U.S. Vs. Russia – Military Might

Which of the two superpowers has the greater military provisions?
US or Russia? The historical relationship between the United States and Russia can hardly be described as rosey. The two countries are inextricably linked due to the Cold War era, with the world’s two modern superpowers having enjoyed an extremely suspicious relationship with one another for decades during the 20th century.
This suspicion led to the infamous Cuban Missile Crisis. What is perhaps not so infamous about this particularly tense situation is that the world was nearly blown to smithereens. It was only due to decisions taken on board a Russian nuclear submarine by Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov that full-scale of nuclear war was averted. This was acknowledged in 2002 by former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who stated that the world has been much closer to nuclear war than is often realized.
Such history is rather chilling, particularly when one considers that the diplomatic relationship between the two nations has diminished recently. With tensions in the Ukraine, and some underlying economic and political reasons for the United States and Russia to be in military opposition, there is once again the tension between the two countries.
In March, 2014, Forbes gave seven reasons why the United States will never go to war with Russia. One would certainly hope that this is the case, but it is still interesting and informative to compare the relative military might of the world’s most powerful nations.
Manpower The United States has more than double the population of Russia, and so it is not hugely surprisingly that it has a significant edge in available manpower. The United States has over 145 million people who could theoretically serve in the armed forces, whereas Russia has under 70 million by comparison. Of course, the notion of a draft would be hugely controversial in either nation, and this figure only really is relevant in theory.
Active Military Personnel Of more relevance is the current levels of active military personnel in the two nations. The US certainly has a much larger armed forces to draw upon than Russia, with nearly 1.5 million military personnel of various denominations currently active in the United States. Russia actually has a higher level of military personnel per capita, but the total number of 766,000 is significantly less than the United States.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on 02/01/2015.