Not all problems can be solved with the help of the armed forces. What is the most effective way to combat sexual harassment (harassment), given that not everyone can urgently break into another city? How is the role of the army changing in owls

Why is it important to know your native language? Will total dictation make you smarter? Is there innate literacy and how do social networks affect our speech? Nadezhda Ilyukhina, Head of the Department of Russian Language and Mass Communication, helped us answer all these questions.

- Nadezhda Alekseevna, do we have to be literate?

There are a number of professions that require high literacy. This is taken into account when applying for a job. There is no such requirement for others, but I am convinced that any intelligent and/or educated person feels the need to be literate. It is a shame not to be able to correctly, accurately, expressively speak and write in their native language - out of a sense of self-respect, national dignity. And Russian is also the state language in our country. They must be owned by any citizen. Now there are text editors that correct errors and thereby alleviate the position of the writer. Especially if it is a text that is important in one way or another. But let such a (useful!) editor only insure the writer, but not relieve him of "responsibility". Otherwise, over time, we can trust the robot and think for us.

- Now the transformation of the Russian language is especially clearly observed. Do you think this is degradation or evolution?

Talking about the transformation of the language is wrong. Yes, now, under the influence of many reasons, the processes of language development are proceeding much faster than even 30 years ago. And the language, especially vocabulary, style, is noticeably changing before our eyes. But this does not affect the core of the language system. We are only observing the acceleration of evolutionary processes in the language, which must always follow changes in society and maintain communicative usefulness in new conditions for all generations of speakers of this language. Although some phenomena in modern speech practice linguists are really worried.

- Innate literacy - fact or myth?

Of course, this is a myth. Even a language is not innate, it is more correct to speak of an innate ability to learn a language, which is transmitted genetically, but is acquired by a child, as you know, the language that is spoken in his environment. It is all the more wrong to talk about innate knowledge of the rules of spelling and punctuation. Another thing is that there are certain inclinations - both to music, drawing, designing. Some people feel the syntactic structure of the sentence well, others feel the nuance of the meaning and easily arrange it with punctuation. Visual memory helps people who are called visuals.

First of all, social networks (chats, forums, etc.) reflect oral speech. This is nothing but oral speech, clothed in written form, with its special norms, strikingly different from the norms of written speech. Of course, not always literate. All this together is striking. Over time, we will get used to it, because this sphere and this way of communication have unconditional prospects. Additional graphic means, abbreviations, and non-verbals, which are specific to Internet communication, are already being developed.

Literacy was brought up in people of my and close generations in other conditions - we lived mainly surrounded by literate texts: books, magazines, newspapers, television titles, which were edited by professionals and did not contain errors. Now with early age children "live" in social networks, that is, in the environment of different texts, which are far from always literate. Therefore, their speech, and written too, is formed in more difficult conditions. In this regard, it is impossible not to mention the methodology for preparing for the exam. We see that students come to all specialties much less literate than before. Everyone can write, they write more than before. But not everyone can write well. Therefore, you need to specifically engage in the culture of your speech, and not only in childhood and adolescence.

- How to improve literacy?

You need to work on yourself: pay attention to your speech, try to find time to read good books, look into the dictionary - there are a lot of them on the net. By the way, philologists also resort to the help of the dictionary. You can never be sure that you are using this or that complex form correctly. AT recent times become popular courses to study the difficulties of the native (and not just foreign) language. They are attended by adults, "accomplished" people who want to improve their literacy, want to be interestingly told about their language and helped to improve their speech.

And, of course, the action "Total dictation" contributes to this. It draws attention to the problem of literacy, makes it possible to get an assessment of one's literacy and improve it, especially since the dictation is held annually. It is preceded by free preparatory courses for almost two months. They are led by qualified specialists who can ask any question. There are many who wish - which means that total dictation can be considered a good way to increase your literacy level.

Photo: Artem Onoprienko (Illuminator photo club)

The international situation is tense: local conflicts, the growing problem of terrorism make us look at our army from a different angle. We talked about its difficult past, Syrian present and technical future with Alexei Arbatov, head of the Center for International Security at IMEMO RAS.

How is the role of the military changing? modern world?

Recently, the role of military force in the world has been growing - this is absolutely obvious to everyone involved in international relations and international security. This is especially noticeable in relations between Russia and the West. At the same time, experience shows that not all problems can be solved with the help of the armed forces. Wars with non-state actors, terrorist organizations like ISIS, drag on indefinitely and do not end with a clear victory for either side. The last 25 years have shown that the armed forces alone cannot solve a single political problem.

During cold war when the two nuclear powers competed with each other, the army was at the forefront. There was a stalemate: the USSR and the US could not win a war against each other, because a nuclear conflict would be a disaster for both sides. Instead, they fought a huge number of wars through their allies and partners on the territory of other countries. These were times of extremely intense military activity. Then she fell sharply, but over the past few years has risen again. I would not say that we have returned to the previous state in terms of the intensity and scale of the confrontation. We do not fight directly, although we often find ourselves on the verge of conflict, as in the recent story with the downed Syrian plane or with the demonstrative rapprochement of ships and planes.

It is important to understand that the army cannot replace the economic power of the country. After the death of Mao Zedong, China spent 30 years to modernize its economy and achieved that it became the second economic power in the world. Now he is bringing military strength to his economic status through an extensive program to modernize and re-equip the troops. By many indicators, China is already ahead of the rest of the world, but it is behaving very carefully. Russia, on the contrary, has weakened economically as a result of the crisis of the raw material export model of the economy. Now we are trying to make up for the lack of our economic power through the active build-up and selective use of the armed forces.

In Russia, we see a significant increase in the potential of the armed forces in terms of equipment, mobility and combat readiness of the army. A lot of money is spent on combat training. Unfortunately, all this is not based on a strong economy. Moreover, military power competes with other pressing societal needs for limited material and human resources and gives NATO an excuse to build an unfriendly environment around the country. In the context of the current confrontation with the outside world, the transition to a high-tech economy is impossible - it requires a large influx of capital and technology from abroad. Therefore, over time, the buildup of military activity will increasingly undermine the economic foundation of Russia, which will affect, among other things, our defense capability.

To what extent does the state of the Russian armed forces correspond to the tasks that have been set before them recently?

In general, the Russian army shows a high level of combat training and technological equipment. From an operational-military point of view, all operations are carried out on high level: used precision weapons, a huge number of new types of weapons are being tested. Sometimes one gets the feeling that this is one of the goals of the Syrian campaign - to test new weapons on the battlefield, and not on the training ground. Dozens of the latest systems have already been tried and proved to be quite good.

But our enemy all this time was not the one for which Russian weapons are designed. In Syria, we are fighting partisans, over whom we have a huge superiority from a military-technical point of view. Losses, although under the new laws they are classified, apparently, we are minimal, even in comparison with the operation in South Ossetia. But whether Russia will achieve its political goals and at what cost is a separate question.

How do you assess the current results of the Syrian campaign?

There were two tasks: firstly, to suppress ISIS, al-Nusra and other terrorist organizations, to save the regime of Bashar al-Assad from the collapse that would inevitably have happened if Russia had not entered this war. Secondly, to show that we are not a regional, but a global power, we can conduct military operations far from our borders. The second task has been accomplished, and the first partially: with a Russian military presence and military operations against the opposition that seeks to overthrow the regime, Assad can remain in power indefinitely. As for the rest, the first task has not yet been completed - despite a number of heavy blows against the terrorists, they have not been defeated and still control a significant part of the country. Such a war can continue indefinitely, with great costs and certain losses for the Russian side. In this regard, we are entering a period when it is clearly necessary to work towards peace and. Otherwise, dissatisfaction with the fact that we are waging an endless war against the background of the most serious problems in the economy will grow among the Russian population.

The fact is that partisan armies have a number of advantages over regular forces. They are not limited by the military budget of their country and can count on a constant influx of money. They are not afraid of any losses - they are constantly replenished by volunteers from all over the world who join them for money or for an idea. For any regular army, losses are a very delicate issue. No country can afford to suffer heavy human losses for many years, especially in a war like in Syria. Partisan armies, on the contrary, are ready to fight all the time - this is the environment outside of which they die. For them, the more collateral damage among the civilian population, the better - it affects the media, creates a psychological atmosphere of rejection of the war and hurts the prestige of the howling country.

Conflicts with organizations like ISIS are not resolved in a purely military way. To defeat the partisan movement, you need to unite with all the other forces that are fighting against it, deprive it of the support of the local population, and close the borders of the territory. To do this, it will be necessary to agree on the fate of Assad - it is no secret that many countries in the region oppose the preservation of his power. Here the role is played by interstate and religious contradictions that have developed between Saudi Arabia and Turkey on the one hand, and Iran on the other. Without agreements with them, ISIS will constantly feed and carry out acts of intimidation in different countries including Europe and USA.

What is the state of the Russian army now?

In the 1990s, the Russian armed forces were in deep decline - both materially and morally. The prestige of the army was very low, especially after the First Chechen war. Cash allowances were miserable and paid with huge delays. Everything that could become worthless fell into disrepair. This was primarily due to the change in the state system and the political tasks of the leadership. The old tasks were rejected, but the new ones were never assigned. Important areas of military-technical development were lost.

I'll give you an example. In the first half of the 1980s, in pursuit of the United States, the USSR built six giant Akula submarines - it was an analogue of the American strategic missile submarines Trident. Due to the lack of scheduled repairs in the 1990s, almost all of these boats fell into disrepair - only one remained, which was converted into a test platform. A little later, seven other submarines were produced, which still form the basis of the Russian missile submarine fleet. We have already lost one of them. Each such boat costs $700 million, missiles for it - another $800 million. Just to put one submarine into service, you need to pay $1.5 billion. That is, huge money was simply lost.

Then, from the middle of the 2000s, the economy revived. New goals appeared before the army and foreign policy: to revive the status and influence of Russia in the world. The situation in the army began to improve, primarily in terms of remuneration of the personnel of officers, an increase in the contract contingent interested in the service among the rank and file. Two catastrophic problems that existed before - with allowances and with housing for the military - were generally resolved. The share of modern equipment in service has sharply increased (that is, the one whose validity period does not exceed 10-15 years): from 5-7% at the beginning of the 2000s to 60% today and the target 70%.

But around 2012, the economic crisis began. For some time, rearmament was carried out by inertia, but then they began to correct it. “Program 2020”, designed for 23 trillion rubles, has already been revised, and some tasks have been postponed to a later date. Next Government program will be more modest in terms of finances, but it has not yet been adopted, because the economic prospects are not clear. Appropriations under the National Defense item are being reduced - last year 3.2 trillion rubles went to it, this year it is planned to allocate 2.8 trillion. If we do not move to a mobilization type of economy or fail to implement the reform of the raw material model of the economy, then our defense capability will continue to suffer increasing losses, especially in terms of the latest high-tech military systems.

What new types of weapons do you consider the most promising?

Under the new program, they will probably buy fewer traditional types of weapons: armored vehicles, artillery, aviation, ships, submarines - and focus on new promising systems that in 10-15 years will determine the face of the army. First of all, these are information and control systems that allow you to perform new tasks with the same weapons: for example, deliver high-precision strikes, spend funds more efficiently. Without them, modern command and control of troops in wars is impossible, which are becoming extremely dynamic - the situation is changing every hour.

Then we are talking about high-precision long-range land, air or sea-based systems. First of all, these are guided missile weapons and all kinds of unmanned systems, as well as weapons with artificial intelligence. Drones have already become an important element of information and control systems, and in the future they will turn into long-range strike weapons. It is possible to introduce unmanned systems into the ground forces. will appear combat vehicles, which will operate remotely, without a crew. The next stage is marine unmanned systems, including underwater ones, which can turn all naval art upside down, posing a threat to submarines and ships.

Another direction is space systems. Without space-class systems, that is, satellites, the army simply cannot fight today: they are needed to strike, conduct reconnaissance and evaluate the effectiveness of operations. Space attack systems are still in their infancy, but in 10-15 years, new systems of strikes against space objects may appear. It is possible that strikes from space against targets on the ground will become possible. For a long time this idea existed in the imagination of military strategists and engineers, but in practice it was hardly feasible due to the objective laws of physics and celestial mechanics. Currently, deploying weapons in space is still very expensive and impractical, but it is possible that this will change over time.

Is a full transition to a contract-voluntary army possible in Russia?

Every year in Russia, a little more than 300 thousand people are drafted into the army, of which 280 thousand go to the armed forces, and the rest to other troops and military organizations. We have 380,000 contractors and their number is growing, although at a slower rate than before the crisis. I believe that from an economic point of view, we will pull through the transition to a contract system. To do this, you need to go for some optimization of the number of troops - now it is in no way justified by the tasks of the army and its equipment. A large, ill-equipped army is worse than a smaller, well-trained and armed army.

Various calculations show that if the transition is carried out in 3-4 years, then it will additionally require only a few percent of the current budget allocated for national defense. And if you reduce the size of the army, then you will even get savings: you don’t need to call up twice a year, train, transport across the country - these are all rather expensive measures. In addition, a mass conscription gives a low-quality contingent. When a conscript studies for the first six months, and waits for a demobilization for the second six months, the result is not the military man who is needed to control complex weapons systems and participate in hostilities under enormous physical and psychological stress.

By 2030, the largest group of the population in Russia will be forty-year-olds, and the number of young people will decrease sharply. How will this affect the military draft?

The demographic hole, with a certain attitude of the authorities, can lead to an expansion of the conscription. Previously, they served in the army for 3 years, then 2 years, now a year. You can extend the service life again. Now 280 thousand people are called up a year - this is a quarter of the draft contingent different ages. You can call more - for example, half. Or you can go the other way and switch to a fully contract army, creating attractive conditions for military service. Then the result will be much better, but for this you need to make a number of strong-willed decisions and overcome the resistance of some organizations. In any case, reality has shown that contract soldiers are much better for the army than conscripts. Now the dispute is mainly around the economy and organizational issues, and this is a positive shift in the psychology of society and the military elite.

How is the quality of military education in Russia?

The quality of military education in our country is quite high, but the approach to it is slightly different than in the West. Our military receive a very narrow specialization, while officers or senior officers in NATO countries are better savvy in terms of economics and foreign policy, and knows his immediate sphere less deeply. The level of training in the Russian higher educational institutions of the armed forces is high, but I would like to add more related subjects to the program that broaden the horizons of officers and allow them to think independently. For a modern type of army, it is necessary for the officer to know history, have ideas about economics, social issues, and even philosophy. The officers are the elite of any highly developed society, along with business and politicians. Unfortunately, in last years The political system in Russia is catastrophically bureaucratized, it subordinates everything to the main principle “I am the boss, you are a fool”. This does not at all encourage officers to show courage and initiative.

If we talk about military science in general, then there is a network of military scientific institutions and research institutes under the Ministry of Defense, but here the situation is deplorable. Until 2012, they were thoughtlessly reduced, and military science suffered a lot of damage. The most valuable personnel and entire scientific schools were lost, which cannot be restored in a few years.

How do you see Russia in 2035?

Russia, as a successful country, should be at least the third largest economy in the world, after the United States and China. Given our natural resources, territory and highly qualified personnel, this is quite possible. We will need an army with sufficient deterrent capability to make any country understand that the benefits of military action will not be commensurate with the damage. Already, everything is fine with Russia in terms of deterrence: we have many times more nuclear weapons, if we count operational-tactical ones, than in other countries of the world, and with the United States - approximate parity.

Secondly, Russia will have to fight international terrorism, which may become even more dangerous in the future. And not only in our own and adjacent territories, but also in remote places where terrorists can settle. Today Russia is participating in this struggle, but time will tell how effective it is. Our army is more adapted to the war with regular troops, but to fight terrorism, we need a different structure of troops, military training, weapons systems. It is possible, of course, to send a strategic bomber to the terrorists, but one sortie of it will cost a hundred times more than the entire camp or warehouse that can be destroyed.

Thirdly, it is important that Russia actively participates in UN peacekeeping operations. Prevention of military conflicts and enforcement of peace is the most important function of the UN and the role of a great power. This is not just a noble mission, but also a step that greatly increases the influence and prestige of the state in the world. Now we are unacceptable low level participation in these processes.

Fourth, and finally, while maintaining the prestige and status of our country, the army must contribute to the development of the economy by protecting key investments and communications through which we supply or receive important resources and products. And it will be necessary to receive a lot if we want to move to an innovative model of the economy and begin to play a much greater role in world trade.

So far, there is no such army in Russia, but I hope that in the future it will be created.

Law. Just the law. Its observance and, possibly, further addition.

Better yet, a separate law on harassment, covering borderline cases and describing in detail the essence of the phenomenon. As in relation to domestic violence: a separate law is also needed, since abuse is not only about the notorious beatings.

So harassment is not only about sex with subordinates.

And an independent judiciary.

We open the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

Article 133 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Compulsion to act of a sexual nature:

1. Forcing a person to have sexual intercourse, sodomy, lesbianism, or other acts of a sexual nature by means of blackmail, threats to destroy, damage, or confiscate property, or by using the material or other dependence of the victim (victim) -

shall be punishable by a fine in the amount up to 120 thousand roubles, or in the amount of the wage or salary, or any other income of the convicted person for a period up to one year, or by compulsory labor for a term of up to 480 hours, or by corrective labor for a term of up to two years, or by compulsory labor for a term of up to one year. year, or imprisonment for the same term.

2. The same act committed in respect of a minor (minor), -

shall be punished by compulsory labor for a term up to five years with deprivation of the right to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities for a term up to three years or without it, or imprisonment for a term up to five years with deprivation of the right to occupy certain positions or engage in certain activities for a term up to three years, or without one.

For such a problem really exists, and women suffer from it.

At the same time, there is back side medals in the form of incentives for victims, when for women, say, often this option turns out to be almost the only working social lift, and, as you know, you can’t smear conscience (and moral suffering) on ​​bread, you can’t pour it into a glass, you can’t put it in your pocket . Meanwhile, the female culture of opportunism under patriarchy is by no means simple...

Ideally, it would be good to clarify in the law, in turn, what is considered blackmail, and in what cases intimate relationship becomes a voluntary matter. That the events preceding the failed sexual contact, however, do not cease to be harassment. What to count sexual harassment may need any verbal or bodily assessment of the other person's attractiveness.