[Scape]

[Thanos]

I assume it's because:

1) they're actually a poor country
2) they can only use nationalism to fake being rich for a limited amount of time before the truth steps in
3) they triple-whammied themselves in terms of their cash reserves being drained by the utterly un-necessary and completely stupid oil price war they got into against the Saudis
4) everything that comes out of Russia in terms of their resurrected "greatness" eventually turns out to be total bullshit

They're not that difficult to understand. Just go with the opening assumption that they're lying about literally everything they tell you and it gets a lot easier to see what they're up to at any given moment.

[Freakinoldguy]

Thanos Thanos:

I assume it's because:

1) they're actually a poor country
2) they can only use nationalism to fake being rich for a limited amount of time before the truth steps in
3) they triple-whammied themselves in terms of their cash reserves being drained by the utterly un-necessary and completely stupid oil price war they got into against the Saudis
4) everything that comes out of Russia in terms of their resurrected "greatness" eventually turns out to be total bullshit

They're not that difficult to understand. Just go with the opening assumption that they're lying about literally everything they tell you and it gets a lot easier to see what they're up to at any given moment.

Much like their Chinese and Iranian buddies it's all smoke and mirrors designed to scare the uninitiated into submission.

[Thanos]

They're fun fictional fights to imagine but in reality the military power of the United States would wipe the seas and air of these other countries out of existence in a matter of days. It's always good to remain aware of what the others are building but it takes a massive leap in logic, generally abetted by playing too many wargames like World of Tanks/Warships/Warplanes, to think that there's any parity anywhere on this planet with the US machine. The Americans have quite literally made a science out of war since World War Two. They're not going to be knocked off the pinnacle anytime soon by any external enemy. There's lots of ways to hurt the US by a face-to-face military confrontation would be about the most pointless and unwise way to do it.