News From Antiwar.com
In recent months all U.S. geographical and several other military commands have branded Russia an adversary in all parts of the world, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, from South America to North Africa, from West Asia to Eastern Europe, from cyberspace to outer space.
To demonstrate how comprehensive, how obsessive, the accusation is, here are compendious specimens:
And what is the nation supposedly posing such an existential threat to global peace and security? A country of 145 million people, only 43% of that of the U.S. The combined population of nations constituting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is 1 billion, seven times that of Russia. Last year Russia’s military budget was under $62 billion. The U.S. military budget for next year is projected to be $753 billion, over twelve times as large as Russia’s. NATO’s joint annual military spending is over $1 trillion. The U.S. divides up the entire surface of the planet between six regional military commands and as many naval fleets, the latter including eleven nuclear-powered supercarriers. The area of responsibility for Russia’s military commands is strictly Russia and its territorial waters. It has one, non-nuclear, aircraft carrier. Russia doesn’t belong to any military alliance. The U.S. heads up the only one in the world, one with thirty members and forty partners.