Russia is the second largest exporter of defense products .With so much expertise and experience ,why can't it surpass USA in this Industry ? Well there are couple of reasons for that .
Communist thinking :
In a communist country ,all major industries are under the control of goverment ,as Russia is the brain child of a socialist state ,the communist thinking and mindset can be still found .And as a result
Of government control of these industries ,the sale price is very less .Because sale price is less ,that is why the revenue is low .And thus the money they save for further technological development is also less . The products don't get enough money to technologically match the defense Products of USA. and thus they are the second biggest producer rather than first .example is that f16 and su27 family had a very similar development cycle and time .Yet SU27 family lacks features such as
Ground collision avoidance system and has only got AESA radar in the recent su35 .Meanwhile f16 had Aesa in early 2000s too .Kalashnikov rifles are not that ergonomic and accurate .SU57 ,the first Russian stealth jet was only developed for 9 billion dollars .American stealth jets had almost more than 4 times that development cost .
Conscription :
Another thing that Russia carried from its socialist fatherstate was the conscription recruitment policy . An 18 month conscription is still in force .As a result of this they have to maintain a very large manforce in their armed forces. For such a large manforce ,you cant equip them all with very high tech and expensive gear .That Is why they have to make a tech compromise in their defense products to reduce cost ,so as to equip every person with reasonably good but not the best gear ,i.e you don't always need an acog and a boot hold open to shoot good .You can skip those things and still get an AK that works well in all conditions ,so at least your soldier will shoot ,if not best. Same is the case with their Fighter Jets .They still don't have Helmet Mounted Displays matching the western jhmcs 2 and Top Owl etc. However at lower costs they have created some good things too like the mil mi 35 m helicopter .This helicopter is the only true multi purpose design ,that is both a light transport and attack design .
Political Instability :
Russian region has always suffered political instability .It has rised even more since Soviet Union's dissolution. The present Putin government is a bit oligarchic .The rich are in control everywhere . Though ,Putin government has worked hard to bring Russia to the glory it has today ,even when it was suffering from so many sanctions, There is a dark side too .They have been constantly blamed of corruption .Putin has been also blamed to treat political rivals unethically ,to stay in power eg He is blamed for poisoning of Alexey Nivalny .All this has resulted in investor mistrust .Due to less investment ,many of the industries are still using old production techniques ,and didn't get enough money to develop infrastructure and research technology.
The dissolution of Soviet Union itself
Actually this is the biggest reason of technological backing .Before the dissolution many important projects were going on ,and a huge amount of money was invested in them but they had to be called of due to division of USSR .An example was the Mikoyan project 1.44 . This would have been the first stealth aircraft from Soviet union .But this project was canceled due to dissolution of Soviet Union . A company like Antonov which excelled in the design of heavy lifters like An-225 mirya ,was taken away from Russian Federation .So in short the dissolution resulted in either shortage of money or either loss of companies that had expertise to other companies .
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