Thread: Rise of Russia: threat, opportunity or not a big deal?

Originally Posted by mustavaris

There seems to be quite a lot of threads dealing with Russia, but what is your stance on the overall situation? Since the chaos of the post-Cold War era the new Russia, so to speak, has been experiencing a revival and while still facing huge challenges, the direction is clear: stronger, more authoritarian, more self-conscious and active Russia that is trying to reverse the demographical disaster, aiming to create modern economy and modernizing her military by looking into Western model, they have finally swallowed their pride and are buying tech from outsiders while having many joint projects in order to overcome their challenges.

As of today they are making deals with Germany (Nord Stream), France and Italy (military tech), challenging their competitors in the Central Asia (South Stream) and have managed to tighten their grip of Belarus and Ukraina. Russia today, is far more active and stronger than it was 10 years ago.

So.. what do you think?

I will throw in my two cents a bit later

As you might remember I said something about this in another forum that was laughed at by the Russian members. The fact that Putin is going to run for President then remove the Prime Minister role shows that the NEW Communism is alive and well. Putin if re-elected will serve his temr into the 2020's.

Over the last 2 years Russian bombers have over flown Canadian soil flew to intercept distance with the US. Have challenged UK airspace. Injected itself in a regional conflict (Georgia). Unfortunately their super tanks have failed. Their Air Force pilots log the least amount of air time of the top 10 Air Forces. Some of their equipment stays grounded for months at a time if not years.

In 2007 the NY Times posted an article making the claims that the Russian military is having bouts of rampant corruption, low morale, ineffective and ineffecient troops and military units, amoung other things. Also, The Russian military, which still uses conscription and has a low pay scale (1/3 to 1/2 that of the American counter-part) had to lower the draft service time to 12 months from 18 because men weren't showing up for their appointed conscription times.

As for the corruption charges this is the norm under the Federation. Modernization has come slowly and under Putin far less weapon systems have been bought or modernized because of funding. In 2009 or 2010 the Kremlin announced that all new weapons programs would be cancelled until funding could be worked out. This included the Russian T95 tank. The Kremlin stated that Objekt 195 would be cancelled and that the T-90 would be modernized*.

*Modernized? Are these not new tanks?