4 ms·

Huge population!? Not even twice bigger than Germany. Area is huge. As natural resources lying all over the place. They all could live like princes in Dubai, bu

by lnsru 5y ago

Huge population!? Not even twice bigger than Germany. Area is huge. As natural resources lying all over the place. They all could live like princes in Dubai, but made a different choice. They have nuclear weapons for sure, but I wouldn’t like to speculate about their maintenance and availability.

ithkuil 5y ago
> Huge population!? Not even twice bigger than Germany. They can easily fix that by annexing former SSSR territories (about 230 million)
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  They don't really want to be re-annexed though. Probably never did in the first place either, but when do you really have a choice?
  - ithkuil 5y ago
    Even if Russia doesn't actually annex other former SSSR countries, many Russian nationalists still think of them as being an extension of Russia, a part of the empire, and thus in their worldview Russia is clearly more than twice bigger than Germany
varjag 5y ago
Germany has the biggest population in EU, so twice of that is rather huge.
skissane 5y ago
> Huge population!? Not even twice bigger than Germany Germany also has a huge population, especially by European standards, even if somewhat less huge than Russia’s. Both Germany and Russia are outliers, being in some ways far from the European average. What makes Russia much more distinctive, is in how many different ways it is an outlier - arguably in a fair few more ways than contemporary Germany is, which makes it a much bigger outlier overall. > They have nuclear weapons for sure, but I wouldn’t like to speculate about their maintenance and availability. For a decent-sized nation state, nuclear weapons aren’t actually that hard to manufacture and maintain and deliver, especially if they aim at basic functionality and aren’t trying to be on the cutting edge. The biggest obstacles for most such countries are (1) the rest of the world will try to stop them through sanctions, clandestine operations, even military action; (2) if you don’t have domestic uranium deposits, it is very hard to buy uranium for military use, all major sellers will insist you promise to use it for civilian purposes only and submit to regular inspections to prove that. As an accepted nuclear weapons state, Russia doesn’t have to worry about (1); Russia also has substantial uranium reserves and is one of the world’s leading uranium exporters, so it doesn’t have to worry about (2) either. So I think Russia’s nuclear arsenal is likely to be reliable and usable.
- aforwardslash 5y ago
  Maintenance of nuclear weapons (specially if old design) is actually very expensive - probably more than their manufacturing cost. Russia claims to have a huge stockpile, but their PIB is at the level of Spain (that has like 40% of russia's population). There is a huge disproportion between the military might Russia claims yo have, and their actual capacity of paying for it. If on paper it doesn't add up, the reality we've been seeing in Ukraine is even worse - even cheap stuff like comms are notoriously unreliable.
  - skissane 4y ago
    I can't really debate the ease of maintaining nuclear weapons with you–our impressions are different, it would be great to find some reliable sources to objectively judge those impressions against, but I don't know of any, unless you do. > Russia claims to have a huge stockpile, but their PIB is at the level of Spain (that has like 40% of russia's population). I was confused by this–what is PIB? Then I realised you are probably a French-speaker, and PIB means produit intérieur brut, which is the French equivalent to what we call in English, GDP.

by lnsru 5y ago

ithkuil 5y ago

> Huge population!? Not even twice bigger than Germany. They can easily fix that by annexing former SSSR territories (about 230 million)

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
They don't really want to be re-annexed though. Probably never did in the first place either, but when do you really have a choice?
- ithkuil 5y ago
  Even if Russia doesn't actually annex other former SSSR countries, many Russian nationalists still think of them as being an extension of Russia, a part of the empire, and thus in their worldview Russia is clearly more than twice bigger than Germany

varjag 5y ago

Germany has the biggest population in EU, so twice of that is rather huge.

skissane 5y ago

> Huge population!? Not even twice bigger than Germany Germany also has a huge population, especially by European standards, even if somewhat less huge than Russia’s. Both Germany and Russia are outliers, being in some ways far from the European average. What makes Russia much more distinctive, is in how many different ways it is an outlier - arguably in a fair few more ways than contemporary Germany is, which makes it a much bigger outlier overall. > They have nuclear weapons for sure, but I wouldn’t like to speculate about their maintenance and availability. For a decent-sized nation state, nuclear weapons aren’t actually that hard to manufacture and maintain and deliver, especially if they aim at basic functionality and aren’t trying to be on the cutting edge. The biggest obstacles for most such countries are (1) the rest of the world will try to stop them through sanctions, clandestine operations, even military action; (2) if you don’t have domestic uranium deposits, it is very hard to buy uranium for military use, all major sellers will insist you promise to use it for civilian purposes only and submit to regular inspections to prove that. As an accepted nuclear weapons state, Russia doesn’t have to worry about (1); Russia also has substantial uranium reserves and is one of the world’s leading uranium exporters, so it doesn’t have to worry about (2) either. So I think Russia’s nuclear arsenal is likely to be reliable and usable.

aforwardslash 5y ago
Maintenance of nuclear weapons (specially if old design) is actually very expensive - probably more than their manufacturing cost. Russia claims to have a huge stockpile, but their PIB is at the level of Spain (that has like 40% of russia's population). There is a huge disproportion between the military might Russia claims yo have, and their actual capacity of paying for it. If on paper it doesn't add up, the reality we've been seeing in Ukraine is even worse - even cheap stuff like comms are notoriously unreliable.
- skissane 4y ago
  I can't really debate the ease of maintaining nuclear weapons with you–our impressions are different, it would be great to find some reliable sources to objectively judge those impressions against, but I don't know of any, unless you do. > Russia claims to have a huge stockpile, but their PIB is at the level of Spain (that has like 40% of russia's population). I was confused by this–what is PIB? Then I realised you are probably a French-speaker, and PIB means produit intérieur brut, which is the French equivalent to what we call in English, GDP.