There are, sadly, many places of conflicts smoldering for years; not all of them, if any, ended up in production of exportable weapons. E.g. Taiwan is preparing for a PRC invasion for decades; did it produce exportable weapons systems?

So there is an element of surprise. Maybe not as large as North Korea exporting ballistic missiles to Russia [1], but still.

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/25/how-north-kore...