Weltweite Militärausgaben der letzten Jahrzehnte, inflationsbereinigt

source: [https://x.com/ianbremmer/status/1846217866112024597](https://x.com/ianbremmer/status/1846217866112024597)

in hindsight its easy to think that Western Europe was dumb to disarm after the end of the Cold War, but people often forget just how unprecedented the collapse of the Warsaw Pact was

Soviet Union had 300 million people, combined with the other members of the Warsaw Pact , the Soviet-aligned bloc had nearly 400 million inhabitants

within couple of years, Russian troops would leave Eastern Germany, Eastern Europe would become free from the Soviets, and after USSR’s collapse Russia inherited only half its population

then in the 1990s Russia would cut its defense budget from nearly 25% of GDP to less than 5%, and on top of that its GDP would decline by over 30% due to the economic crisis

in 1997 Russia had less than 10% of the military budget that the USSR had 10 years prior. Back then Russia was seen as weak and decaying

this was a far larger disintegration than Germany experienced after WW2

problem was that the West really ignored the brutality with which Russia silenced the Chechen insurgency, killing over 400,000 people in the process. That should have shown that Russia was willing to bomb babies to dust rather than try to negotiate in the style of the Good Friday Agreement that UK did vis-a-vis Northern Ireland

the media really bought all the bullshit straight from Kremlin about how Russia is the victim and not the occupier of Chechnya

years later, Russia has shown the same brutality in Syria, at some point bombing 4 hospitals in less than 12 hours

but again, the media was buying the bullshit straight from Kremlin about how they came to Syria to eradicate ISIS, and not to help Assad crush any opposition

Western media has been astonishingly full of shit when it comes to Russia over the past 3 decades, and we are paying the price now because our population has not wakened up to how evil Russia is. Heck, i think 90% of Europeans don’t even know Russia bombed HUNDREDS of hospitals in Syria, i never saw articles about that making headlines in the West

And by %?