Thread by @kamilkazani

1. Every major military industrial complex in the world relies upon the CNC cutting machines to mass produce precise components -> weaponry

2. No one is capable of producing them without the continuous import of machines, machine parts and expendables

3. From the U.S. allies https://t.co/UZ1qF3YTYA

https://twitter.com/alexykot/status/1679794029775450112

The vast qualitative gap in the machine tool production is of major strategic significance. First, catching development producers produce subpar equipment. Second, supply chain for their production starts in Western Europe or Japan for the lack of alternatives

See Russia (2015)

In 2015, the Russian gov saw itself as absolutely dependent upon the import of machine parts from the Western Europe and Japan. In no single category did it see a chance of substituting the European and the Japanese critical components with the Chinese production

No alternative

China is progressing rapidly, largely due to the Western European and Japanese producers localising their manufacture and doing technology transfer. But catching up will take years. At this point it can't substitute the European and Japanese supplies in too many categories

2023

Whenever the Russian military producers can, they secure Western European and Japanese supplies

When they can't, they do Taiwan and South Korean

China is the last choice option. In too many categories the option of choosing Chinese does not exist and will not for a while

NB: this does not mean China is not a significant supplier for the Russian military industry. Of course it is. The European and the Japanese manufacturers localised in China plays a disproportionate role here, compared with Chinese brands

Which explains a somewhat puzzling pattern of Chinese brands having almost no representation in the Russian military industry before Feb 2022. Like seriously, you could easier see a Turkish rather than a Chinese machine there

(there could an element of conscious exclusion, too)

I don't want to underrate Chinese progress. It is real and it is fast. But assuming China can catch up with the old industrial powers of Europe and Japan anytime soon is just wrong

If there's an alternative it's not China. It's Taiwan and South Korea. They're far more advanced

Once again, the focus of the Ukrainian government & associated is wrong

They (e.g @McFaul @AndriyYermak) are doing it wrong

They won't be able to achieve any significant result in undermining the Russian war production continuing to do what they are doing

What to do:

Supply chain for the Russian military/dual use industry usually works like this:

(a) Foreign-based supplier -> (b) Russian-based intermediary -> (c) Military consumer

It's usually very simple and straightforward. Nobody hides as there's no need to hide

The first thing to do is to carpet bomb the (b). There's a list. Taken them all and sanction them all + their CEOs, too. It's businessmen doing business -> they react to incentives

Stop sanctioning "corrupt officials"
Sanction war enablers -> (b) link of the supply chain

Of course, there are variations. There are even examples of suppliers who actually hide and were trying to hide their links with the military industry even before 2022. E.g. the DMG Mori AG

Most don't. Carpet bomb them & their executives with sanctions. Again, there's a list

Once you bombed the (b) link -> introduced a financial disincentive for supplying the military production, the system of incentive changes -> economic actors change their behaviour accordingly. Including the *new* actors who come instead of the bombed

To sum up, the first thing you should do is to take the list of the Russia-based suppliers (=intermediaries) of production equipment for the military industry and to sanction them and their executives, too. It's easy to do, they're all all Russian companies -> easy to sanction

The end