Proving Their Mettle

Judah Grunstein highlights this paragraph by Richard Weitz:

Although Russian defense spending has increased in recent years, analysts remained uncertain about the extent to which the Russian military had experienced genuine improvements in its operational capability given its poor performance in Chechnya, morale problems, and lack of actual combat experience. Russian leaders have now demonstrated that Moscow has both the capacity and the will to use the country's armed forces to advance Russia's security goals.