Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Sexybeast well...there were a period that Soviet Union's GDP is some 70-80% of U.S's GDP...
although not a free market, Soviets' economy still helps Soviet union to have a huge and strong military during that time.....
one thing we must agree is that only strong economy can sustain a strong military power in a long term base (not short time, if russia's economy still does not improve, and its military facilities stop selling weapons to india and china, its "strong" and "state-of-art" military tech will perish probably) |
I'm not sure that the Soviet Union ever truly had that level of GDP, though I don't doubt that they probably reported it as such. Unfortunately, the ol' Soviet Union was not very forthcoming about
real facts with a strong tendency to report 'creatively modified' numbers. It may have been a bogus GDP reporting or something else. They also pegged the value of the Ruble at 1 dollar even though everybody knew it was never actually worth that. Its really hard to say what truly went on.
You're right when you say that a strong economy is essential to maintain a strong military. Russia's military technology is superb, but their economy is a mess and they can't actually mass produce their lovely inventions for themselves because they can't afford it. I wish I could fix it for them but the source of the problems lie with the Russian people. Such is always the case when it comes to economics. When the majority of Russians become obsessed with Russia's success and work as hard as they are capable of to achieve it, prosperity is not far off. The Russian Mafia isn't helping matters.