Military

‘Russia a major military’: President Obama backtracks on Moscow’s defense capabilities

Russia’s military campaign in Syria seems to have changed President Barack Obama’s opinion of its armed forces. He now says it’s “the second-most powerful military in the world.” Just two years ago he labeled Moscow as nothing more than a “regional power.”

Speaking at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) conference in California, Obama conceded that “Russia is a major military” and that“obviously a bunch of rebels are not going to be able to compete with the hardware of the second-most powerful military in the world.”

This is quite a statement from the US president, who almost two years ago derided Moscow as nothing more than a “regional power”that “is threatening some of its immediate neighbors, not out of strength but out of weakness,” in regards to his belief that Russia had ‘annexed’ Crimea from Ukraine.

In November, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Russia was challenging “American preeminence” and Washington’s so-called“stewardship of the world order” as Moscow and China reassert themselves on the international arena as serious military powers.