Bravo Putin:
The Russian force has 350,000 troops compared to the U.S. Army with 560,000.
The current Russian ground forces consist of eight “armies” but most of those armies only have one division and a few brigades. Not all of these units are at full strength. Russia is making the most of this and seeking to equip all these troops with the most modern equipment. That became a lot more expensive towards the end of the Cold War (1980s) and especially after the 1990s as Western forces came up with a growing number of more effective weapons and items of equipment that made their troops much more effective, and expensive to equip.
After 1991 the newly independent (of Russian control) countries of East Europe rushed to join NATO and equip their troops to NATO standards. At the same time China was also modernizing its ground forces and using the U.S. and NATO as the standard to match. A modernized Chines army was something Russia never had to face. For centuries China had outdated military equipment compared to Russia and that did not begin to change until the 1990s. Now the Chinese were ahead of Russia and that irked Russian military commanders who realized that ultimately China was the major threat to Russia.
Russia continues to pretend NATO is a military threat while ignoring the growing Chinese threat to retake the Far East territory that Russia grabbed from China in the 19th century. As this Strategypage post about Russian "lessons" from their Syria intervention observes:
[It] is official policy in Russian to ignore the threat in the east and concentrate on the imagined threat in the west (NATO).
How soon will China be strong enough to strong arm Russia into concessions that get the Reconquista really going no matter how long it takes?
Remember, China set the precedent as I noted in this post:
And an interesting little tidbit in the article states that in May 2005, Putin agreed to give 120 square kilometers of land back to China. The long-standing border dispute is settled according to the article. But I doubt it. China established two things by this small transaction. One, if this small chunk of land is really Chinese territory, in theory the rest of the Far Eastern territory that Russia took from China is no less Chinese. Second, the Chinese established that Russia can be forced to cede territory to them. This will not be the last time that land changes hands along the Russian-Chinese border. Count on that.
Or will China want a signal victory that dramatically announces their rise to global status?
Putin proclaimed the Fuck-Up Fairy an ethnic Russian and brought her home to Mother Russia.
Will nobody tell Putin he's effing up royally?
UPDATE: It won't be Russian young people using the clue bat on Putin, apparently:
A majority of young Russians distrust NATO more than any other organization and disagree that Russia is a European country, according to a recent poll conducted by Russia’s independent Levada Center and Germany’s Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
That attitude is going to work out just swell for them.
#WhyRussiaCan'tHaveNiceThings
