So prior to 2022, how did Russia meme the world into believing that they were the 2nd most powerful military in the world? It's not just sites like global firepower too, I have seen a number of analyst and military experts actually say that Russia had a more powerful military than China prior to Feb 2022. This are people who actually get paid to study this shit for a living. I seriously don't understand how this "experts" could have come to this conclusion if they had just done a few hours of research.

It's not just the overall tech advantage that China has, but the sheer economy, population and industrial advantage would surely have clinched China the N2 spot even if they were drastically behind Russia on tech. Personally, I would have put China as 2nd as early as 2010. This is why I don't trust the "experts" btw. Crazy how they could get something so basic wrong. I have no idea how Russia psyoped the world so badly. Even today, globalfirepower and an army of Indians still has Russia as the 2nd most powerful country and the same "experts" still somehow rank Russia as this massive military threat, even though they are probably behind Poland or Germany at this point.

Just a reminder that Russia is still more powerful than China

When posters from the list speak, I sit down and listen