There are many components involved in preparing a country for war. The level of militarization of society is as important as the material component of future aggression. The scale and scope of Russia's attempts to influence the worldview of the next generations of Russians are studied in a research by Allyson Edwards and Jennifer G Mathers for the Oxford Academic platform.
According to the ideologues of the "Russian peace," heroic military behavior is presented as an achievable ideal for the youth. It can and should be developed through participation in various exciting activities. The authors of the study examined the activities of two state-funded patriotic youth movements – the "Young Army" and "Volunteers of Victory." The researchers emphasize that Russia uses the concept of heroism in the process of militarizing Russian children: heroism and the prospect of becoming heroes encourage young people to glorify war and support the Russian army.
It should be noted that Russian propagandists are working with modern methods and technologies for manipulating public consciousness. For instance, the researchers point to the use of a discursive process in society to change attitudes toward the use of force by the state. This involves promoting the idea of military superiority over civilian values and perceiving the army as a logical institution for solving a wide range of political and other problems.
An important component of the process of militarizing youth is the manipulation of attitudes toward veterans: veterans in the West often remind people of the human cost of war, while Russia, on the contrary, seeks to use their experience to encourage the youth to imagine themselves in the place of former soldiers, with the potential for involvement in real combat.
Thus, the researchers emphasize that if Russia succeeds in making the next generation of its citizens perceive war as a normal phenomenon, it will have far-reaching consequences for post-Putin Russia. A society for which war is the norm will support and not resist the use of military force by the state to conduct foreign policy. Such a militarized society will be willing to make significant sacrifices, suffering, hardships, and losses in the name of victory.
"If Russia succeeds in its efforts to get the next generation of its citizens to accept the normalcy of war, then the implications for future Russia—including post-Putin Russia—are far-reaching. A society that has grown up believing that war is a normal part of life is likely to accept or, indeed, support rather than resist the state's use of military force to achieve foreign policy aims. A militarized society is also likely to make significant sacrifices and to endure suffering, hardship and loss to ensure victory. In this respect, the decision by Youth Army and the Victory Volunteers to present frank and relatively unvarnished versions of veterans' personal stories is especially significant. Exposure to danger, separation from family and friends, and real, material deprivation are presented as part of both the wartime and postwar experiences to be expected, endured and overcome. It is partly for these reasons that veterans are depicted as heroes and that Russian children are encouraged to regard them as role models to emulate when it is their turn to experience war.
A future Russia with a war-supportive, militarized society could have significant consequences for international security. A post-Putin Russian leadership that is confident of societal support for war might adopt reckless and risk-taking behaviour and become—or continue to be—a significant source of instability in Eurasia. Russia's war in Ukraine has already provided us with a glimpse into such a possible future, where the work of international institutions such as the United Nations is seriously disrupted, alliance systems re-examine the strength of their foundations and western states struggle to find ways of dealing with Moscow. A militarized Russian society is only one enabling factor for such a future, but it is a powerful one, and the potential for the self-perpetuation of militarization should not be underestimated. While many external observers pin their hopes for a more peaceful future in Europe (and further afield) on Putin's successor as head of government, Russia's current leadership has already begun a process that it clearly hopes will deliver the next generation of heroes. This process has the potential to become the basis of ‘forever wars’: when children still in school are raised to expect that participation in war will be their fate, and to welcome it with open arms."
