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It's not the population numbers that would determine the overall outcome of a battle between the United States and the soviets. It's how many of those people could be put under arms and fielded in combat. The Russians could do a better job of putting bullet catchers into uniform or they could during the communist era.

Straight census numbers don't take into account the greater number of older people in the United States versus Russia, the inflation of our census by estimates of illegal aliens in the population and foreign nationals working in the U.S. at any given time, etc. Besides, how many of our people are required to supply food, medicines, material and basic necessities for that much larger population? That's another fair drain on fieldable soldiers right there. Soviet food production was so low as to be laughable, as was their production rates for most other commodities except for weapons and ammunition. Most of the soviet diet was/is composed of imports. They lose little in the way of warm bodies to these necessities.

As to the 40% plus casualty rate, if I'm not mistaken, the soviet union was a communist state up until recently. I doubt very much that the leadership of the party would have had much patience for questioning of their orders by soldiers or civilians. Besides, even if the rates went much higher, it's doubtful that the people back home would have heard that the glorious soviet war machine was taking losses any where near the actual numbers. No Fox News in the glorious workers paradise.

I was unaware of the russian population decline, I've been too wrapped up in local trivia for that to creep in. Sounds like the old soviet union is dying a slow death. If it were not for the bloated census numbers here, caused by illegal immigration, I have a feeling that we might be edging toward a population decline of our own.

If the outcry against casualties in the current war is any indication, I doubt very strongly that the people of the United States would be willing to accept anything nearing a 5% casualty rate in an actual war. We've been scandalized by the miniscule losses we suffered in Iraq and most of those were accidents or preventable mishaps.

Just the opinion of a tired old man, but heck, at least I tried to answer. Going to get a few hours sleep before I have to get busy. Goodnight.

Most of this depends upon the reason for combat. If Russia was invaded then a much smalkler population would fight a lot harder. We can look at Vietnam and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to see how hard a small number will fight if another people is seen as occupiers.

I think the population figures are pretty accurate and my reading of them currently are completely in the US favor whether you look at the age of teh population (US is younger and lives longer) and/or the economics.

The Russian economy and society have changed a lot since the fall of the Soviet Union. BTW, when I visited Moscow, all of the food I ate in people's homes was local and/or from one of the former republics.

Insofar as the US accepting a high casualty rate, it depends on the cause.

Oh well, off to a customer site. No better fun than chatting on FR while I am on the road away from the house...