[kato13]

Since you mentioned ROI, I'm having trouble working out the economics of this.

How many rifles do you think were captured? What is the percentage that would be able to make it back to collection points (not held at the front, not lost or damaged, etc)?

I am putting the number at 200,000 at the end of 1996. This seems high to me as the Soviets are generally not losing territory, but as it amounts to 75% of 20 divisions worth of rifles it might be possible.

What is the profit per rifle for the Chinese? $500? . I think this is very high estimate given all the costs and the desire for the American side of the deal to make a profit. The Americans would desire a huge slice of the pie as they are taking a huge risk. They are depending on a tenuous source and supply chain for their raw materials and are building the infrastructure to process the rifles.

So if I go with high estimates all around the Chinese get 100 million out of this.

Real world The US trade deficit with China in 1996 was 39 Billion Dollars. New war trade is supposed to equal that number. So the sale of all the rifles at maximum profits represents 0.26% of what we are sending to China. Would this be a huge motivator politically, militarily, or economically?

It terms of being some assets to offset against a potential default, I was going to say it is a drop in a bucket, but technically it is 1000 drops (50ml) in a standard us bucket (18.9 liters). The fact that the numbers matched nearly perfectly made me mention that. (50ml x 2 => $100 mil / 18.9l x 2 ~=> $39bil)