jrs100000

Ok I was being circuitous. Distilleries do have the capacity to produce numerous chemicals. The issue is not that Russia might run out of disinfectants or antifreeze. The concern is that that breweries and distilleries are dual use facilities. They can be used to produce common consumer goods, like alcohol, but can also be converted to produce chemical and biological agents. If Ukraine is spending valuable strategic drones to blow up distilleries it could be that they just dont have any better targets, or it might be that they are desperate and trying to do anything to make a fireball, or it might be that the CIA has warned them that Russia is getting desperate and is prepping their next war crime.

I am curious what the goal is. The first is pretty, but stills are notoriously easy to replace and bulk grain alcohol is cheap. Are they producing something other than vodka here?

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No, the first course of action would be to stop the fire.

Should have let that one live.

North Korea is quite poor. They ave a GDP per capita of around 1700 USD, and that has likely been shrinking steadily year over year since the Soviet Union collapsed. They have an extremely militarized economy, devoting perhapse 1/5 to 1/4 of their entire GDP to the military (for reference, the US is at about 3% and Russia is at about 5% right now in the middle of a punishing war). To come up with hard currency for their missile and nuclear programs they have focused on illicit programs including counterfeiting, drug production and trafficking their own population.

Their military is also massive for their population, with roughly 1 million active duty troops and perhaps 3 million more in reserve. This military has two primary missions: to keep the current leader in power and to reunify the Korean peninsula under north Korean rule by force. To accomplish this they maintain a strategic stockpile of supplies sufficient to support their active duty military for at least six months of high intensity combat. These supplies are kept in an extensive network of tunnels and bunkers that have been constructed throughout the country. North Korean doctrine imagines an extremely high intensity conflict that is likely more intense than anything we have seen Russia perform in Ukraine, outside of perhaps a Wagner suicide charge. The amount of food, weapons, supplies, fuel and munitions required to support a force this large for six months in an intensive offensive is enormous. When you consider the poor state of their economy and the poverty that most north Koreans live in its absolutely staggering.

Now during the 90s north Korea suffered from two catastrophic disasters. The first was the collapse of the Soviet Union, cutting off most of the foreign aid that had propped up their economy and supplied their military. This led to a collapse of their industrial base and starting the trend of year over year GDP decline that continues to this day. The second disaster was the North Korean Famine. This famine lasted throughout the mid and late 90s and resulted in the deaths of a significant percentage of their population. Exactly how bad things were is a closely held state secret. We know that people were trying to eat grass and tree bark. There were rumors that people were digging up freshly buried corpses and children and old people were going missing, but I couldnt say if that was common or even if it was true at all. The famine was finally ended with a steady supply of international food aid. This solution was a thin cover for the fact that their agricultural capacity has still not recovered to this day.

North Korea does manufacture arms and munitions for export. However, the quantity these weapons are available in would be on a scale suitable to arm your standard warlord on a tight budget, but not nearly enough to backstop a full scale mechanized conflict. If they are supplying at a significant level it means they are taking weapons and munitions from front line units (which they would never do), or they are dipping into their reserves. Now, north Korea does genuinely support Russia and it is very much in their interest that Russia not collapse again. However, considering the extreme hardships they have endured without touching those strategic reserves, I find it implausible that they are doing so now. I believe that this is actually an equipment swap, where they dig out crates of old supplies from their bunkers and swap them out with brand new supplies from China. I dont have any evidence to back that part up, its just a hunch.

North Korea has been painstakingly hoarding military supplies for generations. While their people starve and freeze they stuff tunnels and caves full of food and clothing. While their industry crumbles they pry up train tracks to melt down into artillery shells. They have their own soldiers train in cheap tennis shoes so boots can be saved for war. What would make them dip into these precious stockpiles that are so important to their security that everything else can be sacrificed to preserve them? My guess is its pretty simple. Russia sends oil to China, China sends new munitions and uniforms to NK, NK sends old stockpiles to Russia. Russia gets their supplies and China keeps their hands clean.

NK doesnt have a significant textile industry. They get their uniforms from China, like everyone else.

And elections coming up next year in the US. If the Russian stooge block in congress gets large enough it might become very difficult to continue supplying Ukrane, especially if it looks like they arnt making progress. If the presidency flips support might even start flowing the other way. Without full US pressure supporters like Germany and France are likely to go back to calling for negotiations, and the UK, Poland and Lithuania cant keep the Ukrainian army going on their own.

It totally depends of the jurisdiction. In some parts of the world calling up a ride sharing app with get you a totally normal taxi at normal metered taxi rates. In other parts of the world its pretty much they do it and nobody can stop them. A private citizen can pick up anyone they want and the laws all assumed that a taxi would have to find passengers and handle money in person. By the time politicians get around to doing anything about it they’ve already taken over the market and voters would take it personally if they had to go back to regular cabs.

He had friends in high places. Or to think of it another way, he was a pawn of more powerful forces moving behind the scenes trying to undermine their rivals and expand their own power base. If hes been arrested it probably means his sponsors have fallen out of favor.

Partly that. It’s also to help maintain a measured ladder of escalation. Russia crosses a line, the US responds, and then the next escalation is a separate decision. If Russia thinks it is crossing lines without a response, that would be bad and might lead to further escalation. If Russia thinks that the US is responding arbitrarily, that would also be bad and could lead to further escalation. Yeah, it sucks that the US always has to be the responsible one, but these days Russia’s shtick seems to be that they don’t care if the whole world burns if they don’t get their way.

So its basically just a list of entities in the field. With no actual information or reasoning. In a vague and arbitrary mood chart.

Its not even a high barrier. You just have to choose an instance from a list.

I know and I agree. Thats why I left it at “implied”.

It certainly implied it :

The chairman of of Pakistan’s Senate, Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani, disclosed the numbers in a statement Sunday, sending condolences to grieving families of the dead. “Our thoughts and prayers are with you, and we pray that the departed souls find eternal peace,” Sanjrani said. “This devastating incident underscores the urgent need to address and condemn the abhorrent act of illegal human trafficking.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics

Maybe not on their own, but even in a support roll they can free up US, Japanese and Korean assets. And its often better to keep supply chains open so you have something to cut off later if needed. The whole goal here is to prevent or delay conflict by making a potential attack too costly to risk.

At least in some areas. Just based on the loss numbers I would say they have had a very bad week. Of course the reports were getting are from Ukraine only, and even if they are completely accurate they can only paint a very vague picture of battle field conditions on their own.

Yes thats right.