But the Soviet Union fell thirty years ago, an entire generation ago. The Soviet Union had 280 million people, more than the US had at the time. Big. Scary. But Russia today has only 140 million people. Over half the population just up and left when given the chance. They said "thanks, but no thanks" to Moscow.
Sure, Russia still has a big military budget, but their GDP isn't that great. Their GDP is much smaller than Italy's, alone. Smaller than France's, alone. Smaller than Germany's, alone. Hell, even the five Nordic countries have a higher combined GDP than Russia has. Growing up in the Nordics during the cold war meant having to think about Russia as an enormous big bad who could crush us completely if they wanted to. But now, our combined economies are larger.
Russia is corrupt, and has been corrupt for an entire generation. And it's been corrupt on a scale that is unprecedented compared to itself in the past, and compared to the rest of Europe. We complain about the military-industrial complex and how much waste there is, but military contractors in the west actually deliver stuff, whereas all the corrupted half-assery of the Russian military is being exposed now.
The combined defence budget of the EU is about 4 times larger than Russia's. Since the end of the cold war, the EU has been prosperous, peaceful, and happy. We've invested in our defence and grown stronger over the last thirty years, while Russia has declined.
We in the EU have over three times the population, over four times the military budget, and ten times the GDP of Russia. We have nukes and tanks and aircraft carriers and submarines and stealth fighters of our own. And yet so many still view Russia as a threat, as a bigger and stronger foe.
This debacle sure has been eye-opening to me, and I hope it's been that way for everyone else stuck in the cold-war mentality.
Simple. The EU is not military united but it's pretty much a "every man for himself" kind of thing outside of NATO or a direct attack, but the EU or NATO is currently not under attack so some people see Ukraine as "more of you problem than a me problem"… so other than sending some aid to Ukraine most people don't want to go to war with Russia or suffer crippling energy shortages for Ukraine.
EU leaders are also not immune from kleptocratic greed and external and internal corruption.
Austria is more than happy to keep pumping money into Russia in exchange for cheap gas, as that gas runs 80% of their industry, and several elite Austrian politicians were given top jobs on boards of Russian oil and gas companies to lobby for them and against nuclear or other alternatives, or have straight up offered their support to Russian oligarchs in under-the-table business deals ( the infamous "Ibiza scandal").
Good luck replacing that gas on a whim after several decades of Russian lobbying that lead to the current status quo.
Deliver stuff nobody needs? LOL, the American oligarchs aren't much better. Just because they use a different word (lobbying instead of bribing) doesn't make it any less of a corrupt system.
https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/77-billion-raptor-22-fighter-...
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/air-force-admits-f-35-...
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/12/18/congress-agai...
At least in the US, via lobbying, the bribes are transparent and you can follow the money and see who's pulling the strings.
This is much better than everything being done under the table and assuming there is no corruption because we don't have lobbying, like the classical misconception we have in Europe.
How do you think Trump and company got in?
Centuries, really. The inveterate kleptocracy that is Russia goes back further than the Soviets. The only real crime that exists for the Russian elite is stealing more than allowed. That was true for the Boyars, the Nomenklatura and it remains true for the oligarchy.
Corruption in modern Russia is unique to Putin's regime - he used it (and still uses) as a tool to concentrate power - he puts in position of power only corrupt officials as a mean to get full loyalty - officials not loyal enough can be easily blackmailed, secret services have enough "kompromat" to put any government official into jail but are waiting for a signal from above. Corruption is the foundation for what in Russia called the "vertical of power", which essentially means that a person in a power structure have almost unlimited (limited only by Putin, but not by the law) power over people below.
Looks like this tool has spun out of control.
It was actually fatal. I've studied the corruption that emerged under the Soviets; it was systemic and, in fact, necessary to mitigate the crippling adversities created by Soviet ideology. It is the primary reason the Soviet Union collapsed 30 years ago.
When selecting who to delegate power to, all soviet leaders selected people who are loyal to them and suitable for the job. Loyalty was more important than competence so government was full of incompetent people, but competence was not a disqualifying factor so some of them was able to do the job.
In Putin's power structure people who not steal and cannot be easily blackmailed are not promoted high enough. Being not corrupt _is_ a disqualifying factor. Putin at least in the beginning of his career maintained visibility of a country with the rule of law, so instead jailing opponents on a whim he jailed them for breaking the law, but the law was enforced selectively only for ones who are not fully loyal.
As a result in modern Russia personal enrichment is a much bigger problem that it was in Soviet Union. Soviet nomenklatura [1] was rich compare to poor population but their quality of life was not much better than for upper-middle class in the US. The same nor the case for modern Russia.
Failure of soviet economy as I know was not result of corruption - much more resources were wasted than stolen. Unfortunately I cannot provide any sources here - all I read was in Russian and I cannot find translations to English.
I've seen this inefficiency myself in form of many thousands tons of trees which were cut so harvesting organization would meet KPI for amount of harvested wood but left to rot in the forest because an organization which should transport the wood had not enough capacity to do this (but likely transported all volume on paper, which you may say is corruption, but resources were wasted, not stolen).
My country was behind an iron curtain and one of the motto's of that time was: "If one doesn't embelish from the state it means one's embelishing from their family". Even with democracy this mentality won't fully go away for generations. Russia continued on that trajectory to a worse state.
If the US starts WWIII, nobody will be left alive in Russia to care. If Russia starts WWIII, likewise, and it's better if the warheads don't work anyway. Meanwhile, that dacha on the Black Sea coast isn't going to pay for itself, nor is the boat that comes with it.
What worries me is that this is happening in the U.S. as well.
I mean you can definitely argue for inefficiency in the MIC, but you don't see people literally just stealing millions from the allocated budget and shifting it to their bank accounts or megayachts.
I am not saying it’s an identical situation, which seems to be the assumption of some. However, the oligarchical nature of the U.S. is not slowing down.
Contracts are definitely awarded to companies based on their political connections, and not necessarily merits. Look at the whole Halliburton/Cheney shitshow in Iraq for a recent example.
We're talking $40 billion worth of (cost-plus!!!) contracts awarded to a company that was widely viewed as incompetent by the soldiers on the ground, followed by the vice-president getting a position on the board of said company when he retired. This is after he got a $30 million golden parachute after leaving them in 2001.
It's just that the US manages to prolong this much longer than others.
In the west we have free press looking into it and exposing the theft, plus, the theft in the west has very complex schemes to make it look legit on the surface and to make sure nothing sticks to our Teflon politicians, but in Russia they don't need to worry about any red tape BS, they can just shove their hands in the public purse and take as much as they want and go directly to the Lamborghini dealership or the casino without any accountability, and if any reporter looks too deeply into their theft, they get death threats or even death through very suspicious circumstances.
It's orders if magnitude worse.
It took me years to get used to the heat indoors when I moved to Scandinavia.
"Are you cold now?"
"Yes sir!"
"Now get dressed!", "Are you still cold?"
"No sir!"
This isn't the cause by the actions of a single piece of shit (Putin) but the consequences of unchecked sistemic corruption that spans for decades across the entire government apparatus.
I laughed out loud when I saw pictures of the ERA plates on Russian tanks were actually filled with cardboard because what should have been the Russian army modernization, is now parked in the biggest most luxurious yachts in the world and in the most desirable real estate in Europe and North America.
So, as a European who's country had been under forced Russian occupation, and the puppet communist regime there caused scars that will still last for decades, I'm chuck full of joy to see Russia's army being crippled from inside by it's own corrupt system and the greed of it's own leaders. 10/10
I already have my apartment at 20C and can probably tolerate a bit lower if it means starving the Russian army and saving Ukrainian lives.
Still, I expected the Russian government propaganda to spin this news into something like "Heroic Moskva cruiser managed to successfully destroy two enemy Neptune missiles with its hull, causing it to be promoted to the rank of submarine ".