Russia’s military overall is inferior to the USA but Russia can dominate regions

The U.S. spends nearly 10 times more than Russia on national defense. The U.S. operates 10 aircraft carriers; Russia has just one. And the U.S. military maintains a broad technological edge and a vastly superior ability to project power around the world.

Russia is now developing some key technologies, new fighting tactics and a brazen geopolitical strategy that is aggressively undermining America’s 25-year claim to being the only truly global superpower. The result: Russia is unexpectedly re-emerging as America’s chief military rival.

At least locally, Russia has the potential to generate superior forces.

Russia has preserved, even modernized, its own “triad” with nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles, a large fleet of long-range strike aircraft and increasingly sophisticated nuclear-armed submarines.

There are specific conventional areas where the Russians excel — among them aircraft, air defenses, submarines, and electronic warfare.

China today spends more on defense annually than Russia, but still imports platforms and advanced weaponry from Russia.

Russia’s airspace also is heavily fortified. The quality of Russia’s stealth aircraft is far weaker than those of the U.S., but Russia has cutting-edge anti-stealth systems, and also has invested heavily in robust surface-to-air missile systems and arrayed its forces domestically to protect its border regions

NBF- Russia can protect its airspace and borders and can project dominant power a thousand miles from its borders. Russia has over ten times the military that the US faced in the Iraq wars.

SOURCE – Military times.