[quote=Dinh AaronMk]
Russia didn't even have a native industry to begin with. A a significant portion was foreign owned and out of the central government's reach and could - at any point - be pulled back and weakened Russian industrialism.And I again turn to their military record: with the exception of having to fight basically third-world powers and the Turks (which were more a rotten corpse of a great thing than the Russians were) they had an abysmal record and I can't believe your claims Europe would be afraid of Russia when their navy sat at the bottom of the sea thanks to Japan (which had just left feudalism fifty years prior) and they were humiliated by France, Great Britain, AND the Ottomans over Crimea.German Industrialism had also exploded over this period as well, which was their inspiration for expansion of the Germany Navy.
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Please check page 10-12 of [url=http://www3.nccu.edu.tw/~lorenzo/wohlwforth%20perceptions%20of%20power%20russia.pdf]this[/url] document. The Germans were not scared of the current Russia. They were certain that she was unprepared, it was her future state that they were "pessimistic" about. German officials thought that if Germany and Russia were to fight a war then it would be better to fight it now than later and they should take advantage of the present situation. In addition on page 4 there is an estimation of the percentage of world power of each of the countries. Note how Russia is always within one percentage point of Germany.