Why did The Soviets had such a large army?

[SecularNationalist]

Ha! Ha! Ha!

It was US-Afghanistan-Pakistan combination that broke up Soviet Union.

If ISI broke up Soviet Union, why isn't it unable to break up India?

@SecularNationalist @django

Listen hanuman Without pakistan america and Afghanistan were nothing.
It was the ISI which made their wet dream come true.
India is about to break up ,can,t you see pakistani flags all over indian occupied kashmir my dot head aromatic soap dodging neighbour lol ??

 

[schoolboy]

That large army was a big factor in the collapse of the USSR. Soviet defense spending was simply not commiserate with revenue. When revenue did not rise (and that in itself is a subject of how communist economic policies stunted GDP growth) the politburo refused to scale back defense budgets and as as a result money earmarked for basic healthcare, wages and infrastructure was used to prop up the military - till that too was exhausted and soldiers were not paid salaries. The problem was compounded by the secrecy in budget publications and accounting tricks.

Stanford Univ has a great archive of papers on this - recommended reading for anyone interested in how excessive military expenditure can destroy a nation.