The Russian military has technically fought more terrorists than any American military personnel have.
I would put the number of ISIS or al-Qaeda militants that the American military is responsible for killing at zero. And even if we count Osama bin Laden, that was more Pakistan’s doing.
Of course, for the United States it wouldnt make much sense to attack factions which are financed by the CIA, or allies like Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Instead they kill people who successfully fought against ISIS (like Iranian general Soleimani).
Exactly.
I’ve heard it described as an “Uneasy but warm friendship”, and I totally feel that. Sino-Russian relations being good, just means NATO’s relations in the third world and the fringe of Europe become weakened. When those countries no longer have to rely on NATO countries for trade and defense, they’ll naturally drift towards relations with the only two superpowers that are - more often than not - actually benefitting the world. It’s no wonder why Africa, the Middle East, and South America have all been seeking Chinese and Russian aid programs. Doing business with NATO means selling your nation’s soul for little actual benefit, whereas doing business with CSTO means infrastructure and welfare programs with reasonable costs to the foreign investers. We can see this in UN missions too, UN missions led by NATO just so happen to always end up being “peacekeeping” missions where they guard drug or oil fields, but UN missions led by China tend to build roads and houses - which has earned Chinese UN troops many awards.
Critical support for Sino-Russian relations, all the way.
I’m not sure I would call Russia a superpower; its GDP is about equal to that of the low countries (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg). It’s not the USSR and it took a heavy hit after the dissolution that it has yet to recover from (and more generally can’t of course, because capitalism will never offer what the Soviet Union offered).
