What if Russia and U.S. had a war............

Originally posted by Amuk



The Chinese........ because we would cripple each other.

Thats why it will not ever happen.......unless of course a total madman takes power in either country.

The only open minded person here.

I agree with you 100%

Out,
Russian

as some others have said in this thread already- i don't know who would win, but i sure as hell know who would lose- everyone!

-koji K.

I don't know who would win but a lot of people will be killed you can be sure of that especially if nukes are involved.

There is a chance they wouldn't use nukes because they would be afriad of MAD (who isn't). But heres some info from the World Almanac 2004
US / Russia

Active Troops 1,414,000 / 988,000
Reserve Troops 1,259,000 / 20,000,000
Defense Expenses($ bil) 322.4 / 63.7
Tanks (MBT)(Army only) 7,620 / 43,740
Cruisers 27 / 7
Frigates 35 / 10
Destroyers 55 / 14
Carriers 12 1
Subs 72 / 53

In aircraft it says Russia has 606 FGA (fighter ground attack) and for fighters it is listed as 908. The US just says 3000+ and both of for both sides this is only air force. BTW in active troop strength US is #2 you can guess whos #1, Russia is #5. In case anyone wants to know UK is #25. Some of this info might be unreliable or has changed recently but these are rough figures. Also who knows whats not listed. If you want info on other countries send me a U2U.


[edit on 6/27/2004 by cyberdude78]

[edit on 6/27/2004 by cyberdude78]

Can anyone explain it to how this can be true? Russian GDP is around $400 billion and how can it be spending somthing like $60 billion on military? that's like 1/6, 15% of its GDP?

[edit on 27-6-2004 by Hawkssss]

Well the russians can barley afford 67B i dont think they can go much higher maybe by a little bit but thats it their economy is not strong enough.









West Point
Out

[edit on 28-6-2004 by WestPoint23]

Dont know how they can afford that but dang thats a lot of tanks and reserve troops.

Originally posted by Hawkssss
Can anyone explain it to how this can be true? Russian GDP is around $400 billion and how can it be spending somthing like $60 billion on military? that's like 1/6, 15% of its GDP?

[edit on 27-6-2004 by Hawkssss]

russian GDP in 2002 was 1,069 billion USD, while their defense expenditure for the same year was 50.8 billion USD. so it's just 4%. (my source for this was "The Military Balance 2003-2004" published by the IISS and Oxford University Press.

-koji K.

No. $1 trillion is ppp gdp. It's gross gdp is around $400 billion. Same as for China, PPP GDP around $6 trillion, gross gdp around $1.4 trillion. Everything, including military expenditure, is quoted in gross terms so it is still 15%.

i dont think russia hax that many taks well at least the ones that are working most of those tanks are T-72 and from soviet times.

Originally posted by Hawkssss
No. $1 trillion is ppp gdp. It's gross gdp is around $400 billion. Same as for China, PPP GDP around $6 trillion, gross gdp around $1.4 trillion. Everything, including military expenditure, is quoted in gross terms so it is still 15%.

not in the "Military Balance". they use PPP for both GDP *and* defense expenditure.

-koji K.

No. take a look at this website. Everything is in gross terms. If it were in PPP terms, China's gross military spending would only be 1/5 of $47 or around $10 billion, which is only 1/100 of our gross gdp.

www.cdi.org...

[edit on 28-6-2004 by Hawkssss]

By the same token, India would only spend around $4 billion in gross terms and that I don't think so.

the CDI site cites as a source the same insitution that makes the "Military Balance" (the IISS). look where it says "sources" below. just about everyone uses the "Military Balance" as a touchstone. I can't find where it says they're using GDP on this site.. but since they've taken their stats partially from the IISS i think it's safe to assume that the figures are PPP and not GDP.

-koji K.

[edit on 28-6-2004 by koji_K]

No. Just think about. Everything is quoted in gross terms, except for PPP GDP. So you should consequently use only Russia's Gross GDP to calculate the percentage of its military spending of its GDP so that it is consistent. Anyway, this is Economics 101.

Whatever source you have. Russia's nominal or gross GDP is $400 billion while its GDP in ppp terms (purchasing power parity) is around $1 trillion. Same goes for China: gross gdp $1.3 trillion, ppp gdp $6 trillion.

so why don't you think about the examples I gave you about China and India. In gross terms, China would be spending $10 billion while india only $3 billion according to your logic. So Can you explain.

Like I said, EVERTHING except for PPP GDP is quoted in gross terms.

[edit on 28-6-2004 by Hawkssss]

the "Military Balance" makes it clear that they're using PPP for both GDP and PPP, like I said. they also list 4.4% as the figure for defense expenditure as a percentage of GDP, *using PPP for both*. i wish i could provide a link, but sadly the IISS doesnt make this info available online free. but if you can, check it out in a library. it makes it very clear.. i'm looking at it right now, in black and white!

im not sure what or how i can extrapolate anything from your india and china examples because you havent stated where and how you are getting your blanket "1/5" figure for PPP conversion.

-koji K.

see it for yourself in this Congressional Research Service document:

www.fas.org...

"For most countries, the IISS converts budget data into dollars using current exchange rates in US Dollars. For countries where basic economic data are hard to obtain, such as former command economies like China, Russia, or countries in conflict, the IISS uses purchasing power parity (PPP) estimates for its conversions. PPPs measure the relative purchasing power of different currencies over equivalent goods and services. This method accounts for the substantial differences in estimated prices for defense goods."

(note the sources... even congress uses the IISS!)

-koji K.

[edit on 28-6-2004 by koji_K]

Koji,

I don't know, but I am pretty sure all those were quoted in gross terms meaning simple conversion using Forex exchange rate. As for China and India, I used a conversion ratio of 5 because China's gross gdp is around $1.3 trillion and gdp in ppp terms is around $6 trillion.

I guess what your source says about "using ppp for developing markets" is because these countries, china, russia, india, etc, do not disclose these info readily so the US has to make a guess.

Does anyone else know how to explain this issue?