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{{quote|''"When they complained about our escorting their [[Mnogo Nukes Bombers|"Blackjack"]] bombers I just wanted to say that we just wanted to be there for search and rescue if they needed it."''|'''Robert Gates''', US Secretary of Defense, January 2009}}
 
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation found itself rather short of cash militarily. The USSR had spent a lot of its GDP on what was in fact the largest peacetime military in world history. Given that cuts in social benefits (in addition to the already reigning economical chaos) would've resulted in widespread riots and other nasty stuff, the government found that lavish Soviet-time military spending is something that new Russia could no longer afford to do.
 
This meant that a lot of stuff ended up rusting. This really isn't helpful when it's a ''nuclear submarine''. It's been estimated by some analysts that only about 30 of 300 Russian ships could've been put to sea at any one time. This situation has been steadily improving since about 2005, with large scale rearmament programs in place (though invariably slipping in deadlines and costs, but that's another matter), and some cool new stuff in the pipeline, but it's a rather slow process. At least the old hardware gets to be properly maintained and modernized again at last.
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