Maybe, maybe not. I have studied Russian military and according to me China is still behind Russia. I'd recommend this book:
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china is catchin up pretty fast though. With the recent upsurge in Russian rearmament I guess Russia would pace up as well.
You obviously have little or no basic military knowledge. Look again, the only thing Russia is above China in numbers terms in the total land based weapons. In all other stats, if you compare number by number China seems to be superior. So, going by your assumption that GFP only compares "numbers" then obviously China would have been at number 2 not Russia.
The reason why Russia is ranked higher to that of China is:
- Superior technology.
- Energy independence.
As i said in my previous post, GFP takes more into account than numbers. Take for example pakistan and Iran. At a first glance, it would seem pakistan has technological superiority over Iran as well as numerical. Then why is Iran ranked above pakistan? Because:
- Pakistan is energy dependent upon others for its survival and military machine.
- Couple this with a small coastline Pakistan is very much prone to naval blockade. In case of a real war, it is doubtful if pakistan will be able to sustain more than a month.
Iran has plenty of energy resources of its own which it exploits. Similar to Russia. So, Iran is higher than pakistan.