"Ohhhh, but we are in an arms race. WHY? You don't need that many nuclear bombs to wipe out the world.
And do we want to turn the Middle East into glass anyway?"
Peace through strength, but actually using nukes should be avoided, if possible, imho. Right now, the Russians could cream us, they are so far ahead. Space is very important.
There's an arms race because whoever supplies the arms, talking planes and such) has access to the country and does training and helps protect them. So whomever supplies the arms indirectly controls the oil.
Russia has been in a major push to control O&G, world wide. That gives them political leverage or even control over their customers. And, of course the Hildabeast gave a good chunk of our Uranium to them as well. The commies want to control energy to the West. They have cut it off to customers like Ukraine for political leverage already.
I'm not exactly sure where to place China in this picture, but I'm thinking Russia is becoming a proxy agent of China's. China likely have some degree of control over Russia because they fund them. China tries to lock in oil supply and said they want to take over their hemisphere, but are also making inroads in ours. They finance the Russians, whose economy is failing. So I would think they have leverage and are in cahoots. China's currently building infrastructure for some of their oil supplier nations and have people on the ground. I think they get them in debt and then seek to take ownership of their assets. This is still playing out, but it doesn't look good for countries doing business with China, imo.