Tuesday, September 05, 2023

The World Turned Upside Down

"North Korean leader Kim Jong Un plans to visit Russian President Vladimir Putin later this month, probably in the Russian port city of Vladivostok, to discuss possible weapons deals to bolster Russia’s fighting force in Ukraine, according to two senior administration officials."
During the Cold War, one could easily picture the Maximum Leaders from Moscow and Pyongyang meeting to negotiate a deal for anti-tank guided missiles and artillery shells, but the idea of the Russia being the one doing the buying would have been unimaginable.

What I find interesting is that both Putin and Kim prefer to travel by their own private armored trains.

A world leader can only fly when he absolutely trusts all his subordinates. You can put a bomb on a train, sure, or a disgruntled engineer could even deliberately wreck it, but it won't cause it to plummet 30,000 feet into a big regime-change-shaped crater in the ground.

"Comrades, let us go buy sophisticated military hardware from the glorious Democratic People's Republic of Korea!" said Stalin, never.



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