How did Russia get away with the "2nd most powerful military" larp for so long and why did the world go along with it? It was obvious since 2010 that China was more powerful, based on numbers alone if nothing else. But even as recent as January 2022, I still saw serious military/geopolitical experts hyping up Russia as this military superpower that was still somehow stronger than China and a legit threat to America/NATO.

Cold War espionage.
Boy those indians sure are gathering a lot of firewood.

>>63836713 (OP)
You’re making the same exact mistake about China you’re accusing the rest of the world of making about Russia

It was beneficial for the MIC to have a dangerous peer to justify excess spending, and it was mutually beneficial for Russians to lean into it for the sake of morale, considering they had just pulled out of one of the worst economic dark ages in recent European history. Everybody wins.
>But even as recent as January 2022, I still saw serious military/geopolitical experts
"military experts" on the internet just write faggot listicles and facebook clickbait, there are no serious experts outside of war colleges and intelligence agencies.

>>63836713 (OP)
We get this unproductive topic 10 times a day. Mods do something

>>63836768
>military experts" on the internet just write faggot listicles and facebook clickbait, there are no serious experts outside of war colleges and intelligence agencies.

I saw it from a think tank. A legit multi-million consultanting agency that was being paid for their opinion

>>63836721
Chinese hardware can be 1/4 as effective as they claim to be and they will still BFTO Russia just due to raw numbers. This is war, but not a parade. Even 2000s China still should be able to zerg rush Russia.

>>63836713 (OP)
Believe it or not, material numbers (tanks, helos, apcs) are what most "analyst" look at. A majority couldn't even explain how most of the systems they are counting work. Especially for the more advanced systems (aka ones heavily pushed by the Kremlin: T14 & SU-57, and S-500). Thirdies especially like big numbers, which is why many smaller, poorer nations have large amounts of otherwise outdated equipment.

Not only is it cheaper, but it looks great on paper too.

>>63836770
shut up retard

>>63836713 (OP)
it was a combo of Russia looking impressive on paper due to their military stock and the fact most boomers still had the idea Russia was just a slight smaller version of the USSR thus a big threat

>>63837034
But based on numbers alone China would be numba 1

>>63836713 (OP)
Because Russia had prosecuted several successful wars in recent memory while China has not.

>>63836778
>that was being paid for their opinion
Exactly

>>63837252
I cannot think of a single war Russia has been good at in recent memory and I am quite old.

>>63836713 (OP)

>How did Russia get away with the "2nd most powerful military"

Massive Soviet stocks (all gone now) + lots of actual combat experience.

The Chinks haven't fought a war since 1979 against Vietnam, and they performed poorly on most of them. Nobody knows if their army can actually fight a modern war, not even them.

>>63837274
Second Chechen war, Georgia, landgrab of Crimea.
They managed to meet their war goals, albeit in their typical messy, Orcish way. I'm not saying they are good, but you can at least point to instances of them winning.

>>63837274
they managed to defeat much smaller and weaker neighbors a few times, albeit with disproportionate losses and sometimes it took them a few attempts.

Basically, no you didn't miss anything and Russia's performance in war was indeed terrible.

>>63836770
I have never seen a CHINAH NUMAH WAN thread get pruned.

>>63837325
>Georgia
They've encountered pretty big losses (compared to the operation), lost some planes, had fuck up after fuck with communication and recon, and in the end failed to capture the country, because Bush unironically told the to go back or else.

>Second Chechen war
It look them years of genociding the locals to get a result and in the end the results were pretty bad

>landgrab of Crimea
Not really a war, more of a glowie operation. Once the element of surprise was up, similar operations in most regions failed. Once major shooting started, they fucked up.

>>63837350
In all three cases, the Russians fought a war until something they could call a win. You could make all the same arguments about American wars since Desert Storm. Has any country won a war in any meaningful sense in the 21st century? How did that shit in Azerbaijan turn out? I wasn't paying attention.

>>63837276
>and they performed poorly on most of them. Nobody knows if their army can actually fight a modern war, not even them.

China defeated pajeets in 1962 and Vietnamese are still crying about their troops transport sunk at Johnson South Reef in 1988.

>>63837276
>>63837453

China won the Sino-Indian war in 1962.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War

Vietnam ceded land to China, retard.

China occupied Lang Son and Cao Bang cities at the end of the war and Vietnam claimed to dislodge them militarily. China then declared the way to Hanoi was open and the withdrew.

China also occupied friendship pass, Detian waterfalls and permanent annexed the disputed territoires, and occupied Vi Xuyen in the 1980s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_conflicts,_1979–1991
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_conflicts,_1979–1991#1984:_Battle_of_Vị_Xuyên_(Battle_of_Laoshan)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_Gate

China defeated a Vietnamese attempt to attack and occupy Johnson South reef.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_South_Reef_Skirmish

In the Sino Vietnamese war China continued to occupy the disputed Friendship pass gate and Detian falls and Vietnam ceded them to China after the war. There was no Dien Bien phu momemt in the war at all. China captured the provincial capitals of Lang Son and Cao Bang and then withdrew. China also defeated a Vietnamese attack on Johnson South reef in 1988 and sank the Vietnamese ships to the bottom of the sea.

Vietnam lost both friendship pass and detian falls to China and was defeated when it tried expelling China from Johnson South reef. China held and retained Detian falls and Friendship pass. China took the disputed Friendship Pass and Detian falls from Vietnam in the war and Vietnam recognized it in the treaty signed in 2000. China also repulsed a Vietnamese attempt to block Chinese troops at Johnson South Reef from carrying out a mission for UNESCO and killed the Vietnamese invaders.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_South_Reef_Skirmish

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_Pass

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_Gioc%E2%80%93Detian_Falls#History

>>63836713 (OP)
In 10 years they will be a bigly threat as the #3 military.

>In a big war like this you find that most of your equipment is outdated. Every vehicle on the ground is vulnerable to drones, so in the future they will have active protection systems using rockets or lasers to neutralize the drones.
>According to Finnish intelligence, they make 300 T-90M tanks per year. Years from now in peacetime they can double it to 600 tanks per year and replace the 4000 tanks they lost.
>Air defense systems like S-400 are much improved at intercepting missiles compared to day 1 of the war and will continue to get updated.
>They will have millions of drones for attack or surveillance and most of them will be autonomous.
>In recent months they started using much more effective electronic warfare systems and new types of drone interceptors.
>The Su-57 and Su-75 will completely replace the production of the Su-35 and Su-30.
>Their active personnel will be at 1.5 million.
>Their missiles like the Iskander-M will be more evasive than they already are and also be longer ranged.
>Newer artillery systems are longer ranged and more accurate. More laser guided shells and Glonass guided MLRS rockets are produced.
>They will have more military satellites orbiting the Earth.
>At the start of the war it would take them hours to locate targets behind the front and now they can do it in a few minutes.

Of course right now the war is just small teams of Russians taking trenches from even smaller teams of Ukrainians, but that's because it's the 4th year of a war of attrition. The countries of Europe would have to recruit a lot of people and build a lot more equipment to be able to deter Russia 10 years from now.

India will soon have the 3rd largest economy, and while they could become the 3rd strongest military, I doubt they'll have the motivation to do so in the next 10 years as they only fight small scale wars with Pakistan.

>>63837466
Oh I recognize this posting style.
this is the rapechink isn't it?

>How did Russia get away with the "2nd most powerful military" larp for so long
Easy, two main factors:
1. people outside the ex-soviet space don't know how russians think or operate and thus take a lot of things at face value, partially because of reverse-racism (hurr-durr russians look white, thus they are the same Europeans, not some weird gooks), while the soviet/russian system was specifically targeting PR and fake shit above actual results;
2. people who are supposed to know better, various "russia studies" faggots, western media correspondents in russia and so on were pretty much all compromised and low-key recruited by KGB/FSB in different ways and different depths, such as having them slowly cook in the russian propaganda matrix and so on;

>>63837390
>until something they could call a win
1. Russians can call anything a win. They can lose and still call it a win. For example, the majority of domestic russian historical/military discourse agrees that they won the war against Poland in 1919-1921. So for them it's just an issue of framing. Anything can be a win if you try hard enough.
2. In Georgia they fought until Bush told them to go back home, turning back a few clicks from the Georgian capital. The second chechen war was announced as a win, despite a decade long insurgency continuing after the fact. They do this every time.

>>63836713 (OP)
it's wild how my OC i draw for /int's /balk back in 2018 is still alive in 2025's /k

here's oh_exploitable and let the cum drinking continue through the ages

>>63837502
And how is that different from the US in Afghanistan/Iraq/Syria/etc? I'm not trying to argue that Russia has or has ever had a competent military. I'm just pointing out that getting into the same situations as the world's #1 military doesn't by itself preclude them from being the world's #2 military. No one wins anything anymore, but the Russians at least showed up, which is more than you could say about the chinks.

>>63837482
Funny thing is that Russia probably got super fucked by their own propaganda. If you really believe that you're the best, no need to improve. Their total insistence of their hardware being the best and better than Chink tech also meant that they mostly used all domestic equipment. I bet Russian high command is kicking themselves over not buying a fuckton of Chinese drones before 2022 invasion. And also for not partnering with china for joint aerospace development programs in the early 2010s, back when Russia tech actually had some leverage over China in the aerospace domain.

>>63837554
>And how is that different from the US in Afghanistan/Iraq/Syria/etc?
a) take your whataboutism somewhere else faggot;
b) nobody here deems afghanistan or iraq a good operation;

>>63837558
Russian drone industry up to 2022 was built by Israel. Russia first realized they are fucked in this sense as a result of the 2008 war in Georgia, they've tried some homegrown solutions and they all were shit, so they've reached out to Israel to license their stuff and help build local production.

>>63837575
Russia also didn't put advanced anti-aircraft batteries in Syria and let Israel bomb the hell out of militias there because they were buying Israeli drones.

>>63837575
>Our ally that makes some of the most popular drones in the world
>A western backed nation that we're actively screwing with by backing Iran

Yeah, fucking dumb considering how it all turned out with

>>63837583
Russia did put AA batteries in Syria, they just either chose to not shoot at Israely planes or couldn't lock onto them.

>>63836713 (OP)
Oh, it's a wumao thread. Don't you have adidas to sew, Chang?

>>63837467
Or they will just collapse, once it turns out that this was all a huge fucking fumble.

>>63836778
If you're being paid to give your opinion on another country and you tell your boss "actually I think they're no threat at all", one of two things will happen:
>he doesn't believe you, and then you're out of a job
>he believes you, and then you're out of a job
Better to hype them up so he keeps paying you.

On a related note,
Why is russia full fo rapists?

>>63836800
>they will still BFTO X just due to raw numbers
You are literally making the exact same argument the boomers made for Russian superiority for decades you insipid chinksect.

>>63836713 (OP)
Western governments encouraged it to maintain high MIC spending.

>>63836778
Think tanks come to the conclusion the governments paying them want them to come to so they get repeat business.
As a think tank if you tell your customer "you are wrong and your policy is wrong" you aren't getting hired again.

>>63836713 (OP)
If they're so weak how come they took your land, took your shit and you can't get it back?

Remember the 24h war ending?
It was biden's promise.

>>63836713 (OP)
>It was obvious since 2010
CNC Generals came out in 2003 and had china with sharts. There was no mention of the russia at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlgQm6ugKYU

>>63839398
Don't forget your source anon.
https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/10/29/ukraine-is-now-struggling-to-cling-on-not-to-win