comment: >
  
  What would they defend? The conscripts they couldnt care less about?.
context: New post can be found here >
  
  Excellent. >
  
  "putin's war" >
  
  Rusky mir >
  
  I mean, technically it did show how far Russia had come since the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991. It turns out: not very far. >
  
  I would argue that it went quite a distance downhill... >
  
  I finally googled it:
  "BMP" stands for “Boyevaya Mashina Pekhoty”, Russian for infantry fighting vehicle. >
  
  “Military and absolutist regimes are undoubtedly well fitted to get the jump on an unsuspecting or unprepared enemy; but the history of modern warfare proves that they cannot win over representative governments in the long run, provided that people behind those governments have the heart to sustain initial punishment, and both the will and the resources to fight back.” ~ Samuel Eliot Morison >
  
  Yep Morison is a great historian.
  There is a reason why Authoritarian governments always fail. The lies become a house of cards that is destined to fall.
  Also, authoritarian governments cannot manage a middle class.
  The middle class is what makes democracies strong. Not the rich. Not the poor. The middle class have the ability to make changes and the desire that make them. The rich don’t want change. The poor don’t have the ability.
  A country like Russia that does not have a middle class is always destined to fail.
  In Russia’s case this failure is going to be quite spectacular. 🍿 >
  
  Russia does have a middle class though >
  
  Not like in democracies.
  Russia has the greatest disparity of wealth in the word. In a country of 140 million people about 9000 people have over 90% of the assets.
  The middle class is virtually non-existent outside Moscow and PSB.
  Where I am from, Australia, we have the highest median wealth in the world - about $340k USD.
  I hate to think what Russia’s median wealth is.
  As a rough guess, it might be 2K USD, but I’m probably overestimating. >
  
  I checked and it's about 7k. I'm not sure how that's even possible, since I assume wealth should also include your home's value.