Description
The military-educational complex has a long history in Russia. From the use of military service to educate Russian peasants in the Imperial period, to the development of a comprehensive military-patriotic education system during the Soviet period and in contemporary Russia – militarism has remained a core value of state-led education for some time. Since Putin’s third term as president in 2012, the state has ramped up efforts to imbue youth with military values, for example – that promote the military as a good and necessary for the survival of Russia – as a norm. These values have been communicated in formal educative spaces and in the activities devised for extra-curricular state-funded groups, like Youth Army and Victory Volunteers. This paper explores the intended purposes of such endeavours, including instantaneous support for Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, continued backing of the military institution and state leaders who are pursuing imperialist action in the near abroad, and in the long term, a steady supply of bodies for Russia’s war machine. In addition to this, the paper assesses the strengths and limitations of the state’s efforts to militarise youth in terms of these intended goals, arguing that while not all youth will feel inclined to pick up a gun and head to the battlefront, the military-educational complex they have experienced will push them further down, what Cynthia Enloe (2000) calls ‘the militarisation highway.’
