Military Strength of Russia (and compared to other nations)

Originally posted by aaaaa

2006, You contradict yourself so much it's breathtaking.

1. Read your history. The Russians killed the leadership of Afganistan when they invaded and installed Najabullah as thier puppet.
They suffered over 15,000 deaths. NATO casualties are under 300.
They were under siege. Now the Taliban is.

2. Putin has eliminated independant broadcast and print opposition to his regime.
He has jailed political oposition and nationalized GAZPROM. Freedom of speech as defined by open criticism of government is not restricted to 10% of the world's countries. Consult Freedom House and get the real numbers.

4. You skipped your point 3 but again I'll ask you to source the contention that the U.S. supplied Saddam with anything but intellegence during the Iran/Iraq war. Nobody has a "right" to use chemical weapons on an innocent population, to suggest Saddam had a right to do so against the Kurds is despicable.

Please re-read your ill-considered post. "You" means me, not the U.S. government, and even then, I doubt you can source any official there calling Putin a communist.

Deny ignorance, stop displaying it.

no one has right to use chemical weapons, but if your the US, or your backed by the US or any global superpower, i bet you can pass whatever you want. Israel is convicted of war crimes and all that, and it's not getting punished, why cuz it got the US to hold on to. and i didn't mean he had the right to do so, but he had right to attack them, they were revolting, lets say texas wanted to separate, would the US government let it go without a fight, hell no!

very well about the free press, but still in foreign policy, he had every right. nevertheless, NATO casualties aren't so high first of all because Taliban didn't havea good army int eh first place, and right now Taliban is the only person against them. plus the Taliban aren't supplied by any world power, in the 80's soviet invasion, the afghan were supplied by the US with stinger missles, and other weapons. even Bin laden was an ally of the US at the time, and was given weapons and money for his fighting the communists. the invasion of Afghanistan by the soviets was to prop up a communist or soviet leaning government/leadership.

Modem died so excuse the late reply...

Originally posted by rogue1
Well fortunately most people live in the real world.

Unfortunately most people are far too damn ignorant to understand that perception and knowledge can change your life. The real world you talk about is nothing but a construct of the corporate media that you have chosen to accept as 'reality'.

There is no utopian society in real life.

Are American living standards really declining because of a hostile world that does not believe in a contemporary utopia or does it have more to do with the policies that suits those who want to stay in power?

WHy doesn't every country lay down their arms and invest in education ? WHy not, because countries have their own interests which need to be protected.

Because education ( when it's not controlled to suit the interest of the elite) is the enemy of the establishment and they hate people getting any more than they require to fall victim to manipulation. Most of the world wars and regional conflicts fought are started not for the interest of 'the people' but for the interest of the ruling elite of the world and that's pretty much why the average man rarely benefits. People do not need guns but for the last century it was mostly required to try resist the terror that any sort of freedom related reforms brings forth from Britain and her lackey allies like the USA.

Hmmm, did you get this " millions of dead Americans " from one of your fringe books ?

I just happened to type 'American' instead of America and it was still clear that it was deaths caused directly or indirectly by the American government. Actually this is all from declassified CIA documents and the like but i guess that can be considered ' the fringe' when one is ignorant.

I muust have learnt a different history along with everyone else. Where were these millions of AMericans killed ?

If you can not even figure out the difference between what you wanted to read and what i typed your wasting my time.

I don't have an argument there is nothing to argue, you are completely wrong.

The policies of Western imperialism has killed hundreds of millions over the last hundred years and there is no disputing that. You can deny it all you want but that's sadly something the USSR never got close to managing.

I find this highly amusing. So having supposed " good intentions " gives caerte blanche for the Russians to massacre entire villages, use chemical weapons etc. A twisted set of morals if ever I've seen any.

I never said that they were justified in the murder of destruction they indulged in but that there was at least some clear evidence that the change they wanted would have benefited average Afghan's. America's funding of crazed Muslim fanatics made their resistance possible and thus resulted in tens of thousands more deaths than would otherwise have been the case. The fanatics American funded were screaming 'death to America' days before the Soviet invasion and they went right back to screaming 'death to America' when the Soviet union eventually 'left'. America creates her own enemies and kills millions in the process.

NOt to mntion ther intereventions in Prague and Budapest where thousands of civilians were killed. Oh and yes themillions of Russians and Eastern Europenas who died in RUssia's gulags. Hmmmm....need I say more.

I have done the math ( I'm not proud of it) and the West won the war of the 'who can kill the most poor third world citizens' by a very wide margin. The Russians managed to keep their 'republics' in line killing a few thousand while the USA conducted illegal bombing campaigns, against countries they never declared war against, killing maybe half a million.

Hmm right, except when tehy come back out their industries are destroyed and their farmlards irrdaited. interesting that you'd call that victory.

They have food stored enough to feed most of their population for time enough to get back to farming when the radiation levels go down after a few weeks/months. The critical nuclear weapon related industries are all underground and so is what would be required to continue and win the war as far as i can tell. It might not sound like a victory to you but then your country has never fought a conventional war that cost you 20 odd million dead.

I hvae on numerous ocassins, your sources were inaccurate as I hvae proven on many occassions.

Inaccurate in what sense? Please post a link and as i never noticed any attempt at actually refuting my arguments in any factual, or even half informed, way.

Well we've yet to see how your vaunted Russians would react to a disaster on the same scale, my bet is not very well at all. We saw how they dealt with Chernobyl

They dealt with Chernobyl very well compared to what the US government managed after some hurricane damage. The death toll of Chernobly stands at 37 last time i checked and that compares very well to the number of people od dead&missing after Katrina.

Stellar

Originally posted by zikan42
My family members served as well. I talk to many people about this too. My dad served in Soveit navy and he says it was

crap, Russian army right now is nothing to what it once was.

What was it once in your opinion?

How DARE you compare what happens in american or many other armies to dedovshina. 10 000 cases happen every year, with 2000
lethal outcomes. Thats way more than the total number of americans dying in Iraq. Most of the people are indimitated to keep

Actually there a few dozen lethal outcomes with 'thousands suffering psychological scars'.
If you can provide links as to how many cases have been proven to happen or how many deaths/serious injuries result i will look at it.
America has likely suffered anywhere up and maybe beyond 10 000 dead in Iraq even thought they have only disclosed the deaths of about 2500 last i checked.

silent. Before, when my father was serving, the soldiers were still being beaten but by other soldiers and with surtain
precausions. Now, the actual commanders are at it. They damand money from the boys, they made them send letters back home
asking them to send it over. As you know, many russians dont have any money so the soldiers have to go outside and BEG for
the money for their commanders.

Well if you have some links i will give it a look....

Human rights activists? HAAHAHA. Families are told to keep quite about the crimes and most do. In RARE cases, the story goes
into the media and the army is forced to look into the problem.

You do realise that's pretty much hoe violent crimes work especially in such closed institutions? From what i have read the scale is not anywhere near the same in US army but it's there and people are dying or getting seriously injured in more ways than one. We know that these things certainly happen in most armed forces and that the scale and severity has more to do with the general subcultures than specific army institutions.

As I said, nobody is afraid to go to army in canada for example- all you will have to put up with is yelling, but
nobody will raise their hand at you. Everybody I know in russia, and I mean everybody, doesnt want their sons, or themselves
to go to that hellhole.

Iraq is more than a hell hole and tens of thousands of Americans will carry just the physical scars of war for the rest of their lives. If one looks at Vietnam and Korea it's evident that one had a better chance surviving the cold war in Soviet army than in the American army....

They ALL want to escape the country in order to avoid it.
You want to go to war? Chechnya? Start up by shooting that bastard putin in the face, for planting explosives in the
buildings prior to the invasion on the country.

Actually Putin is not responsible for the scale of the war in Chechnya and we have western powers and especially the CIA to thank for the pointless slaughter of Innocent civilians caught in the middle of the CIA sponsored thugs and the Russian army. Do some BASIC research.

Chechnya is a war for oil, just like Iraq.
Also dont compare crime rates of US to that of Russia, its just uncomparible. Oh, and the country is still controlled by
mafia.

Oil is important and that is why the west is so actively trying to disrupt that country and why Russia is trying to stabilize it.

ALOT of people are immigrating Russia, and they have a really good reason. While few americans leave their country for good
jobs somewhere else, to travel or to go to another developed country; Majority of russians would immigrate if they had a
chance.

People go where there they thing they have the best change to do well for themselves and this is largely affected by their perception of the world. Considering the massive propaganda campaign to make western living standards seem so much higher than they are it's no surprise so many want to go to America or Britain but return realising it's not what they saw on Tv....

You should get out of moscow and see what the real russia is like. While loving your country is good, its not wise to ignore
its problems and pretend that everything is fine and the same in all other countries. The truth is, russia is in ruins

I agree that Russian has huge problems both socially and economically but can that not be said for great parts of the world? Living standards are declining ( meaning more hours at work for the same purchasing power) over great parts of the western world so why expect that things must improve in Russia at all? Russia is certainly not in ruins and as far as my research goes the problems it's facing today have , as almost always, been imported by western interests and powers. Once Russian becomes Indonesia or Thailand ( insert any third world hell hole) you might get to making such comments but while it has the awesome strategic forces one can still hope that some of the domestic leaders will use it to rebuild Russia to where it was headed at the end of the 19th century.

will probably never catch up to the west, or it will take at least 100 years. When you look back at the history, the people
have never lived well in our country.

And i can tell from this sort of comment that you clearly know even less than i thought earlier. At the very least things have been improving in Russia ( beside the very bad 90's) for a few decades now while American infrastructure and wealth have been steadily declining since the 70's.

Stellar

[edit on 3-10-2006 by StellarX]

Originally posted by aaaaa
2006, You contradict yourself so much it's breathtaking.

if you were talking to me....

1. Read your history.

Did...

The Russians killed the leadership of Afganistan when they invaded and installed Najabullah as thier puppet.

You did not even get the name right here so maybe you should read the article below and stop embarrassing yourself.

members.aol.com...

They suffered over 15,000 deaths. NATO casualties are under 300.
They were under siege. Now the Taliban is.

NATO? Afghanistan during the Soviet 'security operation( occupation)'? May that have had something to do with the massive resources the CIA supplied the fanatical anti-human-decency fanatics with? I can tell you that if the Russians wanted to supply crazed fanatics in Afghanistan with weapons NATO would be digging far more graves than they have so far. That 300 is a completely bogus number anyways but if your going to take everything the western press tells you at face value it's the type of nonsense you will end up having to believe.

2. Putin has eliminated independant broadcast and print opposition to his regime.

REALLY? I guess this is sort of assuming that there are independent news media in such great countries as the USA and Britain? It is a rather well known fact, for anyone who's done research anyways, that Putin has to put up with a far nastier press core who attack him on IMPORTANT issues; something that so rarely happens in the USA.

He has jailed political oposition and nationalized GAZPROM.

Are they political opposition or western agents funded and sponsored by the CIA and others to attack Russian institutions by means of a supposedly non free press? I can tell you that i would also lock up foreign agents who's only interest seems to subversion and generally using free press to spread lies if such can be proven in courts.

Freedom of speech as defined by open criticism of government is not restricted to 10% of the world's countries. Consult Freedom House and get the real numbers.

Free speech is NOT the right to make up lies and slander government officials and civil institutions. There are very few countries where that type of free speech gets the main stream coverage it deserves.

4. You skipped your point 3 but again I'll ask you to source the contention that the U.S. supplied Saddam with anything but intellegence during the Iran/Iraq war.

So do you just want to see if his studied this or do you somehow believe that there was not selling of chemical and other weapons to Iraq?

Nobody has a "right" to use chemical weapons on an innocent population, to suggest Saddam had a right to do so against the Kurds is despicable.

Well obviously no one has that right to do that and if SH really did that would be quite the epic crime. I have done some reading on this and if one looks what he is currently being prosecuted for you might be quite surprised to discover the absence of those accusations.

Please re-read your ill-considered post. "You" means me, not the U.S. government, and even then, I doubt you can source any official there calling Putin a communist.

The communist were not even communist but that rarely stopped almost everyone from calling them that. There is plenty of local business opposition to Putin ( as happens in any true democracy where the rich can own so much of the media) and I'm pretty sure they wont mind calling him a communist completely forgetting what the real communist( anyone who disagrees with American policy) did not so very many decades ago.

Deny ignorance, stop displaying it.

I share that sentiment.

Stellar

i just want to say that socialism and communism have never been tested and have never been done, all that has been done are corrupt governments who only call themselves communist or socialist while failing to fullfil some of the most basic principles of socialism and communism, equality.

Stellar, you post with no facts, deny reality and generally behave like a troll.

I have freedom of speech to call Bush or Putin what I please without being sued, cited or arrested. That isn't libel, and if you say so you are the one embarrassing yourself.

Tell us all what the REAL NATO casualty figure is, I'm sure by your twisted reasoning it's in the millions

Make up whatever you please, invent your own definitions and continue to abuse others and yourself. You are a hateful bully. Re-examine your life, please.

I was just googling for "Russia's military strenght" and this site appeared as one of the results.

Interesting points being discussed here.

Hmm, reading Stellar's clarification I have nothing much to add. America can't openly attack Russia. So how do they keep a country with awesome potential down? Just look on the news - Russia had a conflict with every country formerly in the USSR. Americans are trying to build bases there, get them to join NATO or just setting them against Russia.

I wouldn't say Stellar is a bully. He's only clarifying a few points. A big chunk of western press if full of lies and american bias. Know why? Because America has a big influence on Europe. Instead of, like Russia, go against them, they "get on" with USA by accepting their points of view. Weapons and military strenght has a big influence even now. The country who is more powerful then the rest will dictate to others their terms.

If you won't accept the simple fact that America is the current world bully, then you shouldn't talk about politics at all.

Now about the military strenght.

American's have launched a nuclear missle silo into outer space a few decades ago. How did Russian's retaliate? Hah, this is funny: launched a missle with lots of screws and nuts inside it. When it reached the apporoximate location of the American silo, the screws and nuts were released out of the missle at extremely high speed. The silo was full of holes and became useless.

I want to point out, that for all of America's high tech - it makes it pretty vulnerable to other things. EMP - electro magnetic impulse. One such missle would make american army close to useless, since practicly all their equipment is electronic. A super virus would shut down those spy satelites they rely on so much. Russian army was trained with more survival skills, combat skills and scouting skills then the American army. Making us far superior in low tech combat.

That doesn't mean that we don't have some very high-tech equipment though.



These sort of facts explain why the American government is afraid more of Russia, then the rising China.

I see, if you I don't agree with you, I should shut up.

This is an open forum and while some topics have a high level of civility, others are just expressions of hatred by those with an axe to grind, or a perspective that is not supported by facts or events.

Some claims made without supporting evidence here are so outrageous that they demand clarification or correction.

I agree that the US is interested in surrounding and containing Russia, BTW.

Originally posted by aaaaa
Stellar, you post with no facts, deny reality and generally behave like a troll.

I post with plenty of facts and if you can not do the research to establish what i say to be factual please ask for links. Reality is probably not at all what you believe it to be ( or what i believe as it keeps getting stranger) and if you call everyone who points this out to you trolls your never going to be any wiser; which is presume is the intent here...

I have freedom of speech to call Bush or Putin what I please without being sued,

Yes you do and that's why i am using my freedoms to call you ignorant and generally very badly informed on what i have seen you type her.

cited or arrested. That isn't libel, and if you say so you are the one embarrassing yourself.

I can sue you for libel on just about anything under the sun if i can prove ( that's normally pretty hard as i understand) that it affected my life in a significantly negative way. Knowingly spreading falsehoods and lies when it affects the freedoms of others is not and will never be covered by 'freedom of speech' or some such nonsense. The only reason why those who attack their governments do not generally get sued for libel is because most people's claims are extraordinary tame compared to what most governments are in fact doing.

Tell us all what the REAL NATO casualty figure is, I'm sure by your twisted reasoning it's in the millions

No actually i suspect the NATO and allied deaths in both Iraq and Afghanistan is probably a 10 000+ give or take a couple thousand. Just US deaths ' in and around' Afghanistan is now very close to 300( officially) not counting any of the other nations serving there. I can go into great depth as to why and how these numbers are being hidden but i suspect you have neither the capacity or interest to defend what you have been convinced reality is; consensus is apparently good enough for you.

Read some of the following and start asking yourself how if they are willing to make up so many lies about the amounts of wounded what sort of things they might consider doing to hide the death toll.

www.thepowerhour.com...

www.lewrockwell.com...

www.commondreams.org...

www.veteransforamerica.org...

www.veteransforamerica.org...

Remember that the majority of American fighting men who did actual service on the ground in the first gulf war are now 'medically unfit' ( whatever that means) and are no longer on active duty.
If you want to have a in depth discussion of this matter we can do that and i believe i can conclusive prove that the USA are not only hiding deaths but have a very long record of doing so in previous conflicts.

Make up whatever you please, invent your own definitions and continue to abuse others and yourself.

If you consider your lies being exposed 'abuse' then you are not well imo and if you want to counter my claims with what you consider to be reality please feel free as i certainly defend what i say in what i consider a pretty factual manner.

You are a hateful bully. Re-examine your life, please.

If you can not cope with reality in these dosages i suggest you go to bed and get 10 hours rest someone of your age requires.

Originally posted by aaaaa
I see, if you I don't agree with you, I should shut up.

I welcome disagreement when it's based on something beside prejudice/ignorance as i gain from having my reality tested by others. Don't stop talking simple because others do not like what you have to say.

This is an open forum and while some topics have a high level of civility, others are just expressions of hatred by those with an axe to grind, or a perspective that is not supported by facts or events.

I am in complete agreement.

Some claims made without supporting evidence here are so outrageous that they demand clarification or correction.

So very true.

I agree that the US is interested in surrounding and containing Russia, BTW.

'Containing' in the sense that the US seems rather incapable of doing much beside building more bases trying to inflleunce foreign nations by not so diplomatic means.

Stellar



[edit on 6-10-2006 by StellarX]

Originally posted by Alex Dude
Now about the military strenght.

American's have launched a nuclear missle silo into outer space a few decades ago. How did Russian's retaliate? Hah, this is funny: launched a missle with lots of screws and nuts inside it. When it reached the apporoximate location of the American silo, the screws and nuts were released out of the missle at extremely high speed. The silo was full of holes and became useless.

You mind posting a source to support you perposterous assertion?

Originally posted by Alex Dude
I want to point out, that for all of America's high tech - it makes it pretty vulnerable to other things. EMP - electro magnetic impulse. One such missle would make american army close to useless, since practicly all their equipment is electronic. A super virus would shut down those spy satelites they rely on so much. Russian army was trained with more survival skills, combat skills and scouting skills then the American army. Making us far superior in low tech combat.

That doesn't mean that we don't have some very high-tech equipment though.

And more nonsense. It was America that discovered EMP in the 50's. You think 50+ years later they might have hardened their equipment to resist EMP? Well they have, a LONG TIME AGO.


And gee, I'm sure NO ONE in the Pentagon has ever given a moment's thought to protecting our space based surveillance and GPS equipment from electronic attack.

[edit on 6-10-2006 by Number23]

Originally posted by Number23

Originally posted by Alex Dude
Now about the military strenght.

American's have launched a nuclear missle silo into outer space a few decades ago. How did Russian's retaliate? Hah, this is funny: launched a missle with lots of screws and nuts inside it. When it reached the apporoximate location of the American silo, the screws and nuts were released out of the missle at extremely high speed. The silo was full of holes and became useless.

You mind posting a source to support you perposterous assertion?

Originally posted by Alex Dude
I want to point out, that for all of America's high tech - it makes it pretty vulnerable to other things. EMP - electro magnetic impulse. One such missle would make american army close to useless, since practicly all their equipment is electronic. A super virus would shut down those spy satelites they rely on so much. Russian army was trained with more survival skills, combat skills and scouting skills then the American army. Making us far superior in low tech combat.

That doesn't mean that we don't have some very high-tech equipment though.

And more nonsense. It was America that discovered EMP in the 50's. You think 50+ years later they might have hardened their equipment to resist EMP? Well they have, a LONG TIME AGO.


And gee, I'm sure NO ONE in the Pentagon has ever given a moment's thought to protecting our space based surveillance and GPS equipment from electronic attack.

[edit on 6-10-2006 by Number23]

now please tell me, how are you going to protect a sattelite no larger than the size of a 9 sq. ft room from a rocket filled with steek shrapnel, remember the rockets launched by hezbollah in the last mideast conflict, well think of that on a much larger scale, and with much better shrapnel designed for the purpose of disabling such sattelites? it's simple and inexpensive, you don't need no EMP or a high explosive missle, or a complicated space mission, or whatever to disable every sattelite around the earth, what there are like thousands, launch a 100 large missles filled with strong shrapnel and watever and detonate them in outer space, and there you have it ruined sattelites all over the place!!! the fella pointed out to the missile filled with nuts and screws.. i believe that's a pretty good idea, maybe some weak armies around the world should implement it for maximum damage! also EMP is not necessary in this case as i have pointed out....

y'all ain't gonna finish this discussion or what?

how would modern russia fair in a conventional war against america?

Here's a very interesting quote I found on Wikipedia:

Thus the Russian minister of defence, Sergei Ivanov, said in an interview that "the armed forces of the Russian Federation are currently not combat ready and will only become such after a lengthy mobilization."

For anyone who believes Russia can conduct military operations in the modern era, you are sadly mistaken.

This is not a slap to Russia's face. This is simply a fact that Russia has a long way to go before it can do even a quarter of the things the Red Army did.

Originally posted by sweatmonicaIdo
Here's a very interesting quote I found on Wikipedia:

And if you believe everything you read you would probably believe that the US armed forces were. If think it's quite revealing that he said what he did as there is no way on earth one can consider the armed forces of Russia other than combat ready against any potential adversary it's likely to face. If a country becomes so strong that it can afford to feign weakness i get pretty worried.

For anyone who believes Russia can conduct military operations in the modern era, you are sadly mistaken.

Based on what exactly? The fact that they claim to be weak?

This is not a slap to Russia's face. This is simply a fact that Russia has a long way to go before it can do even a quarter of the things the Red Army did.

Well since we are comparing things that are hard to quantify anyways all i will say is that i strongly disagree based on what i have seen. Hows your weather been lately?

Stellar

Originally posted by StellarX
Well since we are comparing things that are hard to quantify anyways all i will say is that i strongly disagree based on what i have seen. Hows your weather been lately?

Are you suggesting that the Russians have developed or are developing on a Weather Control Device?
Other than dissipating clouds using missiles filled with some chemical (forgot what it is).

And anyway, aren't the Americans supposed to have that Superweapon? ( from Red Alert II )

Originally posted by Alex Dude
And anyway, aren't the Americans supposed to have that Superweapon? ( from Red Alert II

)

lol dats pretty funny, but really that superweapon isn't dat good, the soviet nuke is better, does more damage... lol...

anyway i've read that on wikipedia too sometime ago, the qoute... however i don't believe so... i wouldn't go on like Stellar did and completely disagree and all that, but all i will say is that my view is that the russian military can and will be brought up to top notch in case of war.... that is all..

While the Russian Armed forces are not the same Juggernaut that the Soviet / Warsaw Pact army was, they still would be quite a foe to face.

During the Cold war, Nato strategy was to try a slow, not stop, the Soviet advance long enough for the US to really deploy troops to Europe. Most scenarios had Nato using tactical nukes to stem the Soviet advance and even then they still would advance. It was at best a very iffy proposal that Nato's conventional forces alone would stop a Soviet attack on Western Europe. Sheer numbers would overwhelm the technologically superior Nato troops. It would have been an initial war of attrition that Nato could not keep up with the armored vechiles / planes that would be destroyed. Luckily for everyone, it never came to blows as the end result would have probably been a fairly decent sized nuclear exchange involving 4 nuclear powers, if not a full scale nuclear war.

Again while Russia is not the Soviet Empire it still has the capability to inflict massive damage to a foe. One of its main advantages is that it is a centrally located force unlike the U.S. where troops are spread out over the world.

Given a rebuilding of the Military infrastructure, Russia would field a formidable force. At the very least, it has to be in the top three nations in the ability to project it's power beyond it's borders on a massive scale.

russia is i believe 2nd in matters of power projection and military prowess, no country other than the US can at this moment match in any way the power or scale of the russian military, even without nukes....