eli5 – Russia has an economy smaller than Canada or Italy. How does it continue to be a threatening, great power without going bankrupt?
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Russia spends 3x times more of it’s Budget on the military than countries with a comparable economy, so it has far more military hardware and personnel. They also have mandatory military service.
The export a great deal of hardware from guns, vehicles, tanks, and airplanes to other nations which helps justify their RnD budget.
They also have huge amounts of surplus hardware left over from the Soviet Union. A lot of hardware the Russians are using is very old and much of the new state-of-art equipment they flaunt is in very short supply.
Throughout the 90s the Russian military was crumbling and it’s only in the past decade that they are really starting to turn around their military deficit.
There F-22 killer SU-57 for example only has 2 functional examples, and 10 prototypes (most of those unserviceable).
Where the Russians excel is in their espionage and Cyber Warfare divisions. They are way ahead of the US in this regard with the State highly likely to be sponsoring, or at least turning a blind eye, to the various hacker groups operating in the country so that they can build up a pool of resources they can use in a cyber war.
That and the FSB (formerly the KGB) has always run circles around the West in terms of espionage.
The Russians aren’t competing with the West nearly as much as they used too either. Now it’s about power projection in the 3rd World. The Russians what to maintain their influence on various nations in the Middle East and Eastern Europe both to have countries to supply with arms, but also so that they can do what they want in that area without reprisal from the West.
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