I suppose we have to agree to disagree on the definition of a socialist state! I guess we put completely different values in that word, I’d consider most of Europe capitalistic to the bone.

Comparing the ground troops in manpower, well you can look at standing regular army troops, luckily easy to add up as there are roughly 100k in each of the six populous EU states, about 60k in the Nordics, plus 50k in Romania. Have no idea about the other new eastern European EU members, Benelux, the Alpine states or the Baltic states. A guess at 10’000 each brings us to a bit over 800’000.

Now sure we could say that Russia will be able to arm more than those 320’000 troops that warfare.ru says they currently have standing, but then we’re just playing the population game and Russia’s 145 million just doesn’t compete with half a billion in the EU.
Also keep in mind the very low Russian population density. They have to station a decent amount of soldiers in the Caucasus facing Turkey and Iran, as well as in the East, facing China!

Their huge landmass has always been a problem and remember that the French looted Moscow in 1812 and the Germans nearly reached it in 1941, France and Britain invaded the Crimean in the mid-19th century, the Swedes had made repeated eastward land grabs in the 17th century, and so on. In fact, looking at historical precedents, Russia has cause to be pissed off at western Europe and cause to want to keep Belarus and Ukraine as buffer states between them and the west.
Ukraine has expressed a wish to join NATO and the EU which would put the west only 480km from Moscow as well as give NATO a Black Sea naval base. Personally I’d be wary to let Ukraine join these organizations as it would create unnecessary tension.

Hawkdriver, I think the point he’s making is that if you maintain a small but well-trained armed force, you can use this core to train and build up a larger force in relatively short time, without sacrificing quality.

Regardless of that, if you’re looking at the EU vs a resurgent Russia scenario, I believe Poland and Germany alone have more than 200’000 standing ground troops that can be concentrated on a relatively narrow Polish front, while the Russian army currently has, according to warfare.ru, around 320’000 standing ground troops spread out across a continent-straddling country. Looking at the new eastern EU members, add in their standing troops, and you’ll end up with more standing EU troops currently stationed at or near a rough Berlin-Warzaw-Bucharest triangle, than there are Russian troops in all of Russia.

In other words, even if some guy out of a techno-thriller novel took control of Russia, ignored the economic realities and turned its guns westward, you’re looking at a completely different manpower balance now, compared to the Cold War where Moscow could draw soldiers from all its satellite states. Most of the eastern european ex-satellites are now EU members.

And this is just looking at the troops near that hypothetical front, disregarding various NATO forces that will arrive after some time, disregarding the British and US forces already stationed on the continent, as well Turkish troops moving on the Caucasus oil fields and so forth.