View attachment 67402010
1) Having witnessed the demise of the USSR, apparently Vladimir Putin has failed to learn the same hard lesson - a nation with a GDP that ranks 11th (before imposition of sanctions) can´t sustain the word´s 5th largest military budget!
2) 6 of the world´top 10 nations with the largest GDPs are members of NATO, 4 of the top 10 ranked by military spending are also members of that Alliance!
3) America, just 1 of NATO´s 30 members, invests more on its armed forces in a month than Russia budgets for its military in a year!
4) Given that the Ukraine ranks at 39th for military spending at $5.4 billion, the real question is why Russia, which budgets 12X more on its armed forces, would struggle against a far weaker opponent!
5) Short of resorting to nuclear weapons, Russia´s economic and military status on the world stage has been steadily eroding, a trend that will continue for the foreseeable future - despite Putin´s¨¨incendiary" rhetoric!
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Japan and South Korea are NATO Partners who with NATO copartners Australia and New Zealand attended the NATO heads of government summit at the end of June, in Madrid, that agreed on the Declaration. All four Asian Theater Strategic Partners signed onto the Declaration Russia is a direct threat to the peace and security of its members. All four signed on to the NATO statement China poses a "systematic threat" against democracy.
The first trilateral meeting of the recently neglected formal defense treaty alliance of USA, Japan, South Korea since 2017 occurred at the NATO summit last month. Shown: the SK new president Yoon Suk Yeol, Pres. Biden, Japan prime minister Fumio Kishida; SecState Antony Blinken, SecDef Lloyd Austin. All four NATO partners in Asia now have diplomatic missions to NATO. The Japan Self Defense Force is NATO compatible already.
Japan, SK, AUS/NZ have the malicious Russia in the North Pacific especially and the western Pacific broadly to deal with, to include the malevolent Russia now arming disputed islands off Japan that had always been uninhabited and not militarized.
India is a fully signed up Strategic Partner of the USA, since 2015. The Strategic Partnership with New Delhi gives US forces full access to all India military basis to include operations against a third country (Pak/China). US access includes storage and stockpiling of military weapons, ordinance, equipment, supplies. Indeed, Beijing has recently said, "The Indian Ocean is not Indian." USN to include subs and aircraft now have access to the Ocean from India.
Vietnam is the most recent US defense Strategic Partner to include reconstructing its Cam Ranh Bay naval base on the South China Sea to accommodate NATO aircraft carriers to include NATO Strategic Partner Japan and its two newly converted aircraft carriers that had been ASW helicopter carriers and India now constructing its own home made third carrier.
The recently assassinated former prime minister of Japan Shinzo Abe had already revived The Quad, a military grouping of USA, Japan, Australia and India after Australia had withdrawn. Oz also recently turned to the UK-USA for long range nuclear powered subs that has infuriated CCP DictatorTyrants in Beijing. Now South Korea under its new president Yoon is poised to make The Quad a grouping of five allied defense partners. Abe famously had spoken of the "Democracy Diamond" of Japan, Hawaii, Australia/NZ, India, the South China Sea nations, Taiwan and Japan. Abe was a visionary democrat of the East for which we are grateful -- RIP.