The invasion of our eastern neighbor by the army of the Russian Federation has brought to light in a new perspective questions that have been asked for years. What is the real military strength of Russia and what is the condition of its counterpart, the NATO armies?
Size of the NATO and Russian armies
NATO-OTAN
NATO consists of 30 member states, of which 7 countries can be found in the top twenty of the military strength comparison according to Globalfirepower.com (2022 Military Strength Ranking). Nevertheless, the declared numbers of equipment and personnel are low.
Available are just under 470 thousand members in multinational units. All of them consist only of professionals from member armies.
- The air forces have 2070 aircraft, of which 350 fighter aircraft and 850 helicopters.
- The ground forces consist mainly of 1500 tanks and 11600 infantry fighting vehicles.
- The strongest part of the naval forces are 3 aircraft carriers, 2 helicopter carriers, 22 submarines and 26 destroyers with frigates.
NATO member states
Russian Federation
In active service, Russia has 850 thousand personnel and 250 thousand reservists and the same number of contractors from paramilitary private organizations such as the Wagner Group.
On paper it has available:
- over 4100 pieces of aviation equipment of all kinds,
- 12,400 tanks,
- over 30,000 pieces of armored personnel carriers of various types.
- The naval forces currently consist mainly of 53 submarines and 19 missile cruisers with frigates.
Officially it still lists a single aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, but it has been in dry dock for a long time following a massive fire, and even before the incident it had not been in fully combat-ready condition for a long time.
Helicopter carrier ships Russia does not have in service. All carriers from the Soviet era have been decommissioned, and new units of the French Mistral class were not delivered. The contract was cancelled by France due to the occupation and subsequent annexation of the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula by the forces of the Russian Federation.
From the comparison, it may seem that the NATO armies are at a significant disadvantage. However, there are several important aspects that change the whole situation.The numbers are misleading. Member states release capacities as needed, so the number of available personnel or equipment is several times larger.
Aircraft carriers and submarines, in comparison, belong to European countries. However, in the event of a serious threat, the USA will also release its equipment, which has 10 aircraft carriers. For example, just Germany has available over 9 thousand infantry fighting vehicles of several types. Another important fact is that a fallen country will proceed to mobilization, which multiplies its previous capacities. Lithuania has, for example, 15 thousand reservists and 11 thousand members of paramilitary units available. In the case of partial mobilization, it would thus increase its capacities by two thirds.
Source: aa.com, tr.
Training and deployment
Another main difference is the quality of training, modernization of equipment and technical background. The size of the army is not the most important thing, since the larger the army, the more complicated the logistics, movements and communication.
It shows well on the Ukrainian front, where the Russians suffered the greatest losses precisely during troop movements, and units suffer from a severe shortage of provisions, fuel and ammunition. Communication also became a problemsince the Russian Glonass system began to show fatal errors, and Russian units were forced to use tourist equipment with GPS systems, even in SU-35 combat aircraft and KA-52 helicopters. Chaos and reduced morale were further multiplied by the fact that these problems fell upon conscripts and members of basic military service.
Most NATO forces consist of professional soldiers. Many of them have long-term deployment experience abroad on missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Cyprus or Mali. Multinational units also regularly rotate in guarding the territory of the Baltic countries or Iceland.
Technical background
Manufacturers of military equipment from NATO member countries rank among the world's elite (e.g. American General Dynamics, French Thales or German KMW). The difference between the Russian Federation and NATO is also that Russia in recent years has not been able to introduce any significant new type of weaponry into active service.
The majority of its novelties consisted of modernizations of older equipment (e.g. T-64, T-72 tanks or BTR series wheeled transporters). The projects of the SU-57 fighter jet or the Armata tank have not entered mass production nor were they introduced into standard service. A few produced types are used only for military parades and international propaganda. NATO countries, on the other hand, continually introduce new types of equipment such as the German Lynx KF-41 transporter or the international jet fighter project F-35, of which the latter is already in active service with several members.
Slovakia's position in NATO
Slovakia has been a member of NATO since 2004. Geographically, we guard its eastern flank together with the Baltic countries and Poland. Given the long-term underfunding of the military budget by previous governments and the massive presence of outdated equipment, predominantly of Soviet origin, the Ministry of Defence of the Slovak Republic proceeded to increase the budget and to several modernization projects.
Source: mosr.sk
Currently underway is the process of replacing 3D surveillance radars (Israeli Elbit), jet fighters (American F16 block 70/72), and the tender procedures for infantry armored vehicles have also been completed (Swedish tracked type CV-90 from BAE Systems and Finnish wheeled type Patria AMV).
Source: mosr.sr
For 2022, a budget of 1.899 billion euros (1.8% of GDP) was allocated. However, this amount is insufficient and does not meet the commitment from the Wales summit (2014). Member states committed to allocating at least 2% of GDP for defense. For comparison, Poland allocated 2.34% and Greece 3.59% of GDP for 2021.
In order to understand the complexity of the problem between Russia and the North Atlantic Alliance - NATO we must look far into the past, to the end of World War II.
The beginning of rivalry and division of the world - the creation of NATO and the Warsaw Pact
North Atlantic Alliance
After the end of World War II, Western European countries fulfilled their commitment and reduced the personnel levels of their armies and the amount of military equipment. This was an agreement concluded during the war, as an act of peace and ensuring future trust between neighboring countries. However, they watched with concern as their former ally, Soviet Union, instead of honoring this agreement, armed itself even more and tried to strengthen its military influence in the world.
Warning signs that the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, in Cyrillic CCCP) was not a reliable ally were present from the very beginning. World War II was in fact started by Nazi Germany together with the USSR, by invading Poland. The Nazis and Stalin concluded a non-aggression pact, which went down in history as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (August 23, 1939). A sad part of our history is that on September 1, 1939, Poland was invaded, together with the Nazis, also by Slovakia, then under the leadership of Tiso's fascist party. The USSR invaded Poland from the east on September 17, 1939.
The USSR then became directly involved in World War II only on June 22, 1941, after the launch of Operation Barbarossa, when the Axis forces also attacked the territory of the Soviet Union. Until then, the Soviets spent their time invading Finland, better known as the Winter War (November 30, 1939 – March 13, 1940). The Winter War revealed the shortcomings of the Soviet army, which encouraged Hitler to attack his former ally as well. To this day, the Russian Federation refers to this period as the Great Patriotic War and commemorates it separately from the memorial celebrations of World War II.
The decision to conclude a defense-security pact between Western countries was firmly made in 1948, with the signing of the Treaty of Brussels. Belgium, Luxembourg, Great Britain, France and the Netherlands committed to creating a system of collective defense, which would withstand political, military, and ideological threats. Subsequently, Canada and the USA were invited, to create a unified North Atlantic Alliance between Europe and North America. Shortly thereafter, other states were also invited (Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Italy, Portugal).
The negotiations culminated on April 4, 1949, with the signing of the Washington Treaty and the official establishment of the North Atlantic Alliance. The current number of members is 30. Several countries are in the accession process, for example Bosnia and Herzegovina but the most significant applicants are Sweden and Finland. Both countries decided to join only after the invasion of Ukraine by the army of the Russian Federation. The seriousness of the decision is also underscored by the facts that Sweden was militarily neutral for almost 200 years and Finland shares a 1300 km border with Russia.
Among the strongest motivations for membership is Article 5 of the Washington Treaty. An attack on one member of the pact automatically means an attack on all the others. At the same time, no NATO member country has ever attacked another member country, which cannot be said of the Warsaw Pact (Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968 for a long 20 years). Members also have the option to purchase equipment through the joint agency NSPA (NATO Support and Procurement Agency). This allows them to purchase equipment faster, more affordably and with better support from manufacturing companies than would be possible with an individual approach by each country. NATO operates on democratic principles. Admission of a new member is only possible with the consent of all members. If even one member is opposed, the accession process is halted, regardless of the size of the country or the financial contribution of the voting member to the shared budget.
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact, also known as the Warsaw Treaty Organization, was founded on May 14, 1955. As the name suggests, the pact was signed in Warsaw, Poland. The Warsaw Pact was founded at the initiative of the Soviet Union, as a reaction to the founding of NATO. 
Source: sita.sk
Communism ruled in all the founding countries. These were the USSR, the People's Republic of Albania, the People's Republic of Bulgaria, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (name used since 1960), the Hungarian People's Republic, the German Democratic Republic (democratic only in name, as harsh communism ruled), the Polish People's Republic and the People's Republic of Romania.
Membership was concluded for 20 years with an automatic extension of 10 years if the member state did not withdraw in the final year. Unlike NATO, new members did not join; in fact, quite the opposite. Albania left the pact in protest against the bloody suppression of the Hungarian uprising in 1956 and the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Mongolia applied for membership in 1963. Its application was blocked by Romania's veto. Despite this veto, the USSR sent its military units to Mongolia for permanent deployment in order to strengthen its influence in the region.
This confirmed the fact that, despite the official agreement on equal decision-making among the governments of member states, everything was controlled by Moscow. The supreme commanders came exclusively from the army of the USSR, without representatives of the other members. It was no different with major economic and political decisions.
After the collapse of the USSR, the Warsaw Pact lost its purpose and officially ceased to exist on July 1, 1991. The dissolution was signed by representatives of the parliaments of the member states in Prague.
Sources: ATM - MagnetPress , 2022 Lithuania Military Strength , Ministry of Defence of the Slovak Republic, teraz.sk - The Defence Department is to manage a budget of 1.838 billion euros in 2022, The Warsaw Treaty Organization, 1955 / Formation of Nato - Purpose, Dates & Cold War - HISTORY / Fast facts about NATO | CBC News, mocr.army.cz,
