IMHO

People of the military not the political leaders. Frunze means middle-level - captains, majors etc. Certainly captains may become generals somewhere in future. Say many decades after Very limited number - they won't allow you to educate say a half or even a third of them all. I can't speak for GRU or SVR but I guess NK should be the worst nightmare for any intelligence. As a factual example one can remember Musudan concert in Beijing. Very humiliating for Chinese leadership yet they had no advance information and were not able to prevent the loss of face in so little a question.

Sorry, I can't quite get to the point You mean an organized mass-migration of North Koreans in peace-time or as the result of a major war?

Nope, all Kims like to keep the top brass on very short leash Actually the first purge that Kim-the-Oldest executed some decades ago was shooting everyone suspected of harbouring sympathies to Soviet Union. And then NK was TOTALLY depended on Soviet Union yet the latter was able to save the lives of very few. And those who perished were literally personal friends of many years of Soviet officials formulating and executing Soviet Union's policy to NK. Actually having an education in Russia or China is a detriment to one's career in high echelons of NK's aristocracy. Lower levels of Army command - yes, science - yes, but not the political leadership. Kims are obsessed with total loyalty. A factual example of real limits of Russian influence in NK is Trans-Korean railroad project - sixteen years old and counting Though the case there might be that China wants to be the ONLY boss rather than the BIGGEST of all But even then it's quite telling...

Russia can get as many of NK's gastarbeiters as it wants even now. Actually Russia's considered the most wanted destination inside NK. NK workers are kept in a kind of "labor camps with comforts" in other countries whereas in Russia they live just like other menial workers from abroad. As close to normal life as possible for a cheap unskilled labour. Entertainment, food, shops, ability to do extra work beyond their main employer if they wish to do so etc. Overall influence on Russian economy of any serious trouble in NK will be highly negative. China's a significant buyer of Russia's raw materials so if Chinese economy's in trouble so does Russian's. And China will be significantly affected.

Thanks a lot. Just as a background Russia has limited influence over NK - there's no trade to speak of. There are some financial flows from Russia to NK but they're not so significant to be a critical leverage. Off the cuff estimation would be single digits of their hard currency inflows. The only influence Russia has in its arsenal is the fact that it still speaks to NK and there are precious few who do that nowadays

It's a Stalinist dictatorship but it's not a Stalinist economy for so many years by now. Again, more than 50% of their GDP is created by private sector. If you count in military production - significant and surely state-owned, - and services provided by NK government - education, medicine, state's share of residential construction, you'll definitely end up with an economy that's more capitalist than China's. Yes, they still use some antiquated Stalinist language when talking to their people or to the outside world but that's just their peculiar wording. If you take some of China's must-know-language it must look more dangerous to you than NK as China's still officially fights to establish the rule of working people all over the world But somehow you differentiate between Chinese little used yet official mantras and their real goals. Why not do it in case of NK? What will happen to NK over the next say twenty years? It'll be a full-fledged oligarchy where Kim's dynasty might be the strongest yet far from the only player on the chessboard of decision making. Even now he's evidently far from being alone - his cruel acts of shooting old guards are not to show his craziness to the outside world but rather to show who's the boss to his own establishment (obviously many doubted ). What will this oligarchy try to do? It will try to protect their capitals, get rich trading with outside world, travel abroad in style, send their kids to study in Switzerland - i.e. it'll inevitably try to appear more or less rational to the outside world. It's just Chinese leadership has the liberty of waiting those 20 years and American establishment seems to have developed an urge of solving world problems in matter of days. What's wrong with China benefitting from a useful pawn especially when the US is trying to steal one from them? Chinese establishment hates the guts of Young Kim. China has always seen NK's nuclear program as a significant detriment to its interests and AFAIK China's never provided critical support for NK's missile programs in anything beyond tactical (and that was many decades ago). Or otherwise NK would have ICBM by now It's just China differentiates between propping a state and propping weapons programs while US sees a black-and-white picture. May be not least because serious trouble in NK will be Chinese, Japanese, SK's problem - not US's. Obviously the best result they want is a predictable client state of China buying as much Chinese goods as possible (for that it has to be a rather prosperous economy). Again there's no way Kim will drop ICBM program without an all-out-war. What concessions can the US provide China with that will outweigh such a disaster at their doorstep? Who will feed, provide shelter to millions of North Koreans for decades to come? US? It even tries to bully Mexico into footing the bill for US-built wall. On top of that Chinese rightfully believe whatever they want in SEA without sparking a major regional war they will get even over US objections. Again even now the US alone is weaker than China in SEA in terms of military power. Imagine what it will look like in 20 years when US will be 50% smaller than China economically.

There's no question China sees it as a factor of instability. E.g. China significantly limited the amount of fuel it provides to NK at subsidized prices ("price of friendship") at end of June - beginning of July. Right in the midst of agricultural season so it hurts NK A LOT. Foodstuff in NK is produced solely by private sector so it spells significant food price hikes this fall. But Kim is no puppet of Beijing - he plays his own cards. And right now he plays at least as much against Chinese interests as American's. It's just Chinese see no way out of the stalemate. Kim's not gonna drop ICBM idea even if hundreds thousands of his compatriots perished. On the contrary it'll make him resort to the tactics of open armed intimidation pushing other countries to provide calories for his populace. With Trump at the helm and a macho attitude instilled by his campaign in American establishment and public in general it's way treacherous position then Kim's getting the missile. IMO in the end it will not go beyond media frenzy. China, Japan, SK would suffer enormously should action begins so they'll go to greatest lengths to prevent such an outcome. For the US it's a question of fear and national pride, for them it's quite real danger of catastrophe of immense proportions. US fighting such a united front is beyond the line of acceptable even for current administration (at least I hope so ). But at the very moment it suits many interests in the US - attention is distracted from Mueller probe, establishment plays into the public sentiment of America-Is-Great-Again. And after all applying some pressure on Kim's administration through media-wars does not hurt either. E.g. the US is quite capable of raising the stakes for Kim as one last step before the real action by significantly increasing US military presence near NK. Strictly speaking it still keeps all options clear for the US and provides more limelight for the TV president. Say more carrier strike groups, marine expeditionary brigade, repositioning more air power to SK and Japan. Yet Donald instead goes for rhetoric that Russia and China should "pay for it" (hello, Mexico). My uneducated guess there was some concerted effort at explaining to the President that too much brinkmanship is a wrong move in this game.

@Bulletpoint, may be because twenty years ago states were much less inclined to overthrow rulers by sheer force for no rational reasons. Then came Kosovo, Iraq, Lybia etc. So Kim can no longer be sure that a mass-media induced popular sentiment won't dictate someone powerful enough to topple Kim's regime. Iraqi invasion was a total catastrophe - so much death and destruction to local populace, many deaths to invading force and the place is turned into a hot bed of radical Islam as the result. Seems like failure at a sheer scale to learn lessons from. Yet the same happens to Lybia with the very same disaster in the end. To Kim it's a signal that Western decision making is irrational even when the costs are high. The logical step for him is to make the costs of irrationality prohibitively high. So he does... Correction to your post: NK is already in possession of nukes - whether they're capable of fitting them to ballistic missiles is another question. The brawl is about private American fears NK will be able to reach CONUS sometime in future. For China, Japan, SK or Russia there's no change in status quo - they're all reachable by NK even now.

@Sgt.Squarehead, I believe NK is a very telling example of what a dangerous times the world has to pass. During the last 30 years US got used to be the only superpower in the world capable of achieving any objectives in any corner of the world. And popular US mindset seems to still perceive it this way. But by now US is only the third largest economy in the world (if you count EU as one entity). China is now sufficiently larger than US and will be 50% larger than the States in five years. Even now China is stronger in SEA than US forces there and Chinese military will be comparable if not stronger than US globally in 10-15 years. Chinese popular politics is VERY nationalistic so once the thought that they have the biggest stick in the world settles in their minds they will behave very assertively. If US continues to ignore the realities of the world and continues to behave as if they own the whole party it may well happen that US popular opinion may demand from their leaders something they cannot deliver without triggering a Third World War. Like it's very funny when Donald The Greatest says US will hold Russia and China accountable for NK missile program. NK has had capability to hit Russia and China territory long ago so new NK missiles do not change the calculus for both. Why should they do US bidding?

Hope you're not offended by the joke in my first reply - was on a run, had no time to type a proper reply and your post was too tempting NK being a threat solely belongs to inflamed minds in DC and network newsrooms because it does not want anything from US except to be left alone. They have no ambition for a global Juche Khalifate, they don't want unification with SK, and even their meagre (by the standards of SEA) territorial clams are all against China not any other country. So whatever weapon systems they may possess there's no basis for a conflict. NK now is no Stalinist centralized economy - over 50% of GDP is produced by private sector. May be cautiously but they're going the path of China and Vietnam reforms. They already have their own nouveau riches with an interest in saving their capitals. In ten years from now NK will be a "normal" autocratic oligarchy with influential nobility collectively affecting the decision making process.

Not yet, you'll have to wait six more months

Seoul is the biggest metro-area in the world, there's no way one can hope an evacuation of so large a populace may go unnoticed. And if NK gets wind of it - this is casus belli for them, they'll strike first. So here we get tens if not hundreds thousands dead on SK side and massive damage to SK economy. Hundreds of thousands dead on NK side and whatever there's of an economy at that side will lay in shambles. After everything finishes there will be a whole country to feed and to rebuild to at least modern standards. If German reunification costs are estimated at 2 trillion Euro it will arguably be higher in case of NK. NK starts at much much lower levels, SK is much wealthier per-person now than West Germany was back then, German reunification was peaceful - no war damage. The gap between SK and NK in terms of everyday culture and behaviour is so immense one may expect than one or two generations of older North Koreans will never adapt to a different system. Costs to feed, moral stress to the whole society etc. So the majority of South Koreans believe US holds SK a hostage to its saber-rattling with Kim.

Why would anyone want to topple Kim after all? Him being a lunatic is a media circus to stoke ratings and misunderstanding of NK's old-fashioned language they use when they speak to their own people. In reality his actions are quite rational in his own way and certainly NK does not want to start a suicidal fight to end Kim dynasty quickly and efficiently. He just wants an ICBM not to follow the Gaddafy fate. Hey, NK is now more laisser-faire capitalist country than US itself.

@DreDay, I start to suspect what was one of the best schools where you get your MBA Social premium is very narrow and specific term that does not exist in general economic theory. Now if we're done with most scientific process of measuring dicks... Any comment on the above list? My point is quite simple - both people well versed in technologies of 30 years ago and most of scientific equipment of that era are of little use at today's level of development. So you take such an R&D center (NII), you subtract people and equipment then what have you got of a fabled NII? A letterhead and square footage. Certainly to make my point stand out I push it to very extreme but believe me even in real life it's 80% true. And rebuilding this infrastructure is a very very costly exercise that will overhang on not so vast a final military output. As an example see how much China has already invested in science and still continues to do so.

You're wrong. There are rough estimations out there plus you can actually derive approximate costs if you match the output against say "financial allowances" Kalibr family has been produced since the end of 70s. Compare their capabilities if you take the systems one can realistically estimate to be present on Armata in the coming years. You'll end up with Armata (hopefully) being similar to latest generations of Merkava and Abrams. Even for unfinished projects you can do cost estimations and, surprise, with enough experience they end up being not far from reality (if we assume politicians do not tamper with them ) You mostly try to name Soviet-era hardware. There's no doubt Soviet hardware of late 70s - early 80s will be cheaper when compared to US hardware the way the latter existed back then. But if you compare US airframes of 70s with capabilities of 201x bolted on then Russian hardware will start to be prohibitively expensive. @DreDay, really? Would you mind helping me with a name of a Russian NII capable of providing high-speed radiation resistant DSPs at a cost available at the US market? Or latest gen thermals? Well... I definitely not putting my money in any enterprise under your management if it ever involves investment in R&D You may want to have a look at the aggregate program price structure for different blocks of F-35. Tell us if you find R&D costs there It's a mystery to me but you somehow take the economical aspects of developing, producing and maintaining a well-rounded hi-tech military force to be similar to what was at the late 30s-40s. Back then, yes, your rules were absolutely correct - cheap labor force, advantages in energy costs, here we churn out hordes of steel monsters day and night. Whoever is capable of building a bigger horde - wins. Seems to me that's why you mentioned plain vanilla Ratnik that's quite low tech and absolutely rooted in bolts-and-nuts economy.

Tomahawk vs. Kalibr, Armata with what they'll realistically be able to provide in the coming years vs. latest Abrams generations, still non existing next-gen engine for T-50, still non-existing mass produced AESA fighter radars, early-warning ICBM radars, non-existing theater defence tactical ballistic missile AESA radar... Enough? When comparing please count in not just the face value of per-unit purchasing contract from MoD but the total program costs and vendor support from all state-aligned sources.

You may start rethinking other points as well Labor costs are way far from being the major drivers for the modern hi-tech weaponry so however low salary (sic!) you may count in it has negligible impact on the final price. And that's gonna be just the beginning as... Correct way to consider labor cost is not salary at face value but salary+benefits+taxes adjusted for productivity. And here the Russia is many times less efficient than US. Sometimes this productivity gap grows to the order of magnitude. So what you simplistically assumed as Russia cost advantage becomes exactly the opposite in real life. Whether one psychologically labels those costs sunk they still have tremendously negatively effect on the cost base overall. Soviet Union was dissolved 30 years ago - no one needs technologies of yesteryear. So strictly speaking "an existing infrastructure of Research Centers ... inherited from the Soviet Union" has negative book value. You need to dismantle and bury many an antiquated and hazardous things to build technologies of today - hence negative book value. For hi-tech weapons "less regimented manufacturing and QA practices" do not reduce the costs. Quite the opposite they increase TCO/Lifetime costs since lax manufacturing standards mean expensive field repairs, urgent force repositioning due to equipment breakdown, lower MTBF for VERY expensive items. So in the end you'll spend MORE on supporting a force of the same size and readiness level. To all of that you may add prohibitively expensive if not outright impossible task of maintaining a whole ecosystem of top notch scientific teams in all too many areas required to build a plethora of modern high-tech weapons. You gonna be incredibly lucky if you end up simply allocating full costs of say a world class team in radio image recognition to few radar pieces you produce. In a more realistic case you'll have no such capability whatsoever. Them scientists they cannot just spend couple of years developing software for just one radar (because you cannot afford many due to costs) then pack up and go home drink tea till the end of their life. They'll just leave to the lands where they can apply their skills to many areas and many customers. And I may go on and on

@Sgt.Squarehead, There's a joke of Soviet times about a one-on-one running challenge between Brezhnev and Nixon. Nixon came the first and Brezhnev - the second. Next day headlines in US press: "US president won the race, Soviet leader was the last one to cross the finish line". Headlines in the Soviet press: "Comrade Brezhnev took the second place, US President was a puny next to the last".

You describe a bureaucratic tender process. That's not the answer to the question of means and ways of financing weapons production. The correct wording would be the salary of an average weapons manufacturing employee is lower... But to infer from that that the end result ought to be cheaper is a breach of logic that contradicts the facts of real life. I'd say that using run-of-the-mill stuff is a good proxy to grasp a wider picture. You have standardized pieces with all the tooling paid for, factories fully financially depreciated, production facilities located in the most depressed Russian regions with lowest salaries, energy costs being naturally lower in Russia etc. So if THOSE pieces tend to be times more expensive what would you think of newest samples with technology not well-honed and R&D having a large share of the total cost.

@John Kettler, just to add a funny angle at the journalistic world of nowadays. https://www.buzzfeed.com/stevenperlberg/how-a-pulitzer-winning-new-york-times-story-pulled-from-a?utm_term=.mfq0p1qLm#.mj330pRgb NYT reporter finds two articles in a Russian language media outlet, alters the wording and, bingo, gets Pulitzer for a "breakthrough reporting"... To his astonishment Russians read NYT as well so a scandal flares up... And what is the outcome? NYT says everything was fine since the reporter personally checked all the facts given in the Russian text (albeit with no more than the sources he took from the original) and the confirmations emails he received differed in wording That's bloody high standards of journalism! FYI: both the article and the Russian media are very anti-Putin...

@John Kettler, gimme a break... The first article is TWO YEARS OLD (Jul, 2015). Then all of a sudden the story goes to the top of Yahoo news listing right before the Georgian election I have guys sitting in the office who're paid to push any piece of content in Google, Yahoo or whatever. It's used to peddle benign commercial stuff but politics would be even cheaper - less competition.

Since all of those are quite confidential you may safely assume I took it from thin air But since you sound knowledgeable enough to validate the numbers you asked for, would you be so kind as: List all the ways and means equipment producers are paid for the military equipment in Russia Enlighten us on actual TCO/Lifecycle costs for some major new types of Russian military equipment

You can start preaching about responsible secessionist government at 03:45. Tell us when you find one...

And it might be convenient for some people to forget but at the Transnistrian War Ukrainian paramilitary groups fought AGAINST Moldova and FOR cessation of Transnistia. Just some choose not to remember that nowadays. Actually without organized Ukrainian state support the whole affair wouldn't be possible as Transnistria is land-locked between Moldova and Ukraine. But certainly Russians did it