As the much-touted “rules-based world order” is coming to a well-deserved end (at last, most of the world would say), the political West is increasingly desperate to cling on to its waning power. The crawling (neo)colonialism is crumbling under the weight of its own decay, and while this is certainly good news, the process has made the United States and its numerous vassals/satellite states more aggressive than usual.
Ever since the belligerent thalassocracy outsourced nearly all of its heavy industry, American economic significance for the world diminished dramatically, turning it into a sort of giant anchor that’s dragging the whole world down with it. Desperate to maintain this parasitic global order, Washington DC is hoping to once again jumpstart its economy by investing almost everything in the one thing that still involves manufacturing – the American Military Industrial Complex (MIC).
The desired side effect of this is the militarization of the world and given that Russia is the primary target of the political West, Moscow is forced to respond accordingly, primarily by strengthening its already massive military power. It should be noted that the Kremlin didn’t want this, as Russian defense spending in recent decades clearly shows that the country was prioritizing investment in infrastructure, demographics, education, science, etc. However, none of this means much if Moscow ends up completely surrounded by hostile US puppet states.
Thus, the Russian military, which previously focused primarily on maintaining and improving its strategic deterrence capabilities, is now working on an exponential expansion of its tactical prowess. This includes not only the standard modernization of Soviet-era weapons that keep proving the ingenuity of their designers, but also the adoption of a completely new military doctrine.
In 2024 alone, Russian defense spending will increase by nearly 70% and will officially be 10.8 trillion rubles (approximately $110 billion). As a result, the portion of the entire state budget allocated to the military will be over 25% or 6% of the country’s GDP. This is the first time since the unfortunate dismantling of the Soviet Union that Russia is spending so much on defense.
And while the Eurasian giant is still not as militarized as it was during the (First) Cold War, the change indicates that defense spending will most likely be increased incrementally by 2030 at the very least and will include massive acquisitions of new combat systems. As the Russian economy has reactivated large parts of its previously dormant Soviet-era manufacturing, while also creating industries that essentially didn’t exist before the political West launched its abortive sanctions warfare, the change is not as shocking for the country as one would expect.
Late last month, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mushustin explained that state revenues from the export of hydrocarbons, although increased significantly, are down as a percentage of overall revenues and will account for only a third of the federal budget in 2024. For comparison, they accounted for approximately 50% of the budget before the special military operation (SMO).
In simpler terms, while oil and natural gas companies are making more, the Russian economy is going through a massive increase in domestic production, which has significantly reduced the country’s reliance on hydrocarbons as a source of revenue. One sector of the economy that has massively expanded its manufacturing capacity is precisely the military industry. The increase includes everything from infantry weapons and equipment to tanks, armored vehicles, attack helicopters, fighter jets and even satellites and other space-based assets.
When it comes to tactical fighting capabilities, the Russian military has massively expanded its drone warfare. The now legendary ZALA “Lancet” drones are not only being improved incrementally, but are also getting domestic competition which is further pushing the development of these systems. The drones are now longer-ranged than ever, as evidenced by the recent destruction of the Kiev regime’s air assets parked on runways approximately 100 km away from the frontlines.
Last year, Moscow acquired Iranian loitering munitions/kamikaze drones that were then packed with significant Russian improvements (primarily related to guidance). The political West was quick to use this to reinforce propaganda narratives that the Kremlin was behind in unmanned technologies, but the truth is that Iranian drones are simply a much cheaper alternative to long-range missiles.
In the meantime, Moscow also massively increased the production of these missiles, particularly hypersonic ones, as they’ve proven invulnerable to NATO-sourced air and missile defenses. It has also adapted regular strike aircraft to carry such weapons (they were previously limited only to the modified superfast, high-flying MiG-31 jets). This has significantly expanded Russia’s strike capabilities against NATO, while the aforementioned increase in drone usage is augmenting and replacing the expensive long-range missiles that are now kept for high-priority targets. At the same time, the Kremlin keeps developing other high-tech systems, such as its virtually unrivaled electronic warfare (EW) assets, as well as new directed energy weapons (DEW). Many of the latter were just prototypes for decades, but as their usefulness on the battlefield is being proven on a daily basis, an increase in funding has finally put them in mass production.
The goal of the new doctrine is to create an unmatched fighting force that will rely even more on automation and technological prowess rather than the human factor. This will both increase the overall capabilities of the Russian military while reducing the need for massive increases in manpower.
As US Army Colonel Douglas McGregor stated, the result is that the Russian Armed Forces are now more capable than they were in the 1980s. To put that into perspective, the Soviet Union was spending up to 14% of its GDP on defense, which was well over twice that of the projected Russian military budget for 2024.
In other words, Moscow is spending much less and investing several times less resources and manpower to accomplish the same or greater tactical military power than was the case during the (First) Cold War, when the USSR reached its peak. At the same time, the Russian economy is more robust than ever before.
