Assessing the Economic Value of Military Material — Philip Pilkington

This reflects what former USSR naval officer Andrei Martyanov has been saying and writing books about for a long time. The West is using the wrong standards of comparison, like nominal GDP rather than national capacity. In this light, Russia and China are far stronger than the West realizes using Western-preferred metrics. 

This has been brought out by industrial warfare. Pursuit of neoliberalism has apparently weakened the West's industrial capacity as factories were moved to locations of cheap labor, notably China. 

The West not only misjudged the power of sanctions but also underestimated relative national capacity in relation to Russia with respect to effect on war-making. This was a double failure on the part of intelligence that amounts to a serious strategic blunder.

American Affairs
Assessing the Economic Value of Military Material