attempt another push? That depends on a number of things.

First, the combatants have to get through winter. Once that descends in earnest on the battlefields it will largely snuff out all but the most determined movement. The trenches will still be inhabited, of course, but troops freeze easily when standing still just keeping watch for the enemy.

Morale can dip just as quickly as the temperature. Kyiv’s troops, in better winter gear and with a legitimate cause to fight for, should be expected to weather such conditions in better order than the Russians.

It will still be brutal, however. Exposed fingers can freeze to the barrel of a frozen rifle, injuring the owner of the arm that tries to rip them off. Feet, the critical enabler for infantry, must be protected against trench foot in the wet weather and frost bite in the cold. Poor quality clothing, especially boots (or LPCs - Leather Personnel Carriers, as the British Army’s gallows humour had it) will create as many casualties as the enemy.

Ukraine may attempt another push but morale can dip just as quickly as the temperature – and the winter months will be brutal - ANATOLII STEPANOV/AFP

Second, Ukraine may well decide a number of failed small offensives conducted in quick succession – to shore up domestic and international support – could be more damaging than waiting until they have a much bigger and more capable force.

Kyiv may take the view that 2024 is not a year to attempt bold advances on the battlefield, but as a time to build. To amass stocks of armaments, train military forces in more than just the most basic infantry tactics, and to develop a deep and resilient defence industrial base.

The return of Trump

If Kyiv’s international partners truly believe that the fight in Ukraine benefits all who believe in the international rules-based order, they will also be required to dig in – figuratively, in terms of political support, and literally, by building new factories to win the attritional war of resources.

That may make military sense, but there’s a problem: time, and it’s probably not on Ukraine’s side.

Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, was caught out recently on a prank call saying: “I see that there is a lot of fatigue… from all sides”. This speaks of the risk of “compassion fatigue” and raises questions of how easily the international community can be convinced that setbacks in war are to be expected and not signs of a losing strategy.

Time is also ticking away to next November’s US presidential election.

If Donald Trump beats Joe Biden for the presidency, it could change the course of the Ukraine war - MANDEL NGAN/AFP

There is no guarantee Donald Trump will win the Republican Party’s nomination – although that is looking increasingly likely given the polling figures – or that he could beat Joe Biden (the chances of the Democrats ditching the current President as their nominee are vanishingly small).

Given the war in Ukraine, a belligerent China, Iran and North Korea and challenges to the rules-based international order from Venezuela (that might be about to start a war in South America) and Turkey (evading international sanctions to trade with Russia) a possible second Trump presidency could be even more consequential for the world than the first.

Which Trump might return to the White House? A vindictive geopolitical amateur, in thrall to the “Big Man” theory of history and more interested in using his power to settle domestic scores, or a statesman able to take difficult decisions? He did, after all, authorise the strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, head of Iran’s Quds Force and the man responsible for Tehran’s extraterritorial and clandestine military operations.

Russian dissent

There is much hard work ahead for President Zelensky to ensure the right lessons are learned from the recent counter-offensive and to reinforce morale, outside the country as much as within. His priority for 2024 will likely be to convince Ukraine’s international partners to take long-term political, military and industrial positions, regardless of any “fatigue” and ahead, potentially, of a distracted or disinterested White House.

Western officials note Putin has geared his economy for war at the expense of other domestic considerations. Russia’s defence spending in 2024 will be higher than health and education combined and demands for fighters at the front mean there are personnel shortages back home. This is unsustainable and will have domestic repercussions.

There is no political opposition in Russia to speak of, but there are signs of dissent.

Putin announced that war expenses would remain a priority, with huge implications for other domestic considerations - MAXIM SHEMETOV/REUTERS

Evgenia Kara-Murza, a human rights activist and wife of political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza, says the level of repression inside Russia shows Putin’s regime, although strong, is “totally paranoid”.

Mrs Kara-Murza, whose husband was sentenced in April 2023 to 25 years in prison, says: “I understand the fear and why the regime is using such repressive mechanisms against dissenters. They want to intimidate some and silence others.

“If there was no dissent in the country the regime would not be using such atrocious mechanisms of repression.

“The regime is going so cruelly after dissenters in Russia because it wants to annihilate that alternative that does exist in the country. It wants also to show the world a warped image of reality in which the entire Russian population stands strongly supporting Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine. This has nothing to do with reality. The voices of those who run impossible risks to say ‘no’ to the regime need to be heard.”

Overcoming distractions

Lord Cameron now says that defeating Russian aggression is “the challenge of this generation” while retired Gen Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, the former head of the British Army, told the Telegraph that the international community “needs to continue to hold its nerve and to sustain this commitment to Ukraine”.

Hamas’s attack on Israel sucked some of the oxygen and the attention of events in Europe, he suggests. “Where one reads that there might be a growing sense that, given the events of the summer, Ukraine is going to find it very difficult to defeat Russia militarily, one might reflect that that’s possibly of our own making at the moment. Because incrementalism is no way to fight a war.”

Prof Bronk, of Rusi, frames this challenge through the context of a potential war in the Pacific: “The extent of China’s military capability advances mean that the US military is increasingly overstretched in the Indo-Pacific,” he says.

“In the event of a flashpoint conflict or even serious standoff later in the 2020s, the US will not have sufficient capacity concurrently to reinforce Europe at scale.

“Russia will have a strong incentive to use any US-China clash in the late 2020s to trigger Article 5 by attacking a small area of Nato territory while the US cannot respond, unless Europe urgently invests in rearmament.”

The institutions and norms of international behaviour, built over the last few decades from the carnage of the Second World War, are under strain as never before. The so-called “rules-based international order” has no divine right to exist and others, notably China and Russia, are happy to pull at loose threads; to offer an alternative model for the 21st century.

Baulk at confronting these challenges and the message will be sent far and wide that the values the West says it cares about so much aren’t actually that important. The consequences could be severe.

A Western official says support for Ukraine “is not conditional on any battlefield breakthrough”. But Putin’s bluster in Moscow suggests he knows different. This winter will begin to determine who has more right to feel confident.

Where is Russia's next wave of men coming from?

 Logan Nye

Tue, November 28, 2023

There seems to be a recurring point made in the current discussion around the Russo-Ukrainian War. Ukraine will always struggle with manpower as a smaller, democratic country. And Russia will always thrive in the manpower fight because it is larger and run by an autocrat.

So Ukraine and Russia are two battling animals, and Russia can bleed for longer than Ukraine can fight.

But...what? Did we all forget that Russia announced a conscription of 300,000 last year and saw hundreds of thousands of Russians flee the country? Indeed, over 1 million Russians entered Georgia in the nine months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So, let's interrogate the idea that Russia has an endless pool of manpower.

But first, we should acknowledge that Ukraine also faces real manpower shortages.

Ukraine's manpower struggles

KYIV, UKRAINE - NOVEMBER 27: People stand around a memorial to fallen Ukrainian soldiers after a snowfall on November 27, 2023 in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Photo by Danylo Antoniuk/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

We should get this out of the way because, while the author unabashedly supports Ukraine, it would be quite dishonest to discuss Russia's manpower woes without admitting that Ukraine faces a lot of the same problems.

Ukraine has the much smaller population of the two countries. Ukraine has just shy of 14 million men aged 15-64 years. Russia has over 45 million. Ukraine's pool is literally less than a third of the size.

And Ukraine has faced problems with draft dodging. An estimated 20,000 fighting-age men fled by November of 2023. That's five brigades worth, an entire division, if Ukraine was into divisions.

Meanwhile, it has already lost an estimated 200,000 casualties among its troops and over 26,000 civilian casualties.

Ukraine, in theory, has millions more men that it can press into service. But in practical terms, its military has tripled in size since February 2022 but probably couldn't double again without major strain.

Russia's manpower struggles

So, yes, Russia's population is nearly triple the size of Ukraine's. And it's taking losses at just 1.5 times the rate of Ukraine (an estimated 300,000 Russian casualties to 200,000 Ukrainian ones). If Russia and Ukraine both poured their men's blood into a pit at the current rates, Ukraine would run out long before Russia.

But Russia is fighting a war of choice and aggression very poorly. And its poor and disenfranchised masses understand that they're being used as fodder for Putin's vanity war. Russia's population is surprisingly diverse, with five minorities representing over 1 percent each of the population, and over 23 percent of Russians not claiming Russian ethnicity.

But Russia is disproportionately calling up its ethnic minorities, and they've noticed. And, believe it or not, oppressed minorities would typically rather not die subjecting other ethnicities to oppression.

Remember, when Russia called up 300,000 men for military service and an estimated more than 200,000 fled the country in a week?

And AP just released phone calls of Russian soldiers who want to flee their units.

Russia can barely keep up the bonuses needed to keep drawing volunteers into the military, and that's without paying many of the death bonuses. Because, yes, Russian families are supposed to get death gratuities, but Russia is reportedly hiding many deaths to prevent paying out.

Meanwhile, the Russian economy continues to flash warning signs, the economy that's needed to provide those bonuses. As well as pay for the massive amounts of destroyed war material.

A conscription further damages the economy, requires more money for training, money for enforcement, and then more money for death bonuses and funerals. Indeed, Putin is reportedly afraid to call another mass mobilization precisely because of the damage to the economy and popular sentiment.

The Russian economy is in the toilet

Most media credulously prints whatever economic numbers that Russia claims. But more skeptical economists have double-checked Russia's claims. First, the bulk of Russia's income, as always, comes from the sale of Urals Crude. But Urals Crude is trading at less than $62 a barrel as of the time of writing. And that's despite massive OPEC production cuts and Russia restricting exports. So Russia is collecting little per barrel while also selling fewer barrels.

The exact numbers are hidden since so much Russian oil is smuggled on a "dark" tanker fleet, that Russia had to buy, but oil revenues are definitely down.

Meanwhile, Russia claims that its economy has grown while admitting that large portions of it now exclusively produce war goods instead of consumer goods. But even those numbers are suspect, since researchers at the European Central Bank found that Russia claimed its factories were humming at full-strength even as air quality data and energy consumption showed quite clearly that Russian factories must have either gone entirely solar or else were sitting dormant.

Economist Dr. Joeri Schasfoort held a YouTube live with one of the European Central Bank researchers on his channel Money & Macro. He said academics largely trusted Russia's numbers before the war, but its data since sanctions started are entirely suspect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZMi9QZqy6M

So, yes, Russia is the larger country with the larger population. But with its economy already strained, its men already fleeing conscription at nearly the pace that men are accepting it, and it taking heavier losses than Ukraine, it's not actually clear that it has some endless pool of soldiers.

Instead, we should see Russia as an already wounded animal. We may not know how much blood it has left. But we also know it will pass out or die before it hits zero. Imagining that Russia can bleed forever is a weird, dark fantasy.

Logan Nye was an Army journalist and paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division. Now, he’s a freelance writer and live-streamer. In addition to covering military and conflict news at We Are The Mighty, he has an upcoming military literacy channel on Twitch.tv/logannyewrites.