The media made much of the two Russian nuclear-capable TU-160
bombers that flew to Venezuela this week for a few days of exercises with the
tiny Venezuelan air force, which shows that the old Cold War mentality is still
alive and well in the media, and perhaps in Washington as well.
There is no question that Russian engineers and designers
are good, and that new Russian aircraft and ships are perhaps as good as
anything we build in the West, though usually a bit behind in electronics. For example, the new SU57 fighter appears to
be quite good, but Russia has only ordered 10 pre-production prototypes, and 12
production models. In contrast, the 9 countries that have ordered America’s new
F35 fighter account for 3,100 orders so far (the US Air Force alone plans thus
far to acquire 1,763 of them).
Or consider nuclear attack submarines. Russian currently has
17 operational, as near as US intelligence can determine (one Sierra I, two
Sierra IIs, three Victor IIIs, 10 Akulas, and one new Yasen). They also apparently
have 22 conventional (non-nuclear) in service, most 25-35 years old and useful
mostly for inshore defense. In contrast, the US has 51 nuclear attack submarines
currently in service (32 Los Angeles class, 3 Seawolf class, and 16 Virginian
class, with 14 more Virginia class planned or under construction).
Or consider the TU-160 (Blackjack) strategic bombers that
just caused such a media hysteria. The Russians have 16 of them in service. We
have 62 B1 and 20 B2 bombers currently in service, though for both the Russian
and American bombers maintenance is a problem (largely for budget reasons in
both cases), and probably neither nation could actually field on short notice
more than half their total.
Certainly the Russians have enough force to cause us
problems around the Russian periphery, and of course they are a nuclear nation,
which suggests that we would be unwise to invade them (but Napoleon and Hitler
both demonstrated that was unwise in any case). But they are hardly an existential
threat to the US, or even a serious threat to Europe. Indeed, it is not even clear
they could actually successfully invade and hold all of the Ukraine, though
they might like to.
For all their designers are good, their economy just isn’t large
enough to field and support large numbers of expensive weapons systems. In fact
the Russian economy (GDP about 1.7 trillion) is about the size of Italy’s
economy, and somewhat less than the economy of Texas. Looked at in terms of GDP per capita, Russian’s
is about $8,700 per worker while Texas workers produce about $58,000 a person.
Media hysteria is never helpful.
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