Thank you for playing, and gosh I actually feel terrible that you gave it five tries. The tuning is all over the place and it's extremely difficult if one doesn't understand all the systems; and as you've pointed on, the content / tutorialisatation is a balance I haven't gotten right with the amount I shoehorned in.
You essentially have to go full economic, and air defence investment and not touch anything else while you get that developed. Because when you start building other infrastructure including centrifuges, Yankistan thematically would be getting quite uncomfortable at that point and hits you with the full might of the military industrial complex. This is certainly a case where realism is not helpful for the player!
I'm glad you didn't mind my programmer art! It's not really my thing, but I decided to roll with it anyway lol. I'm also happy to hear your like the theme interpretation.
Thank you again for spending so much time with this, I really appreciate it and I'm genuinely apologetic (and unlike your apology to me, this one is justified!), the game is tuned far too hard for the level of understanding needed to complete it easily. There's a lot of lessons in here for me and I'm grateful for your time and wonderful feedback.