I've been having a long discussion with Joe Brunoli about this. He believes Russia is doing well with weapons design and production.

Can Russia built quantiles of weapons that existing factories are tooled for? YES. Can Russia build new weapons? NO. And that has been true for a long time. We know this because we can see how the West struggled to produce these weapons in number itself!

Russia has an advantage in bread and butter weapons manufacture because, as you point out, the government can command it. But in the end, they won't be able to match the West. They never have.

Let's talk about Western "chips." Russia needs them in quantities that are easy to obtain on the black market, I believe. What Russia can't do is call up the manufacturer and ask for technical clarifications, for for small mods. That's something someone outside of Russia can do. I can buy a part from DigiKey and then contact the manufacturer for help.

Further, when someone finds a way to improve, say missile accuracy from 100 feet to 50 feet they take their technology and create a specialized chip. Those chips Russia CANNOT get, even on the black market. Why, because many chips these days are security locked. We can see this in consumer goods. You can't just replace parts in an iPhone. Many of them are "locked" into that particular phone.

Even if Russia were able to procure them, it wouldn't be able to trust that they'd keep working without proper protocols.

Anyway, great piece. You covered all the bases.