Germany pays their soldiers multiple times what Russians get. There’s also lots of money just spent on pensions for retired soldiers. That money doesn’t lead to any military capability. A huge part of defense spend on goes into personell. Richer countries, not only pay better, they also offer more benefits. Healthcare for example is cheaper in Russia as well.
Comparing spending one to one does not lead to a conclusive answer.
What you actually need to compare is capabilities, volume, readiness, training, and so on.
Another example: NATO often trains winter warfare in Norway, a notoriously expensive country. Russia has much lower costs to conduct exercises for the same environment.
Then there’s existing infrastructure like factories, repair yards, storage bunkers, etc. Europe is still scaling up and building to match Russia’s production rates. Building a new factory, training staff, etc. takes a lot of money and time. Russia is years ahead in many of these areas. Building up from zero is far more expensive than increasing the number of shifts of an existing factory.
So with parity in spending, Russia will have much stronger capabilities than Europe. Europe needs to outspend Russia significantly to catch up and match.
Germany pays their soldiers multiple times what Russians get. There’s also lots of money just spent on pensions for retired soldiers. That money doesn’t lead to any military capability. A huge part of defense spend on goes into personell. Richer countries, not only pay better, they also offer more benefits. Healthcare for example is cheaper in Russia as well.
Comparing spending one to one does not lead to a conclusive answer.
What you actually need to compare is capabilities, volume, readiness, training, and so on.
Another example: NATO often trains winter warfare in Norway, a notoriously expensive country. Russia has much lower costs to conduct exercises for the same environment.
Then there’s existing infrastructure like factories, repair yards, storage bunkers, etc. Europe is still scaling up and building to match Russia’s production rates. Building a new factory, training staff, etc. takes a lot of money and time. Russia is years ahead in many of these areas. Building up from zero is far more expensive than increasing the number of shifts of an existing factory.
So with parity in spending, Russia will have much stronger capabilities than Europe. Europe needs to outspend Russia significantly to catch up and match.