Twelve years after the USSR's collapse, the most unreformed branch of Russian society remains its armed forces. Though its numbers have been halved to about 1.2 million personnel, and its annual budget has dropped to a mere $10 billion,Ten bil?
Even if that's a ten, hundred-fold underestimation, either in real or comparative dollars, there's no hope for them, or the rest of the world.
I'm bemused by the constant press salivation at Iraq's twelve billion a year oil revenue... That's about 150 on the Forbes list -- that is, one hundred forty-nine U.S. companies have more revenue than Iraq's oil take -- the better part of the country's entire economy.
A US Empire? No. Dominant? Indeed. There's no comparison.