[bgorman]

Vietnam doesn’t border Russia/USSR, and Vietnam isn’t a former Russian territory with millions of native Russian speakers.

Western countries need to ask themselves: is funding a major proxy war against the second most powerful military in the world in our long term strategic interest?

[ranger207]

> Western countries need to ask themselves: is funding a major proxy war against the second most powerful military in the world in our long term strategic interest?

I mean, why wouldn't it be? It's directly degrading an adversary and competing power. It's a lot faster than indirect means and it's a lot cheaper than going into combat ourselves. Sure, you could spin that as "imperialist Americans using poor Slavs as proxies" but really the "proxies" want the same outcome as America. Why shouldn't people with aligned interests work together?

[snowpid]

Russia is not the second most military power. That is just Russian propaganda / bullshit.

[rags2riches]

Russia is the second most powerful military in Ukraine as the joke goes.

[smcl]

Maybe they're implying that Ukraine is the strongest military power now :)

[hn_go_brrrrr]

They've already considered that and come back with a resounding "yes".

[stefan_]

You realize "second most powerful military" is a meme to mock that same military right? Woosh.

[quickthrowman]

> Western countries need to ask themselves: is funding a major proxy war against the second most powerful military in the world in our long term strategic interest?

Russia is a gas station that happens to have nuclear weapons, not the 2nd most powerful army in the world.

[FpUser]

"Russia is a gas station" - have no idea about it now but in the time past they've managed very decent space exploration, science, education and some other things.

[flohofwoe]

That was aeons ago, in a different country, in a different world. And apart from that, anyone outside the Soviet Union could only see what their propaganda wanted them to see.

[seunosewa]

Yes, in time past. And they might be able to manage more of those in the future under new leadership.

[H8crilA]

It was the Soviet Union, not Russia. They really are different things, for example the Space Programme was mostly the development of the R-7 rocket, which was designed by a Ukrainian (Sergei Korolev).

You probably heard about the sinking of the Moskva, the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet. The Moskva was made in Soviet Ukraine, in Mykolaiv. Not in Russia. Shame they mismanaged it so much since then that just a few guided cruise missiles did the job.

The military budget of Russia is a far cry of the military budget of the Soviet Union. The scale is not even comparable, arguably the per-soldier performance went down as well.

[lostlogin]

As an aside, it is interesting how large a part Ukraine played in those events.

[loudmax]

"Second most powerful military in the world"? What world is that? Russia isn't even the second most powerful military in Europe or in Asia. At this point, Russia is on the verge of being the second most powerful ex-Soviet state.

[bgorman]

Russia has the most nuclear weapons of any country, the largest airborne assault force in the world, the best missile defense system in the world, the second most nuclear submarines (and second best), the third most fighter aircraft, the most tanks.

Russia has a great domestic arms industry/natural resources and can resupply itself in isolation.

People need to realize that Russia's defense is primarily setup to defend its borders.

Any country other than the US would not fare well in a nuclear war with Russia, including China.

China hasn't been at war since the 70s. No one knows how well they would do in a conflict.

You simply cannot ignore nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are a great equalizer, that is why North Korea cannot be invaded from South Korea, despite South Korea having a much better "conventional" military.