[Skerries]

Interesting conversation with a friend who has been a career army officer and leaves next year. His view (and I guess the genetic view within our military) is that the spread of COVID is an interesting exercise viewed by the Chinese military as a great indicator of the effectiveness of a biochemical war. He also expanded on army sizes and relevant budgets - the US having the most spend on the military but analysis shows much of that ‘spend’ is salaries, pensions etc. China however is working under an edict to ‘modernise’ its armed forces in two stages by 2028 and 2035. They have realised that it’s no longer about numbers under arms - since a few well placed cruise missiles can destroy supply lines thus cutting off thousands of troops. No, it’s all about technology - disruption and destruction. The odd few cyber attacks here and there allows for such technology to be ‘tested’ without causing too much damage at this stage.
There was a lot more detail in our discussion but listening to his views ….. and they are his views…. Was quite interesting. He also had some really interesting stuff to say about the Russian military and it’s current positioning.
Whilst I mention these are his views….. make sense to me.