Worried about a bellicose Putin starting a global war? Not so fast. Some articles of interest.

In general, major military actions are predicated on gain of some kind. For this reason, I wouldn't be overly worried about global war breaking out in a time of economic contraction. Wars have to pay for themselves in some way; anything else is a new economic drain.

While Russia seems to be saber-rattling a lot these days, I think much of it is posturing. There really aren't that many territorial conquests to be made that would pay for the invasion and the following occupation.

Here's a decent article about Russia's tough talk and possible reasons for it (tl;dr - maintaining power in an economically collapsing nation is much easier if you get the population into a war frame of mind).

When it comes to actual military spending, however, not so much. This article details why Russia isn't interested in reigniting an arms race (tl;dr - it was an economic disaster the first time).

And, somewhat unsurprisingly given the price of oil and its effect on the Russian economy, Russian military spending has been reduced, with Russia falling out of the top five club for the first time in 30 years.

For those who are concerned with Russia's hijinks in Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria -

Georgia - a few days after the initial invasion, Russia completely pulled out of Georgia (too expensive to maintain, not enough value in occupation).

Ukraine - aside from being an aforementioned distraction from the Russia economic crisis, Russia was putting the heat on Ukraine regarding some truly impressive unpaid gas bills.

Syria - although there are so many moving parts in that dog's breakfast that it's difficult to tell what's going on, Syria and Russia are long-time allies. Russia is probably wanting to maintain one of the few close relations it has in the Middle East proper. They probably have no hard territorial ambitions, and simply want Assad back in firm control and an end to the political instability. Russian public opinion is also starting to turn against continued intervention.

In short, Russia is going broke, and there isn't any military action they could take to change that. In fact, almost any major military action they could take would make things much much worse.

Among other nations, we can see that budget pressure is causing a down-scaling of UK military spending, and I expect His Trumpness, he of the great bouffant, to do the same eventually. Although who can tell with that nutjub.

All just my opinion, of course, I could be wrong.