German media outlets Süddeutsche Zeitung, WDR, and NDR also cite the report, noting that Russian President Vladimir Putin appears intent on testing NATO’s Article 5 guarantees. The alliance’s mutual defence clause obliges member states to come to one another’s aid if attacked. The assessment suggests Putin may seek to challenge how seriously that commitment would be honoured.
Russia has the same problem as the same problem has the US, but supercharged it. They made the military the backbone of the economy and main social safety net, so they need to be in a permanent state of conflict to justify it.
That’s not at all comparable to the American economy, wtf dude.
To different scales it is. The US has been using the armed forces as an employer of last resort, and defense factories are the only thing keeping some regions afloat. Of course the US economy is significantly more developed outside of the military, but if the US were to scale back its military there would be transversal cracks all over the economy and society.