> On a related note, could someone explain to me how Russia manages to stay a threat with a military budget that's about 6% of the US budget? Total speculation

> On a related note, could someone explain to me how Russia manages to stay a threat with a military budget that's about 6% of the US budget? Total speculation: the US may spend more on R&D to develop unproven ideas into functional systems (with a lot of failure and trial and error). Then Russia can follows those now-proven development paths without needing to spend nearly as much on dead ends or original research. Kinda like this link that another user posted here: https://io9.gizmodo.com/this-experiment-proved-that-anyone-could-design-a-nucle-510618426 https://io9.gizmodo.com/this-experiment-proved-that-anyone-c... AFAIK, there has always been a lot of Russian copying/mimicry of US technology, from the Tu-4 to the Buran, but little in the other direction.