yes it was. then it was a somewhat modern army capable of limited modern war. now its a mob of light infantry. literal third world stuff. thats not gonna cut it against nato. do you know what natos fear was? ops pic. if you go back to geopolitical and mil journals from the mid to late 00s they were full of predictions that dying russia wuill chimp out soon. 2010s 2020s. the biggest fear was that they would attack the baltics in full force and that would be ww3. theres no fear of that now because the russian military was wrecked in ukraine and is no longer capable of first world warfare. its lost too much gear and too many trained specialists. by the time it can recover from that russias own demographic collapse will have reduced it to a unstable minor power too internally divided to pose an external threat. nato has achieved its goals.
United States