USA vs. RUSSIAThe United States of America (USA), commonly referred to as the United States (US) and America, and sometimes simply the States, is a federal republic consisting of 50 states and a federal district. The 48 contiguous states and Washington, D.C. are in central North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is the northwestern part of North America and the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also has five populated and nine unpopulated territories in the Pacific and the Caribbean. At 3.79million square miles (9.83million km2) in total and with around 318 million people, the United States is the third or fourth-largest country by total area and third largest by population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The geography and climate of the United States is also extremely diverse, and it is home to a wide variety of wildlife.

Paleo-indians migrated from Asia to what is now the U.S. mainland around 15,000 years ago, with European colonization beginning in the 16th century. The United States emerged from 13 British colonies located along the Atlantic seaboard. Disputes between Great Britain and these colonies led to the American Revolution. On July 4, 1776, as the colonies were fighting Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War, delegates from the 13 colonies unanimously issued the Declaration of Independence. The war ended in 1783 with the recognition of independence of the United States from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and was the first successful war of independence against a European colonial empire.The current Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787. The first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and guarantee many fundamental civil rights and freedoms.

Driven by the doctrine of manifest destiny, the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century. This involved displacing native tribes, acquiring new territories, and gradually admitting new states. The American Civil War ended legal slavery in the country. By the end of the 19th century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean, and its economy was the world's largest. The SpanishAmerican War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power. The United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country with nuclear weapons, and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union left the United States as the sole superpower.

The United States is a developed country and has the world's largest national economy, with an estimated GDP in 2013 of $16.8trillion23% of global nominal GDP and 19% at purchasing-power parity. The United States has the world's third highest Human Development Index. The economy is fueled by an abundance of natural resources, with per capita GDP being the world's sixth-highest in 2010. While the U.S. economy is considered post-industrial, it continues to be one of the world's largest manufacturers. The U.S. has the highest mean and second-highest median household income in the OECD as well as the highest average wage, though it has the fourth most unequal income distribution among OECD nations with roughly 16% of the population living in poverty. The country accounts for 36.6% of global military spending, being the world's foremost economic and military power, a prominent political and cultural force, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovation.

Russia officially known as the Russian Federation is a country situated in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares land borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both with Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the U.S. state of Alaska across the Bering Strait and Canada's Arctic islands. At 17,075,400 square kilometres (6,592,800sqmi), Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. Russia is also the world's ninth most populous nation with 143million people as of 2012. Extending across the entirety of northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans nine time zones and incorporates a wide range of environments and landforms.

The nation's history began with that of the East Slavs, who emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, the medieval state of Rus arose in the 9th century. In 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus' ultimately disintegrated into a number of smaller states; most of the Rus' lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion and became tributaries of the nomadic Golden Horde. The Grand Duchy of Moscow gradually reunified the surrounding Russian principalities, achieved independence from the Golden Horde, and came to dominate the cultural and political legacy of Kievan Rus'. By the 18th century, the nation had greatly expanded through conquest, annexation, and exploration to become the Russian Empire, which was the third largest empire in history, stretching from Poland in Europe to Alaska in North America.Following the Russian Revolution, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic became the largest and leading constituent of the Soviet Union, the world's first constitutionally socialist state and a recognized superpower, which played a decisive role in the Allied victory in World WarII. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the world's first human-made satellite, and the first man in space. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian SFSR reconstituted itself as the Russian Federation and is recognized as the continuing legal personality of the Union state.

The Russian economy ranks as the eighth largest by nominal GDP and fifth largest by purchasing power parity. Russia's extensive mineral and energy resources, the largest reserves in the world, have made it one of the largest producers of oil and natural gas globally. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction Russia is a great power and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, a member of the G20, the Council of Europe, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Eurasian Economic Community, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the leading member of the Commonwealth of Independent States.The chances that the U.S. and Russia will clash militarily over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine are very, very slim. Ukraine isn't a member of NATO, and President Obama isn't likely to volunteer for another war. But many of Ukraine's neighbors are NATO members, including Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary. And so are the the Baltic states Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia further north and right on Russia's border.

If any of those countries come to Ukraine's aid and find themselves in a war with Russia, NATO is obliged to intervene. That's also true if Russia comes up with some pretext to invade any of those countries, unlikely as that seems. If we learned anything from World War I, it's that huge, bloody conflicts can start with tiny skirmishes, especially in Eastern Europe.

Again, the U.S. and Russia almost certainly won't come to blows over Ukraine. But what if they did?

If you asked that question during the Cold War it would be like those fanciful Godzilla vs. King Kong, or Batman vs. Superman match-ups: Which superpower would prevail in all-out battle? But Russia isn't the Soviet Union, and military technology didn't stop in 1991.The U.S. is much wealthier than Russia and spends a lot more on its military. That doesn't mean a war would be easy for the U.S. to win, though, or even guarantee a victory: As Napoleon and Hitler learned the hard way, Russia will sacrifice a lot to win its wars, especially on its home turf.

So, what would a war between the U.S. and Russia look like? Here are a few scenarios, from awful to merely bad:

Nuclear ArmageddonEven with the slow mutual nuclear disarmament since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. and Russia each have thousands of nuclear warheads at the ready. As Eugene Chow noted earlier this year, the entire stockpile of U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) 448 active is essentially aimed squarely at Russia. Russia's hundreds of ICBMs are probably returning the favor.

In all, the U.S. has about 7,700 nuclear warheads, including 1,950 warheads ready to deploy via ICBM, submarine, and airplane, plus thousands more in mothballs or waiting to be dismantled, according to the latest tally by the Federation of American Scientists. Russia has slightly more warheads overall about 8,500 but a slightly fewer 1,800 of them operational. China, in comparison, has about 250 nuclear warheads, a bit less that France (300) and a bit more than Britain (225).

Nuclear war with Russia is still mutually assured destruction. Hopefully, that's still deterrent enough.

A conventional war in Eastern EuropeThis is the other scenario that never happened in the Cold War. Now, the possibility of scenario one (nuclear Armageddon) makes this one almost equally unlikely. But for the sake of argument, let's assume this hypothetical U.S.-Russia war breaks out in Ukraine, and that other NATO forces are supplementing U.S. troops, ships, and aircraft. Unlike in the Asia-Pacific, where the U.S. keeps China in check (and vice versa, as Eugene Chow explained), NATO provides the United States with a robust military alliance set up specifically to take on Soviet Russia.

The first dynamic is that Russia would have home field advantage: The Russian navy has long called Crimea its home, and whatever troops Russia doesn't already have in Ukraine are right next door, one border-crossing away. The other big starting point is that the U.S. and its NATO allies have Russia effectively surrounded. By its own public count, the U.S. has 598 military facilities in 40 countries, along with the 4,461 bases in the U.S. and U.S. territories.

Along with its large number of bases in Germany, the U.S. has major military installations in Qatar and the Diego Garcia atoll to Russia's south and Japan and South Korea to its east. NATO allies France and Britain are even closer.

If Russia would have the advantage at sea Sevastopol is its home port, and the U.S./NATO would have to dislodge its navy the U.S. would have an edge in the skies, mostly. "The U.S. planes have better radar, missiles, and electronic warfare equipment, while the Russian planes are judged to have superior handling and thrust-to-weight ratio, which would give them an edge in a classic dogfight," says Charles Clover at the Financial Times.

But classic dogfights are at least as dated as Top Gun, Russian defense analyst Ruslan Pukhov tells FT. "Ever since Soviet days we have been lagging behind the U.S. in military aviation." Because of that gap, he adds, Soviet and Russian military planners have invested heavily in air defense systems, and the S-300 and S-400 systems are the best in the world. "It's like boxing," Pukhov says. "If you have a weak right arm, you need to compensate by a strong left arm. Soviet strategists made up for a weakness in aviation by investing heavily in air defense systems."

A U.S.-Russia war probably wouldn't end up a draw, but it would be a bloody mess. The site Global Firepower ranks the U.S. the most powerful conventional military in the world, and that's without NATO, but Russia is a pretty close second (here it differs with Galeotti). If you look down the list of military assets, the U.S. beats Russia in almost every category Russia has more tanks, ground artillery, and mine warfare craft.

There's a wild card, though: Since 2010, the U.S. and Russian militaries have been increasingly cooperating, including engaging in joint military exercises. Unlike in Soviet times, or even the 1990s, U.S. and Russian military commanders know one another and are familiar with each other's armaments and strategies. Until the U.S. put all U.S.-Russian military engagements on hold Monday, the relationship was good and improving.

A proxy warShort of a negotiated peace with no casualties, this is the best of the bad options. The U.S. and Russia have already fought a string of proxy wars, the big ones being Vietnam to Afghanistan. In this scenario, the U.S. might finance Ukrainian forces to fight Russian soldiers, with the probable goal of driving them out of Ukrainian territory. Or, should the U.S. or NATO back the Ukrainian army, Russia might fund pro-Moscow separatist movements in Ukraine against it.

Russia helped the North Vietnamese beat the U.S. in Southeast Asia, and the U.S. helped the Mujahideen defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan. If that pattern holds, and Ukraine is the battleground, then it's bad news for the occupying army. Advantage: America. For a general comparison , see table on page 6.Sources:

1.www.globalfirepower.com table comparing the two countries

2.www.theweek.com - articles3.Encarta Encyclopedia and www.wikipedia.com introduction on the two countries

RUSSIA

USA