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Top quality comment. Developing Russia into a strong nation would be a century long effort and would require a complete change in way of thinking.

If anything, they only expanded their cannon fodder doctrine to their economy as well. Russia will never be a great nation by itself. They will only be one by taking great nations next to it. Putin knows this and it is what i suspect the reason for these senseless wars. Even the atomic bomb is useless to them if nobody attempts to go into Russia. Brickwalling them economically and militarily will lead them to degenerate and die, owing to their self destructive policies, which is why Putin is so against a defensive organization forming around them. It’s why he’s so invested in Donald Trump to turn around the already forming brickwall.

It was never about the range of the nukes, intentions of the US or the alleged offensive intentions of NATO that never existed. It’s purely and simply because if Russia doesn’t take land to exploit from people who actually can carry out meaningful progress and development, they degenerate as a country. Their doctrine is self destructive and they have never known any better.

Yeah it’s true but they also always kinda sucked militarily. Today, they’re struggling against Ukraine. Their peak was during cold war soviet era and even then, they got their ass handed to them by the Mujahideen, which is seen as the event that broke them up. In ww2 they struggled against Finland and just barely made it out of their fight with Germany still a country. Only because the nazis were too confident and got into a two front war. In ww1 the eastern front was basically Russia stacking up defeats. Before that they got their ass kicked by Japan. In Napoleonic times, France handed Russia several defeats, even with other countries helping it. In pre Napoleonic times, again, just Russian defeat after Russian defeat.

It’s just a matter of fact that for as long as Russia has existed, they have always been a big unmaterialized threat. Even far back in the congress of Vienna in 1814 everyone was already assuming Russia was going to industrialize and how powerful Russia will become and in the end… nothing.

I seriously don’t think Europe needs even half of what the US has, even to face Russia. Nobody does, US military expenditure is ridiculous. I also think Russia is only still a country because no country in history ever wanted to occupy undeveloped tundra. Even the mongols only sorta occupied it by asking them for tribute and leaving them mostly alone.

Should Europe become complacent ? No, but seriously all Europe needs is a half decent unified army and a cooperating industral military complex for domestic use to go with it and i don’t really think Russia will ever be that big of a threat.