"But the country has exhausted its reserves of manufacturing capacity and manpower,"
"To produce substantially more equipment or recruit and train far more soldiers, Moscow would have to shift to a more comprehensive war footing by directing all available resources toward military needs, as it did during World War II, or commandeering civilian production lines for military purposes."
"In effect, defense spending functions like a disposable-goods economy: factories operate at full capacity, workers earn wages, and demand for inputs surges, but the output is designed to vanish almost immediately,"
Massive defense spending has propped up growth, kept factories operating, and pushed unemployment lower. Allies such as China supply goods that are no longer available from the West. Manufacturing capacity and available manpower are largely exhausted. Producing substantially more equipment or recruiting and training far more soldiers would require a full war footing or commandeering civilian production lines. The government has avoided such measures to prevent consumer shortages and social unrest. Production bottlenecks, labor shortages, tighter government spending, and the lack of Western technology are straining the economy. GDP growth has slowed to about 1.1% so far this year, down from earlier years, while defense outlays yield limited lasting economic benefits.
Read at Fortune
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