Badass!

This is coolbert:

"bad-ass  Slang: Vulgar.  adjective, Also, badassed  1. (of a person) difficult to deal with; mean-tempered; touchy. 2. distinctively tough or powerful; so exceptional as to be intimidating. noun  3. a mean-tempered troublemaker."         

An article From Strategy Page the first paragraph of which copied in entirety. As germane to a previous blog entry:

"Russia: Still As Badass As It Gets"

"March 6, 2016: While the Russian armed forces have declined by about 80 percent since the Cold War the government is currently running a propaganda campaign (mainly via mass media and the Internet) portraying Russia as capable of posing a major military threat to the West. That is more fiction than fact and perusing Russian language print media and Internet discussions provides lots of details. Russian military personnel and any Russians who care to pay attention know that Russia is much worse off versus its Cold War adversaries (mainly NATO) now than in 1991 (when the Soviet Union collapsed). The problem Russia does not like to talk about is that while Russian forces shrank 80 percent during the 1990s those of its adversaries declined by less than half. Worse NATO nations replaced or upgraded much of their older and obsolete equipment after 1991. At this point NATO has four times as many troops as Russia. Until 1991 Russia had more troops than NATO. Worse still is the fact that NATO nations account for nearly 60 percent of all military spending on the planet, about ten times what Russia spends. That underlines the major Russian military weakness; the inability to replace aging weapons after 1991. Russia was in the midst of trying to remedy that when the price of oil (the main source of for the government budget) dropped by over 70 percent. Then came the economic sanctions in response to Russian attacks on Ukraine and threats to do likewise to other East European nations. Until 1991 Russia was a very real conventional military threat to its neighbors (especially the NATO nations of Europe). That is no longer the case although Russia is a threat to new NATO members in East Europe, but only if they want to risk defeat because of the mutual defense clause of the NATO treaty. The one Cold War era threat Russia retains is a diminished but still potent nuclear weapons capability. This, however, is still a doomsday solution for Russia if used. Retaliation would be devastating, but as a threat nuclear war is still as badass as it gets. At this point it is all Russia really has left, all else is theater and illusion."

Badass only if you are willing to undergo nuclear annihilation! And the Russian as is everyone else is not willing to do so!!

Thank you Strategy Page!

coolbert.