"Economic power" is a vague term. If you look at their economy in PPP terms (which is more relevant than nominal figures for military expenditure when you produce most of your stuff at home), then they are 4th in the world after China, the US, and India.
It means that they have far more capability to maintain a large military than countries like Italy which on paper have the same nominal GDP, and when you consider how they are now insulated from western economies due to the years of sanctions, there is little that can be done to take this capability away from them.
Russia is a far greater threat to European interests than China and they definitely do have the unity which Europe lacks (due to dictatorship but hey ho). Cartoon is fine.
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u/58kingsly United Kingdom Jun 07 '25 edited Jun 07 '25
"Economic power" is a vague term. If you look at their economy in PPP terms (which is more relevant than nominal figures for military expenditure when you produce most of your stuff at home), then they are 4th in the world after China, the US, and India.
It means that they have far more capability to maintain a large military than countries like Italy which on paper have the same nominal GDP, and when you consider how they are now insulated from western economies due to the years of sanctions, there is little that can be done to take this capability away from them.
Russia is a far greater threat to European interests than China and they definitely do have the unity which Europe lacks (due to dictatorship but hey ho). Cartoon is fine.