On Aug 23, 5:38*pm, "John M" wrote:
"Quadibloc" wrote:

The money from natural gas exports to Europe has funded a massive
buildup of the Russian military; it's much stronger than it was under
Yeltsin.

They are recovering, but their navy has gone from some 140 frigates
and larger in 1985, to about 25 ships, frigates and larger, today.
They have one carrier and five cruisers today.

It could well be that their _conventional_ forces have run down while
the money has been spent on the *important* elements of Russia's
military.

If one is concerned with the question "Could the United States, with
reasonable safety to its people, launch a pre-emptive strike against
the former Soviet Union, and compel its unconditional surrender", the
size of Russia's _conventional_ forces is an irrelevancy.

What Russia _has_ been considerably improving and beefing up have been
its *nuclear* forces.

It is true that nuclear forces are essentially _defensive_ in nature,
while it would be only conventional forces that are used to _project_
power. So, if their conventional forces are small, they will not yet
be going on a rampage or causing a ruckus. But what little they do,
they can do with impunity if their nuclear forces are in place.

Hence, Russia's invasion of Georgia didn't result in Russia being
blasted off the face of the Earth, or at least Russia tendering its
unconditional surrender to the United States as Medvedev and Putin
were handed over to Georgian authorities for trial and execution for
the war crime of aggression.

To me, that simple fact is enough to show that we are in a crisis,
having returned to the unhappy conditions of the Cold War, where the
United States has to tolerate injustice in the world instead of ending
the injustice and bringing its perpetrators to justice.

John Savard