WI:USSR Conventional arsenal sold

After the end of the cold war the United States did a very good job at keeping the USSR's vast arsenal of conventional weapons contained. The United states paid a pretty penny to have them decommissioned on top of keeping the Soviet WMD arsenals under wraps. What would have been the effects of the conventional, and only the conventional, weapons being widely available? Who would have bought them and how would this increase in weapons systems affected the nineties? Who would have bought the weapons and how would they have been used? Some things, like the artillery and tanks i can see ending up in the Congo, but others like the Ukrainian Backfires?

Basically how would the glut of weapons effect the politics of the time, who would buy them, and what would the western response be. Questions like would the fifth generation fighters have come out quicker? Also would this massive sell off of military hardware have been enough to keep the Russian military out of the slump in went into in the nineties, and possibly made it politically relevant?
 
Russia can say goodbye to any US Economic aid for a start, which will hurt them in the long term.
 
They would have made tens of billions from selling to anyone and everyone that had the cash. And if they were smart, they should have blackmailed the americans for whatever said "economical help" and other "compensation" to not sell any nukes and nuke and ICBM tech. Iran, Iraq, Lybia, North Korea, Cuba, China and dozen of other willing countries could have bought anything they wanted, both new and second hand, which would have meant that much money for the russian MIC and budget. Plus, it would have made things rather more hot and costly when the americans would have attacked the various countries that they did OTL.

But there is a reason why pro-russian folks consider Yeltsin nothing more than traitorous drunkard i guess.
 
Plus, it would have made things rather more hot and costly when the americans would have attacked the various countries that they did OTL.

Fancy, top of the line weapon systems are all well and good. IF you can actually use them as intended. Case in point, Iraq during the Gulf War.
 
From what I've read lots of the more modern and impressive looking conventional weapons systems that the Soviets had produced in the last decade or so of the Cold War were largely crap. Difficult to maintain and inefficient.

Most of their tanks were basically "one shot wonders" capable of only firing about 100 rounds of main gun ammo before the barrel needed replacing.

Their ships were very difficult to repair and maintain.
 
Most of the countries wanting to buy soviet arms in the 80s were not good payers, at best, and economic basket cases at worst.

Why wouldt this suddenly chnage at the end of the cold war?
 
Fancy, top of the line weapon systems are all well and good. IF you can actually use them as intended. Case in point, Iraq during the Gulf War.

Well, for the purpose of this TL why would the russians care, they get the cash, what the buyer does with the gear and how well or bad it uses it it's their problem.

Most of the countries wanting to buy soviet arms in the 80s were not good payers, at best, and economic basket cases at worst.

Why wouldt this suddenly chnage at the end of the cold war?

Because Yeltsin and his clique were cosying up to the americans (who just yesterday so to speak were their mortal enemy) and do anything to cling to power (in the process almost destroying the country, certainly destroying the USSR), they have refused potentially tens of billions in weapons sales to countries that the US did not wanted them to sell. Yes those countries maybe did not had a lot of money comparatively but they still had billions, the russians could (and did) ask for hard cash and give them gear accordingly, and it's not just cash, they could settle in some cases for other ways to get paid. Iran is at the top of this list, potential market worth tens of billions, but it's the same with the other countries i mentioned.

From what I've read lots of the more modern and impressive looking conventional weapons systems that the Soviets had produced in the last decade or so of the Cold War were largely crap. Difficult to maintain and inefficient.

Most of their tanks were basically "one shot wonders" capable of only firing about 100 rounds of main gun ammo before the barrel needed replacing.

Their ships were very difficult to repair and maintain.

Regardless of the difference in doctrine and design, i would say the soviet gear was anything but crap as some put it forward, for instance the MiG-29 surprised with it's HOBS capability, and even today the americans jump skyhigh whenever the russians hint at selling the S-300 to some countries. Since the russians/soviets were selling downgraded models of their gear, the americans to my knowledge never fought against top of the line soviet/russian gear (most modern fighter they faced was the MiG-29 9.12B, they were never faced with Buk, S-300, Su-27, MiG-31, T-72B et seq. etc.) but mostly export models.
 
Iran isn't exactly swimming hard currency even now. They want to barter oil, or buy on credit. The first isn't that much benefit to Russia, the latter is just another unpaid and unpayable debt for arms purchased, and as successor state to the USSR, the Russians have plenty of those, and won't be looking for more.
 
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