maybe they haven’t clocked that if machine manufacturer is in uzbekistan and cargo transits russia then it’ll get disappeared in russia and uzbek order was faked

fwiw sanctioned cargo transit through russia/belarus is banned too for exactly this reason

i don’t know if you know, but tobacco trafficking, at least before war, was a massive activity with counterfeit cigs showing up as far west as UK, and there were multiple groups involved, evidently some less cautious than others. also this article is five years old

i think they also did that last year, after strikes on refineries, and duration of it coincides with grain harvest. but this year much less oil refining capacity was struck

llms allowed them to glide all the way to the point of failure without learning anything

Live in the forest ig. Some defect to Ukrainians, there are flyers and websites and telegram channels for that, but hard to say how many choose so

nukes, that was just paper thin disguise

couple kg went for fuel fabrication for teheran research reactor, but that’s couple tens kg out of low tons

They could just buy enriched uranium directly

they did buy enriched uranium for their only nuclear power reactors in bushehr npp from russians, and didn’t use their own enrichment facilities to make fuel for it

trump and netanyahu have their sons (?) that do that job for them (on twitter mostly ig)

it’s a legit thing even if we don’t know how exactly it works

well, i see a large category of infrastructure problems (that will be 99% civilian use anyway - and not only transport, also telecomms, you can even put healthcare training in there) that is solvable by pouring money at them, and now it’s politically convenient to let it rip even among pro-austerity neoliberals. if you want an example of what can this do, look at eastern eu countries and how they changed after funding went in

which ones? germany has government spending at 48% of gdp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_spending_as_percentage_of_GDP so 5% of gdp for defense will be closer to 1/10 of all government spending

going by 2024 numbers, russians putting third of government spending to defence would be closer to 13% gdp

It all depends on how it all will get managed, but there are already longer term infrastructure projects that now got some funding and now also it counts under 5% NATO target. I think that more resources will go towards rail infrastructure, bridges are just more illustrative, but still for a couple of these village 7 ton level bridge there will be one 30 ton bridge in town nearby that will get overhauled

in eastern nato countries there is logistical problem because army suddenly switched from 40 ton tanks to 70 ton tanks, for example, and old bridges or rail can’t support them. this is just one of many small examples that add to that problem, and of course 99% of the time the stronger bridge will be used by civilians

there shouldn’t be billion dollar startups

No. Barrels of API (active pharmaceutical ingredient) are mostly hauled from India or China, then formulated into pills or whatever, this goes especially for generic medicines. There is some american manufacture of APIs, but these tend to be on more expensive side (biologicals or small molecule drugs under patent). Inputs for these APIs also tend to be made in India or China

It’s not. He-3 is supposed to be maybe one day used in fusion power, but we’re talking about tons of this stuff. Not only scale is off, also He-3 burning requires much higher temperature than D-T fusion, and this is just around in next 20 years pinky promise

People who think that it’s a big deal also take Ray Kurzweil seriously, it’s scifi noise

In practical terms, when DHS wanted to get He-3 neutron sensors, they bought out entire global supply for multiple years, for an application where only grams are needed and it’s not used up. It’s made from decay of tritium currently and it’d be less energy intensive to make it the usual way

at minimum brits have source code. couple of eu countries make parts for it as well

there’s a couple of big failures in american defense industry (like shipbuilding) but F35 is not one of them. the alleged killswitch is not likely a thing because first, it could be used by the most probable adversary, and they already shown capability in EW; and second, it’s not necessary because it requires constant stream of spare parts and maintenance. as if it’s worth it, ask any remaining iranian radar operator for firsthand opinion

some countries switched to euro made jets anyway, but these aren’t likely to be doing the job that F35 is cut to do anyway (SEAD)

it’s not listed because this is not what is happening

italy for example put bridge construction in that military budget (as critical infrastructure)

hyperloop was a fever dream cooked specifically to kill californian high speed rail, so this one worked

ah yes, major effects of crypto: it brought new innovative ways of money laundering, sanctions evasion and ransomware, and chatbots can give you psychosis and/or noninvasive lobotomy