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Originally Posted by OneToughHerring
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True but I think Russia's whole system is geared towards war. You know, Russians are not big on flower arrangements so things look shabby but when push comes to shove, they will be ready.
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that is true in so far as the military is integrated and accepted in civil society to a bigger degree than it is the case in western european nations. But russia is not different to america! In America, too, after the vietnam protests are forgotten since 1991 at the latest, the military again enjoys extremely high (by european standards) acceptance levels again. And different to Russia, American industrial production depends to much greater degrees on wartime production and the assemby of weapons, vehicles and weapon platforms and military goods, so I think you do not really have an argument there. Also I want to remind you that the Russian defense budget is more than 20 times smaller than the american one. Russia is much bigger than germany, nad has a much longer border to defend and faces the Chinese as neighbours and in somewehat disputed terrain - but there defense budget compares to that of Germany (with Germany falling behind France and Britain.)