Max Glenn
Washington Times, Dec. 3, 2022
“He was buying drones from Iran. Now he’s going to buy artillery rounds from North Korea.”
The Soviet Union supplied Marxist revolutionaries and Third World dictatorships with military hardware for decades as part of its long struggle against the capitalist West, but 10 months after sending tanks across the border into Ukraine, the Kremlin is facing technical and commercial challenges to its once-powerful weapons industry that it hasn’t encountered since the Cold War.
Even after the fall of the USSR, arms sales remained a central element of Russian foreign policy. Russia has consistently ranked as the world’s second-largest arms exporter, behind the United States. Moscow exports arms to more than 45 countries and has accounted for about 20% of global arms sales since 2016, according to the Congressional Research Service.
In addition to turning out arms for export, Russia’s defense industry provides military equipment for its own use. Since 2007, Moscow has consolidated most of it into various holding companies under the control of Rostec, a state-run conglomeration.
Then came Russian President Vladimir Putin’s all-out war of aggression against neighboring Ukraine, which commenced on Feb. 24. As a result, Western sanctions have denied Russian producers access to high-tech parts and circuitry that are essential to manufacturing modern military hardware. “Russia did not expect for this war to go on this long,” said retired Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, a senior fellow with the Defense Priorities think tank. “It just passed the 10th month, and the end is not in sight.” …[To read the full article, click here]