Sounds like desperation if they are purchasing them from NK
Seems like a stalemate with the Russians gaining a little ground.
L’agression militaire de la Russie contre l’Ukraine est l’une des plus graves violations de l’ordre de sécurité européen depuis des décennies. Par cette décision, la Russie bafoue le droit international et en particulier la Charte des Nations unies.
infogram.com
I have an online friend who is from a Russian Jewish family who immigrated to the US and served in the US Army in Afghanistan in the infantry. He now lives in Israel. He thinks the whole thing is suck on suck and is on neither side but believes this should've been prevented (my position). He thinks the Russians are playing a big shell game with their Wagner PMC group, Chechens, and reservists.
They're like a first rate nuclear power with a third rate military. We're now a second rate military power with a second rate nuclear power. Due to demographic winter in the Infertile Crescent, the era of large-scale sweeping conquests of other countries' territories seems to be over.
Bill Lind said that whenever armies become mostly ceremonial, a sea change is in progress. In "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World," Weatherford remarked that the Mongols only encountered these types of armies as they conquered West The armies to the West of the steppe such as Russia and the Slavic lands were used to putting on armor and glaring at each-other on opposite hills for a couple of days until their generals struck a bargain. The Mongols were amused by this and just rode in and shot everyone. Then they rounded up the elite and poor and drove them before their cavalry to fill up the moats of the next fortified town. They kept all the clerks, artisans, and craftsmen alive. Mostly these pre-modern CHUDs didn't object.
My bet is on non-state militaries becoming the de facto powers - entities like CJNG and so forth. Corporations might also form a new Hanseatic League, though no one is going to die for Zuckerberg so that will be highly unstable. The pre-nation state era is coming back.
