Militarism

While there are many aspects of this, I will show a few which can be seen in numbers. Most of these are just from quick internet searches. These numbers are, of course, limited.

Military Spending: The US is by far on top. Besides the P5, there is Germany and Japan, India, and Saudi Arabia. Note that Russia actually scores worse on these charts when examining the comparison to GDP. (link1, link2, vs GDP)

Prison population (per 100k people): The US has the highest population as well as the highest per capita. (link) Russia has decreased over the time Putin has been in power, to about 60% of the value in 2000.  (link) It is still bad, but it is going in the correct direction. The US, on the other hand, is not. (link)

Weapons exports: This is topped by the P5+1 block, but more specifically by the US. (link1, link2)

Foreign Military Bases: Russia has bases in the former Soviet Union, which probably has historical origins. On the other hand, the US has bases all around the world. (link1, link2)

Other points to consider when analyzing these numbers: 
 a) The US has never been invaded -- it has always been the imperialist, while being isolated from other imperialists in the "New World." Attacks on the US have been triggered by American actions rather than the imperialist desire of other states to conquer American lands.
 b) Russia has suffered repeated invasions, loosing over 10% of its population in WWII as well as enduring a few centuries of Mongol rule.
 c) NATO (mine, wikipedia) -- This is a big point of contention, and the reason Russia is so scared of an American invasion. While I will go into more details later and provide external links, the basics is this -- NATO, a military alliance, was formed after WWII with the purpose of "keeping America in, Germany down, and Russia out." Stalin later responded by constructing the Warsaw Pact. The Warsaw Pact broke apart and Germany reunited with an agreement that in return, NATO would not expand east. Later, the Soviet Union dissolved, after which the US started to push NATO eastward, incorporating eastern Germany, then former Warsaw Pact nations, then former Soviet Republics. In this expansion, Russia has asked to join NATO, but been refused, as well as continuously asking NATO to stop its actions, without responding militarily. By the time NATO got to Georgia and Ukraine, with its characteristic encouraging of ethnic tensions and anti-Russian attitudes, many people in the Russian government lost their patience and felt that they needed to respond.
    It is worth noting that I have been told by a Finnish girl that Finland purposefully made the decision not to join NATO to avoid upsetting the Russians.


Links to the Other Writings in this Series

1. Travel journals, general comments, and CCI trip in particular
2. Summary of series, Basic Appeal
3. Some direct comparisons: Repression of Dissent