[Raellus]

I think another reason it's tempting to underestimate the Soviet military is that, for a time in the early '90s, their military org/tech/training etc. was "frozen in time" while the West was making strides forward in the wake of the wildly successful Desert Shield/Storm campaign. In fact, if anything, the Russian military in the early '90s was regressing as military funding dried up and new strategic realities started sinking in. It's easy to remember the beaten MRDs withdrawing across that last bridge between Afghanistan and the soon-to-ex-Soviet republics in '89, or the loyalist Russian tanks shelling the rebellious troops in the high-rise ministry, or the rusting hulks of ex-Soviet navy ships and submarines stuck in port. Those last images are pathetic and really don't do the Soviet military justice.

It's easy to forget that a v1.0 Soviet military would have been moving forward during the '90s, if not keeping pace with the West, then at least trying their damnedest to do so.

This is why I prefer to remember the Soviet Military as they seemed during my childhood (the '80s)- a huge, somewhat mysterious entity that posed a clear and present danger to the NATO countries.