The Economics of Artillery Shells in the Russo-Ukrainian War

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It occurs to me that all the leaders of countries are jockeying for position on the world stage. Sometimes it's just economic warfare of one kind or another and sometimes push leads to shove and we get to the shooting stage. That's the way it's been throughout history and the way it's going to be.

I got to thinking about how many countries use weapons from other countries and how the United States sells weapons to a bunch of other countries, all allies now, but who knows what next week will bring? So I'm thinking, if I was a devious kind of guy, I would put some back doors in those weapons that only I knew about, back doors that would allow me to render the weapon inert or possibly even activate the weapon. And I wouldn't do it to just complete weapons, I'd do it to any kind of weapons components that were getting exported, especially to those that were getting smuggled to enemies of the regime.

All the fuss that gets made whenever we find that someone has been exporting some kind of armament technology might just be a cover to make the enemy think they have scored something that will give them a leg up. Of course, all this presupposes that there is a hyper-competent, ultra-secret operation that could coordinate all this. There might be, but it's not part of the US administration. They can't even effing tie their shoes.

That might be why you are not worried about North Korea's nuclear ambitions, because you know that if there ever get to the point where they have a rocket that can actually deliver a warhead, and they launch one in anger, you can push a button and blow it up where it sits.