“followed by a military build-up,”
Putin actually cut Russia’s army forces from 2 million, to 800,000, and introduced an NCO-level command/decision structure like the west, doing away with the old, rigid Soviet-Style command system. (That China still uses, by the way. They started working on a twenty-year plan for upgrading capabilities, with a much smaller military, in Putin’s first terms.
He dropped several divisions from the structure, and the Soviet Cadre system, that resulted in lots of chiefs, but few Indians.
Russia has since concentrated on upgrading several of the remaining units along the lines of the U.S. “Heavy” Brigade structure, with inter-changeable BCT’s.
He has done the same with the Air Force and Navy, scrapping old units, and concentrating on a three-level system of “World Class”, “good”, and reserve.
And Russia is spending massive amounts of money to build/rebuild infrastructure, from double/triple-railing the trans-Siberian, to building a road and pipeline network in the far East and Siberia.
In 10-15 years, backed by the resources opened up in the north and east, Putin sees Russia’s return as true economic power house.
Now, compare that to what has been happening in America since the late 70’s...
tcrlaf, How dare you inject fact into a perfectly fine rant? ;-)
The interwar Reichswehr (Imperial Defense) was, at just over 100K men, a fraction the size of the Deutsches Heer (Imperial German Army). Then in 1935, the Reichswehr became the Wehrmacht (Defense Force) and ballooned out to become the juggernaut that steamrolled, for a time, armies all over Europe.
The numbers vary wildly as to the actual number of Russian troops; IISS estimates from four years ago cite about 1.04 million active duty and another 2.02 million reserves.