Oddbean new post about login | logout Russia produces more artillery in 4 days than France produces all year.
I mean sure the Russian army may well be in the Top 10, and the Russian economy is stronger than we all thought, but none of that is even close to the US. This is a fighter of a completely different weight class and it is simply impossible to seriously consider Russia as a threat to the US.
You are right of course. Compared to America, Russia isn't even close.
https://www.globalfirepower.com/ gives a lot of detailed statistics and shows Russia is a lot higher even than I thought.
Various rating systems cannot objectively reflect reality, but, of course, the Russian army is one of the best. Another thing is that in the case of Ukraine it shows itself very strangely, for example, it was obvious to everyone that it was necessary to destroy communications and the energy system of Ukraine, but the fact that the Russian army does it badly suggests some political games behind the screen of a military conflict. Or, alternatively, with a good army, the Russian command is terribly incompetent. Even both can be true at the same time.
That'll be because Russia is currently under wartime economy and France is not, that's not a very useful comparison.
I think it is useful. Economies can not just switch into wartime economies on a dime. It takes a lot of time and a hell of a lot of changes to occur before a spike in demand flows back into a spike in production. And any spike in demand in Western Europe will be noticed by Russia and met with a spike in demand by Russia. It might be very hard to catch up. Now I think US production of weapons is pretty high, and the US is making moves to increase and distribute wartime production. They just brought Japan onboard to make jet fighters.