The Great Naval Force You Have Never Heard Of!

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(Edited)

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Ok, slightly click bait title. It's not so great. But it did officially rank at no. 6 in 1989 as the largest military naval force. Not bad considering it didn't belong to a country but a private corporation!

And you would never guess what that company was..

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Pepsi! Yes, fucking Pepsi!

But how the fuck did that happen?

Well, back in 1989, Pepsi closed a deal with the Soviet Union to provide them with a significant amount of Pepsi colas and a few pizza hat spots in return for naval vessels, 17 submarinws and 3 warships to be exact.

Which momentarily granted the company with enough military hardware to make them the 6th largest navy in the world, in tie with India.

Well, that only on paper of course as the ships were old and in terrible condition..A far cry of their golden war years.

The Pepsi military naval was very brief as the ships were soon scraped for sweet $$.

The deal was a win win. A big win for PepsiCo as it allowed them company to infiltrate a new market in the Soviet Union. And a win
for mother Russia as it had great economic difficulties and got the goods for useless military equipment.

Tldr, a great forbidden love between the great communist nation and one of the biggest capitalist entities.



There's a lot more backstory and important details I skipped on this odd deal, here's a link if you want to learn more on it :)



Photo Sources

  • Thumbnail image via Wikipedia, public domaim

Posted Using InLeo Alpha



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27 comments
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You received an upvote of 88% from Precious the Silver Mermaid!

Please remember to contribute great content to the #SilverGoldStackers tag to create another Precious Gem.

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Now it became clear to me why Pepsi Cola appeared in every store in my small Soviet town :) True, it cost 3 times more than Soviet lemonade, but my school friends and I often bought it along with cakes.

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Yeah, they infiltrated that market for good

!pimp

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That was a fascinating read. Actually a window into the Cold War world of the 1980s. Have to salute Pepsi's entrepreneurial acumen--not only navigating the tricky waters of Cold War economics, but turning profit in the process. I asked myself, what would Pepsi do with all those old ships? Easy, unload them on Norway. Everybody wins, I think (except the kids with rotting teeth in the Soviet Union from drinking all that sugary soda pop). Soviet Union gets sorely needed cash. Norway gets shipping parts for its growing fleets. Pepsi gets cash from Norway and a new market in the Soviet Union. This is why I never, ever will invest in business. Way too clever, way too wily for me. Chess, not checkers.

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Pepsi could have protected itself from countries not drinking enough Pepsi, or maybe go get Pepsi back that was not paid for, for a short period of time. #lolz !BBH !DOOK

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That is crazzzzzyyyy... but imo the private armies will be what will dominate the future as private corporation will innovate in the military space and armies of drones and robots will be what the future await us.

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That is funny! Pepsi the super power! They could have taken out a few small countries Navy's with the old outdated warships and subs. That's an awesome story!
!BBH
!DOOK

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Will Coca Cola stand for this, they will now have to get themselves a military force to maintain the balance of power. All the Caffeine!
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😂😂😂

!pimp

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Of course smaller Colsa like Dr. Pepper are forced to take sides with Coca Cola or get swallowed up by Pepsi's navy.

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I never though Pepsi would have naval warships, but I guess the stuff was outdated at that point anyways. So at that point, Russia didn't care.

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