Is Russia a military "superpower"?

[Ad_Quid_Orator]

Yes

No

[normalice]

Yes and no. As they say, the point of having the bigger stick is so you don't have to use it. Russia spearheaded exploiting the fact that you don't have to have the bigger stick, you just have to look like you do. Before they went off the deep end, russia was the origins of a lot of clever self depreciating jokes. Like "i pretend to work and you pretend to pay me," a joke about how little money Russia has in circulation and how uninterested the Russian population is in doing anything to back up their appearance of stalwart patriotism.

Russia has a huge kleptocracy problem. I don't know why it seems so natural to just let the rich take all the money (we are well on our way in the US - the only reason we aren't Russia is because our diverse and abundant natural resources haven't dried up yet), but when you give a rich man a billion dollars and task him with creating a super military, what you get is a thousand dollar picture of a billion dollar super military. That's what has happened over and over in Russia. Even in WWII they prized quantity over quality, which was actually really helpful to "zerg" the Germans with a bunch of cheap tanks.

But they seem to have put all their stock in deeply immoral nuclear weapons. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out half of their arsenal didn't work. But that's just the thing - there's only one way to prove that and that's to fire them off. This is great for a country that realized how vastly cheaper it is to simply look strong. The only problem is they have to constantly look unhinged enough to actually use them but not so unhinged that anyone will do something about that. So, nukes get brought up in nearly every discussion with them but only a couple of times each discussion. Their superpower is subterfuge.

[CALIGVLA]

If they weren't, NATO would be in Moscow right now and cut the country off into 50 new countries. Sadly for sissy-ass liberals, they're watching Russia destroy the Liberal World and can only suck their own thumb or say mean things about Russia on Twitter. 😆

[Ad_Quid_Orator]

If they were, Russians would be in Kiev right now because unlike invading Russia, invading Ukraine doesn't carry the same risk of starting a nuclear war (because Russia lied to Ukraine when they said that they would respect Ukraine's territorial integrity, and to think Russians are going on about how the US reneged on its' promises about NATO expansion).

But they can do more than that, they can give them HIMARS


The locations of their top generals:


And their warships:


And then Russians can spill their delusions (copium) all over twitter about how "this is really a war between Russia and USA" because Ukraine is getting aid from the USA :)

[Ad_Quid_Orator]

because Russia lied to Ukraine when they said that they would respect Ukraine's territorial integrity* in exchange for nuclear disarmament,

[CALIGVLA]

"If they were, Russians would be in Kiev"

If they wanted to, they would've been destroyed the Ukrainian civil infrastructure and decision-making centers with heavy bombers just like the US did in Iraq. The fact that they didn't do it is a sign that taking Kiev is not among the top goals or isn't one at all. To me it's clear they wanna annex the Eastern and Southern parts of Ukraine and pump up global instability to hurt the West.

"invading Ukraine doesn't carry the same risk of starting a nuclear war"

A mistake on Russia's or NATO's part can trigger a nuclear war and both sides already demonstrated that they don't really care about it. Russia because they're defending their sovereignty, their people and their sphere of influence, and the US because our government has a world domination goal, which is represented by the so-called Liberal World Order, and Russia and China are its main obstacle.

"But they can do more than that, they can give them HIMARS"

By giving the Ukrainians weapons, we're just postponing the inevitable since they'll lose the war sooner or later, and making the next US war of aggression much costlier since the Russians will surely return the favor and supply with weapons the country we invade.

[Ad_Quid_Orator]

1. Being able to destroy civilian infrastructure on the scale of Iraq requires that you first neutralize enemy air defenses which requires that not only you have the right equipment, but that you can properly coordinate the effort and the disorganized mess that was the initial stage of the Russian invasion, they don't. Way to put the cart before the horse. You see, everyone pointed out that Russians had a comparable number of weapons to the US at a fraction of the cost. Now we see it only ever was cutting corners.

2. National sovereignty and "sphere of influence" (vassal states) are two separate things. Russia isn't defending their sovereignty but the Ukrainians are.

3. In all likelihood they'll have to secede some territory to Russia but thanks to the weapons supplied by the West, how much land will be limited. Without western weapons, the Russians would demand even more land and the Ukrainians would fight harder in response causing even more deaths. Think of it like the Winter War where even though Finland ultimately had to cede territory, they prevented their country from being annexed by the USSR:
upload.wikimedia.org/.../...entrop-Molotov.svg.png

[Agape93]

Nope. Can't even conquer a smaller, lesser trained and poorly equipped military.

[ChiTown33]

It doesn't appear that way. I think the only thing that makes Russia a problem is their ability to throw waves of cannon fodder at the enemy since human life means so little to the Russian regime. That and of course the nuclear option.

[SlangSlayer]

Yes they dog walking the USA right now. And now they making the most money they ever made.

While we wasted at least 100 billion.

If they werent a super power we would have bullied them already

[Plinko]

No.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/uW4I2fPPXFM

[Jay3344]

They have nuclear weapons but I doubt they would be great in a conventional war against the US or China or Germany or anyone else in their league. Nukes are the scary thing, that and ineptitude with nuclear power plants.

[USLegionary]

On paper yes, in reality no. Maybe a military superpower by 1970s standards.

[EnglishEuropean]

Remember Russia wasn't expecting to fight in Ukraine. They thought they would walk in and take over. If Russia was serious they could obliterate the country.

[Ad_Quid_Orator]

They could only do that with nukes.

[EnglishEuropean]

Nukes would shorten the process.

[Ad_Quid_Orator]

Then obliterate with what? They can't do it by conventional means.

[strateguy632]

We now see russia has not been strong since 1980.

[NathanDavis]

nope...

but they do have nuclear capabilities, which is enough...

[love_conquers_lust]

No. Their military is stuck in the Cold War. Thet don’t know how to fight urban warfare.

[Guardian45]

Time, democracy and capitalism have reduced Russia to a military "superpest"!

[Cubus]

Sadly yes. They will stop at Odra.

[ChefPapiChulo]

Not smart to underestimate your enemies.

[msc545]

Yes. Nukes make the difference.

[JohnK123]

Yawns*