Russia, the aggressor – fiction or truth?

The Western quality media more or less unanimously claim that Russia wants to start a war against the “constitutional, liberal-democratic” Western countries, the Western values. Military spending must therefore be increased.

Karl Eckstein

Let’s take a look at military spending over the last 10 years, expressed in billions of US dollars. (You can look it up on the Internet at “de.statista.com” or on the website of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute SIPRI“www.sipri.org”).

Military expenditure in billions of US dollars between 2014 and 2023:

Jahr	Nato	USA	RUS
			In the years 2014 to 2021, NATO spent an average of 15 times more on the military than Russia In 2022/23, NATO spent 12 x more on the military than Russia
2023	1‘305	916	109
2022	1‘190	861	102
2021	1‘183	824	66
2020	1‘097	778	62
2019	1‘053	751	65
2018	973	782	62
2017	918	643	67
2016	912	656	69
2015	896	641	66
2014	943	654	85
Total	10‘470	7‘486	753

US military bases abroad

The USA currently maintains around 900 military bases abroad, on all continents. If you add the military bases where the USA does not have its own personnel, but has the right to use the military bases of other countries without restriction, the total is around 1,000.

Where do the USA have military bases near Russia?

Russian military bases abroad

Russia today maintains military bases in neighbouring countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union and are now members of the CIS, the Commonwealth of Independent States based in the capital of Belarus, Minsk – and the Collective Security Organization, CSTO, with its secretariat based in Moscow: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova (Transnistria), Tajikistan as well as in Abkhazia and Syria. None of these bases are located near the USA.

This means that Russia has around 100 times fewer military bases abroad than the USA

Apparently, these facts are not available to the quality media of the Western values.