I’m not sure they’ve been number two for quite some time.
A lot of nukes but they don’t have much of a reputation beyond ruthlessness.
Well, it wasn’t just the nukes. It was also the pure size of their military, unmatched by any country in the world except for the United States, and they even bested us in quite a few categories. It also rested on their technological level, which was behind the US in most areas, but still ahead of many other countries, for example, in their ability to manufacture competitive combat aircraft and nuclear submarines.
Even after the Ukraine debacle, they’re still probably far ahead of China, and China would be our nearest competitor besides Russia. Now if all the European countries combined their forces and actually maintained a military at a level commensurate with their own defense needs instead of relying on us to plug the gaps, then they would probably surpass both Russia and China at this point.