Russia's potential

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Russia is the single largest non-NATO country close to Europe (and actually in large part in Europe). It's therefore naturally the first choice for anyone who wants to check on the possibility of major conventional warfare in Europe.

Russia's military is at present large, but has outdated equipment, is ill-supplied, ill-paid, has a poor reputation among its citizens (recruit abuse) and a mixed reputation in the West.

Much of this military is bound to tasks in Asia and not available as a threat to Europe, so it's reasonable to expect that European forces are at this point relatively easily able to keep it in check (not necessarily on the first few hundred kilometres, though).

Its primary strength is probably the quantity of equipment stored in depots behind the Urals and its relatively good ability to function with quickly mobilized troops. Recent news indicate that they're about to scrap a good portion of that Cold War legacy equipment, though.
Strong internal security forces (paramilitaries) add to the picture.

The present (rumoured) nominal military spending of Russia is in the same league as that of the UK, France and the PR China, albeit with PPP advantages over the first two. Russia is unable to focus its military power in one theater due to its long Eurasian borders, though.

The potential for greater military capabilities in the future depends on many factors - politics, economy, science and engineering, fiscal health and population, for example.

Let's run a (quick & dirty) check - you won't get a better one by me for free. ;)

Politics

Russia has a pseudo-democratic, authoritarian government with dominance over regional institutions. Well, this sounds promising (for their military). Especially the ability to develop and execute long term (more than five years) political plans is relatively impressive. The ability to create really efficient long-term plans is not very impressive (because of corruption).

The past policy has demonstrated a readiness to use military force - at least on former USSR territory. It has also demonstrated a quite high degree of rationality and patience. Past domestic political competence (economic policy in the Putin era) was rather unimpressive, though.

Economy

Less than € 1.5 trillion GDP (a bit more, but not drastically more in purchasing power parity) isn't much for a country of its size and population. It's actually less than France's GDP.
Exports make up almost a quarter of the GDP, a sign of serious integration into international trade. The largest trade partners are the European and East Asian economic powers, not the former USSR states (with exception Ukraine; about 5% of exports).

The share of industrial activities is about 40% GDP, but much of this is the raw materials sector (oil, gas, mining). A well-balanced, healthy economy at a higher level of national wealth would require a very strong industrial development. This would require at least about a decade of strong growth.

Science and engineering

Russia was quite in love with scientific and technological work. They have no noteworthy anti-science or science-despising political factions (at least none that I'm aware of).
Russia had the legacy of a very strong scientific and engineering complex in the early 90's. Education and experience were robust, albeit with a serious lag in computer tech. The(ir) problem; those with good education and experience have aged by almost twenty years in the meantime. These pillars of technical and scientific competence will break away almost completely in the next two decades and most of them are likely already beyond their creativity apogee.

The small R&D activity since the 90's has furthermore driven many scientists and engineers into more 'practical' jobs. An engineer-turned-truck-driver has rarely kept himself up to date in his original trade and is very unlikely to return to his original trade anyway.
Russia's long-term competence in science and engineering is yet to be determined; it depends a lot on the budgets of its government.

Fiscal health

This points at the next point of interest; fiscal health. Here are several interesting details. The Soviet Union had a state-run economy and therefore no full-blown system of taxes. That has hurt Russia in the 90's. At one point in the 90's the CEO of Gazprom claimed that his (oil & gas) company paid half of the Russian state budget - more than the whole defence expenses.

Nevertheless, Russia was able to pay back significant loans to foreign creditors even despite huge economic troubles. That tells a bit about their ability to mobilise fiscal power if deemed necessary.

Public debt is officially at a fantastic low of about 7% GDP (Wikipedia & CIA World Factbook). This means they should easily be able to finance a stronger posture with deficit spending for many years until they would reach typical Western levels (rarely less than 40%).

The state's revenues are rather limited due to the small GDP; around € 300 billion.

Population

The population of Russia is large at about 140 million, but declining. This trend isn't irreversible, but it's an old situation that has left its demographic and economic marks.
For comparison: The population of Russia is about as large as the population of Germany plus France. Their closest ally Belarus has only as many citizens as Belgium.

The health situation of Russian males is comparably poor, apparently due to tobacco, drugs, infectious diseases (tuberculosis, HIV) and their infamous alcohol consumption. Official figures look like 12 liters pure alcohol per citizen and year, but that's apparently a manipulated statistic. A 17 litres figure slipped off Medvedev some time ago.

Traffic accidents are correspondingly a major cause of death and disability.

The statistic of only about 61 1/2 years life expectancy for males (and about 74 for females) is credible, and shocking.

These problems can be solved, but not in short order. On the other hand, the Soviet Union fought WW2 with strong personnel resources even though famine, alcohol and state terror had badly hurt the population in the inter-war years.

Manpower available for military service (age 16-49):
36.2 million males, 37 million females

Manpower fit for military service:
21.1 million males, 28 million females

Manpower reaching militarily significant age annually:
0.74 million males, 0.71 million females
(rounded, CIA World Factbook)

There's plenty manpower for military service, but the situation is rather poor from a workforce point of view.

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Russia seems to have the ingredients for a quite prosperous future, including the groundwork for education, science and engineering and lots of natural resources. Its population is large, but not overwhelmingly large.
The next two decades (especially the next one) will be very important for its further development and standing. Seriously; they cannot afford the waste of resources that a major war would cause.
I personally hope that Western diplomats and governments have figured out Putin's long-term strategy better than the Western public has. This strategy for the nation's development (I assume he has one) will be extremely important for Russia and therefore also for Europe.
I think he neglected the industrial development in the past, with too much nepotism and emphasis on a strong state (instead of strong & healthy economy).

I do always keep in mind the historical precedent of Germany 1932-1939: It recovered from a terrible economic crisis and turned into a military powerhouse in just seven years. The Western powers were burdened by public debt while Germany had de-valued its WWI debt by hyper-inflation during the 20's.

Europe is really in a lucky situation. Its only credible conventional war threat is weakened for several years to come. Not entirely harmless, but badly weakened. Historical precedents point out that the picture could change in a matter of five to ten years, but the situation allows for a relaxed vigilance.

S O
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