12-06-2016, 01:25 PM
(12-06-2016, 03:14 AM)Bengalzona Wrote: Harley. I love you, my brother. But that is not true.
We are by far the strongest military power on the planet. It is not even close.
There is no other country in the world than can transport hundreds of thousands of troops to the opposite side of the world and keep them supplied and supported for years, while simultaneously sending tens of thousands to another location on the other side of the world and doing the same thing. Nobody. Britain almost went bankrupt sending their fleet and troops to the Falklands in the early eighties for several months. We have maintained a full fleet in the Middle East for over 35 years just because we like having it there.
It is true that China has more people in their armed forces (2.3 million compared to #2 U.S. which has 1.5 million). But have you looked at a map of China? China shares borders with North Korea, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam. In contrast, we share borders with Canada and Mexico. Four of those countries have nuclear weapons (North Korea, Russia, Pakistan and India). The Chinese have had border conflicts with Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India (4 wars) and Vietnam during your lifetime. The combined size of those nations' armed forces is 3.3 million and dwarves the Chinese. This is to say nothing of their internal conflicts where hundreds of thousands of troops are required to hold down several provinces which would like to break away. Because of their internal and border concerns, they are just not able to exert military power outside of their own borders. Their entire navy is cowed by a single U.S. fleet. And we have six active fleets. Taiwan, an island they would like to re-incorporate, sits just 60 miles from mainland China and thumbs their noses at them.
As far as technology, the Chinese are substantially behind us. Do you know how I know that?..... Because they try to steal our stuff.
Russia has some similarities to China. Russia shares borders with North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia and Finland. If you include their enclave at Kaliningrad (which you should because they ain't giving it up in the near future), they also share borders with Lithuania and Poland. Once again, we share borders with Canada and Mexico. Two of Russia's land neighbors (China and North Korea) have nuclear weapons. But Russia hasn't had as many recent conflicts with neighbors as China has, which is primarily attributable to their massive nuclear arsenal (incidently, China has a somewhat small nuclear arsenal) and by Russia's prior reputation as the Soviet Union of rolling large tank or motorized armies over neighboring nations which annoy them (Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968, Afghanistan 1980, etc.).
But the Russian military today is far different than it was during the Soviet Union days. Their armed forces members number 845,000 now, fifth in the world behind China (1), U.S. (2), India (3) and North Korea (4). During the Cold War, the Soviet armed forces were second in size to only China. But Putin and crew have been pretty shrewd. They decided to concentrate on quality over quantity. They went leaner and meaner. It was a smart move because if you look at their borders, only China is a real threat to them. And China is worried about their own borders as mentioned above. So Russia is less concerned today about defending its borders than it ever has been (except for one thing, which I'll mention later). Therefore, they can maintain a smaller and better quality armed forces and use to do what they have been best at for centuries: bullying their neighbors.
Yes, nothing is more Russian than picking on their neighbors. Be it Georgia, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithunania... heck, even Poland. Most of Russia's neighbors have the good sense to maintain good relations with Moscow and just do what the Russians want them to do. But some have had the audacity to think that they are completely "free". They don't seem to understand that that just doesn't work for modern Russia. That gives the Russians a border headache, and Russia doesn't like border headaches.
But the one thing that really light's Putin's anger is NATO. In the Russian mind, the only purpose of NATO is to hate on Russia. Russian media refers to it as an "aggressive, permanent organization". After all, once the Warsaw Pact shut down, shouldn't NATO have shut down also? Instead NATO has added new nations. Some of them former Warsaw Pact countries. The reason why the Russians have been a pain in the West's ass the past few years is because NATO permitted the Baltic States (Latvia, Estonia, and Lithunania) to join and has been considering Ukraine and Georgia. That is just not acceptable to the Russians. Putin calls the Baltic States "traitor states" to begin with (this is because many from these countries and from Ukraine fought alongside the Germans during WWII against the Russians... half of the troops fighting for Germany in WWII weren't from Germany).
This leads us to why Putin favored Trump during the election. Trump has made remarks about re-evaluating and lessening U.S. commitment to NATO. Without the U.S., NATO is a shell of itself. If NATO is a shell of itself, then Russia can do what it likes to keep neighbors in line. With its neighbors towing the line, the Russians can keep their military small and feel free to do other things (like rebuilding their navy or bombing civilians in Syria).
But I digress.
The Soviet Army is small, but capable. Their technology is probably still slightly less than the U.S., but not much (i.e. they don't try to steal our tech as often as China does). That said, they are not a significant threat to the world outside their bordering neighbors. They are rebuilding a Navy, but they are no where near challenging even one of our fleets. They cannot project forces across the globe the way we can or even the limited way the Soviet Union used to be able to.
Russia and China are defensive countries. We are not.
I'm sure you'll recall my saying on the old board that Clinton made a huge mistake when he turned his back on Russia after the collapse of the USSR. The smart, long term, strategy would have been to help Russia off the mat, dust her off and offer her our hand in friendship. Offering Russia a spot in NATO, or working towards that goal, would have gone a long way towards proving our friendly intentions and we'd be looking at a wildly different world right now.
