skillissuer

nObOdY hAs SeEn NoRtHkOrEaNs https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/2399261/first-north-korean-troops-killed-in-russia-says-lithuanian-source https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/05/north-korea-troops-russia-ukraine-war-kim-jong-un-putin

mercenaries would be something like wagner. there are international volunteers within normal units of UAF, with normal pay and responsibilities just like any other unit. these chinese were promised unusually high salary and russian citizenship at the end of the contract. ukrainian foreign legion is entirely official, while this chinese recruitment seems to be covert or at least not very highly visibly public. ukrainian foreign legion also takes only people with former combat experience (iirc), it's unclear so far if chinese recruited have any, probably not considering that china has stayed out of any major war or deployment since forever. these are not the same things

in some cases, on the power of the "fuck that other other guy" school of geopolitics, this can be avoided. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Iran%E2%80%93Pakistan_border_skirmishes "you see, we actually targeted separatists" "yeah we also targeted separatists let's call it even" it also requires certain degree of diplomatic finesse that trump lacks, and there's no good reason for strikes in the first place considering that dea coordinated with mexican police (?) previously, so they could just continue doing that

there's technology transfer from koreans https://www.polska-zbrojna.pl/home/ArticleShow/42536

also not everything can be done with drones, for some time-sensitive targets you need speed that MLRS delivers

there's not that many of them and one Trident missile costs only $31M

i think there was an update or two since

also the minimum deterrence always kept up by brits is that there's at all times enough nukes in submarines to destroy moscow. french have some more fine-grained options

triple the defence budget

i'll have you know that social contract that formed in russia after 90s looks just like that: citizens fuck off from politics in return for some prosperity. every time when russian state expected that that won't last due to things like 2008 crisis or covid or what have you, they started a war as a distraction and to rally around the flag some nationalists. now they're on 4th attempt, this one was due to post-covid recession. difference is, this time they were high on their own supply of propaganda and planned accordingly. they also can't back down because they see it as a weakness, and that would mean a coup

I know that Abe was PM since always, but he's dead for almost three years now

Another good example would be actions Brits took in order to protect the fact that Enigma was broken. For example, when Enigma deciphering indicated that there's warship in a specific area, they would send spotter plane first before attacking it, in order to provide enemy alternative explanation as of how they were discovered. Some operations were aborted entirely for this reason

remember, the entire time until bombs dropped Goldblum wasn't sure that if it was an elaborate bit