To continue war, russia will be forced to take unpopular measures: mobilization and closure of borders - IISS

The leadership of russia, the aggressor nation, will have to make a choice if it decides not to end its full-scale war against Ukraine. Continuing the war will require mobilization, the closure of borders, and restrictions on the country’s remaining freedoms.

This is stated in a report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), headquartered in London.

IISS analysts note that, given the current course of events, the war against Ukraine will most likely prove economically unsustainable. The russian leadership will soon have to make a fundamental choice: either radically tighten demands on the economy and society, or revise military objectives toward scaling them back.

The russian economy is currently operating at the limits of its production capacity. Further allocation of limited resources to military production yields increasingly diminishing returns. An even more serious constraint is the labor force. Demand for soldiers and workers at military factories has surged, while casualties and population outflow have led to a shrinking workforce.

The IISS emphasized that this is the first major war in the history of modern russia in which the state does not force civilians to participate in combat operations. Instead, it pays them well for doing so. There are signs that this incentive may be ceasing to be effective. Furthermore, russia has begun to lose more soldiers than it can recruit.

This points to a deeper contradiction. Russia has not yet mobilized for war. Unlike in Soviet times, it is forced to pay market prices for resources for military production, for labor, and for capital in order to finance a growing budget deficit.

As a result, military power costs russia more today than it did during the Cold War. Thus, public finances are facing growing pressures. High prices for capital, labor, and goods caused by the war, as well as rising taxes, have begun to put pressure on civilian sectors. But this does not free up resources for military production, leading to a dual economy: overheated military production and civilian stagnation.

“In order to sustain its war, Russia will have to impose significant new command-like measures that forcibly mobilise human and material resources for the war effort. This will require it to curtail the last remaining post-Soviet market freedoms, labour freedom, and freedom of movement,” the report states.

Such measures will be extremely destabilizing and unpopular, according to IISS analysts. Growing restrictions on internet use indicate that russia anticipates this and is taking steps to prevent grassroots political mobilization. It is also expected that the kremlin will tighten its control over the elites, as the defection of elites to the opposition is a primary source of change in authoritarian regimes.

At the same time, the IISS believes that one cannot assume that the general mobilization will fail. The limits of the regime’s ability to use violence against its own society, as well as the limits of what society is willing to tolerate, are no longer clear.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, the US Institute for the Study of War (ISW) noted that in recent months, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have achieved their most significant successes on the front lines since the operation in the Kursk Oblast of the russian federation.