Putin’s more Pose than Power

La Russophobe points out that Russia has a ways to go before she can begin to match her former Soviet military strength:

Take, for instance, the much touted Bulava SLBM program–the
cornerstone of the revitalization of Russia’s strategic forces. This program has
been plagued by test failures, which have been widely publicized despite concerted efforts to conceal them. The missile’s
designer attributed these failures to “the progressive degradation of the
Russian defense industry.”
Nor are the Bulava’s problems the only symptoms
of this degradation. Russia has failed in its contract to refurbish one of the
Soviet’s old aircraft carriers sold to India.

Wait, there's more:

And to put things in perspective, only recently did Russian GDP
return to 1991 levels....(Meanwhile) US GDP has grown by over 60 percent.

And:

...it is widely understood that the quality and training of
American soldiers, Marines, sailors, and airmen is what makes the US armed
forces far and away the best in the world. It is also widely understood that the
quality of Russian conscript soldiers is very poor, and that they are poorly
trained and suffer from poor morale (except in some special units).

This is very good to know. I believe if America continues to make a stand for our principles in Iraq and Afghanistan, as Reagan did over Eastern Europe, we can stare down this latest threat to Russia's freedom, as we did Gorbachev and all his predecessors.