Not exactly what we need to be spending money on. But right now we pretty much do… eff Russia! We should be moving more ey out of defence spending to deal with climate change, instead we’re forced to deal with them.
Straight_Ad2258 on
in hindsight its easy to think that Western Europe was dumb to disarm after the end of the Cold War, but people often forget just how unprecedented the collapse of the Warsaw Pact was
Soviet Union had 300 million people, combined with the other members of the Warsaw Pact , the Soviet-aligned bloc had nearly 400 million inhabitants
within couple of years, Russian troops would leave Eastern Germany, Eastern Europe would become free from the Soviets, and after USSR’s collapse Russia inherited only half its population
then in the 1990s Russia would cut its defense budget from nearly 25% of GDP to less than 5%, and on top of that its GDP would decline by over 30% due to the economic crisis
in 1997 Russia had less than 10% of the military budget that the USSR had 10 years prior. Back then Russia was seen as weak and decaying
this was a far larger disintegration than Germany experienced after WW2
problem was that the West really ignored the brutality with which Russia silenced the Chechen insurgency, killing over 400,000 people in the process. That should have shown that Russia was willing to bomb babies to dust rather than try to negotiate in the style of the Good Friday Agreement that UK did vis-a-vis Northern Ireland
the media really bought all the bullshit straight from Kremlin about how Russia is the victim and not the occupier of Chechnya
years later, Russia has shown the same brutality in Syria, at some point bombing 4 hospitals in less than 12 hours
but again, the media was buying the bullshit straight from Kremlin about how they came to Syria to eradicate ISIS, and not to help Assad crush any opposition
Western media has been astonishingly full of shit when it comes to Russia over the past 3 decades, and we are paying the price now because our population has not wakened up to how evil Russia is. Heck, i think 90% of Europeans don’t even know Russia bombed HUNDREDS of hospitals in Syria, i never saw articles about that making headlines in the West
SanSilver on
Compared to the 20th century the 21st century has been peaceful, so why do the expenditures keep going up even when adjusted to inflation?
skin_Animal on
And by %?
Tabo1987 on
I‘d be intetested to know how much chinas 300bn would be with western wages
I could see them saving quite a bit of money vs how much it costs let’s say Lockheed Martin to produce a fighter jet.
6 Comments
source: [https://x.com/ianbremmer/status/1846217866112024597](https://x.com/ianbremmer/status/1846217866112024597)
Not exactly what we need to be spending money on. But right now we pretty much do… eff Russia! We should be moving more ey out of defence spending to deal with climate change, instead we’re forced to deal with them.
in hindsight its easy to think that Western Europe was dumb to disarm after the end of the Cold War, but people often forget just how unprecedented the collapse of the Warsaw Pact was
Soviet Union had 300 million people, combined with the other members of the Warsaw Pact , the Soviet-aligned bloc had nearly 400 million inhabitants
within couple of years, Russian troops would leave Eastern Germany, Eastern Europe would become free from the Soviets, and after USSR’s collapse Russia inherited only half its population
then in the 1990s Russia would cut its defense budget from nearly 25% of GDP to less than 5%, and on top of that its GDP would decline by over 30% due to the economic crisis
in 1997 Russia had less than 10% of the military budget that the USSR had 10 years prior. Back then Russia was seen as weak and decaying
this was a far larger disintegration than Germany experienced after WW2
problem was that the West really ignored the brutality with which Russia silenced the Chechen insurgency, killing over 400,000 people in the process. That should have shown that Russia was willing to bomb babies to dust rather than try to negotiate in the style of the Good Friday Agreement that UK did vis-a-vis Northern Ireland
the media really bought all the bullshit straight from Kremlin about how Russia is the victim and not the occupier of Chechnya
years later, Russia has shown the same brutality in Syria, at some point bombing 4 hospitals in less than 12 hours
but again, the media was buying the bullshit straight from Kremlin about how they came to Syria to eradicate ISIS, and not to help Assad crush any opposition
Western media has been astonishingly full of shit when it comes to Russia over the past 3 decades, and we are paying the price now because our population has not wakened up to how evil Russia is. Heck, i think 90% of Europeans don’t even know Russia bombed HUNDREDS of hospitals in Syria, i never saw articles about that making headlines in the West
Compared to the 20th century the 21st century has been peaceful, so why do the expenditures keep going up even when adjusted to inflation?
And by %?
I‘d be intetested to know how much chinas 300bn would be with western wages
I could see them saving quite a bit of money vs how much it costs let’s say Lockheed Martin to produce a fighter jet.