Instablogs reported yesterday that the U.S. Army thinks it has a crisis on its hands. 115 soldiers committed suicide last year, up nearly 13% from the year before. With just over 500,000 soliders in the U.S. all-volunteer army, that works out to a rate of 19 suicides per 100,000 soldiers. Though the rate of suicide in the U.S. armed forces is lower than that in the general population, the military still thinks it is much too high, and they’re planning to take dramatic steps to reduce the rate.

They might relax a bit if they took a look at Russia.

Although Russia’s population is less than half the size of America’s, Russia uses conscription to draft hundreds of thousands of young men into the army each year, and fields ground forces of roughly the same size as the United States. And the Moscow Times reports that the Russian army experienced nearly three times more suicides last year than did its American counterpart — a shockingly high 341 Russian soldiers took their own lives last year.

These lives were lost due to the barbaric, ritualistic hazing process that befalls all new recruits and is known in Russia as dedovschina. In one case, a recruit was so brutally tortured that the entire lower half of his body had to be amputated, including his genitals. As a result, a massive corrupt industry has been spawned in Russia whereby bribes are paid by young men’s parents in order to avoid the horror of military service.

And let’s be clear: The Russian Kremlin is ruled by a proud KGB spy who has liquidated all political opposition and wiped out the independent media. In other words, he’s a natural born liar and there is no check on his statements. So that figure of 341 suicides is almost surely a gross understatement.

Clearly, the Russian army’s most dangerous foe is . . . itself.