[thrwayxyz]

Russia has the population of Nigeria and the GDP of Italy.

The cold war ended a while ago. Worrying about them today makes about as much sense as worrying about Autria in 1930 because Austrohungaria used to be a world power.

[aquadrop]

Firstly, Nigerian population is much larger than Russian (190 vs 146). And secondly, what's wrong with population of Nigeria? It's 60% of population of USA and will probably be equal in 30 years.

[chosenbreed37]

> And secondly, what's wrong with population of Nigeria?

I don't think it was a sleight on Nigeria. Just a poetic way to emphasize the weakness of the Russian economy by highlighting the disparity between its population and its GDP. And while the population of Nigeria is is larger it's in the right ballpark for the argument being made. They could have said Pakistan, Bangladesh or Indonesia. Although I suspect those nations have even larger populations but not by an order of magnitude.

[aquadrop]

Yeah, I didn't mean anything about questioning if it was a sleight etc, just talking about size of population. The comment was talking about Russia being substitution for USA in coupling with China, and that Russia has too low population. So it's actually about comparing size of population of USA and Russia, then Nigeria looked as an example of a country with small population compared to USA. Which is far from true.

[Bendingo]

> Worrying about them today ...

And yet, still the west endlessly obsesses about Russia, for some reason.

[chrischen]

They have a large nuclear arsenal.

[azinman2]

And a large military, are actively involved in cyberwarfare and psychological warfare, hacking US elections, and veto rights on the UN Security Council. Plus a history of getting many countries into its sphere of influence.

It’s foolish to discount them.

[milchek]

Which might not mean as much as you think, thanks to the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction)

[AstralStorm]

That only works as long as you have targets worth destroying. China has a lot. US, fewer... Russia, we do not even know the targets.

[bayesian_horse]

They can't use that arsenal to buy Chinese stuff.

[foldingmoney]

>Worrying about them today makes about as much sense as worrying about Autria in 1930 because Austrohungaria used to be a world power.

And nothing bad came out of Austria in the 1930s.

[jlangenauer]

Well, our Austrian friend had long moved to Germany by 1930.