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Welcome to the Decade of Concern

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Re: Welcome to the Decade of Concern

#41

Post by refenestrator »

torstenvl wrote: post #35
refenestrator wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Lack of political will to shovel money through the DoD' doesn't seem to be an issue in the US.

That is objectively and obviously false. Why would you say something you know (assuming you read the OP) to be untrue? Military spending has gone from 4.89% of GDP in the first year of the Obama Administration to ~3.3-3.4% of GDP in recent years. That's a huge decrease. There's also alllll the times that military appropriations have been a political football. A lot of DoD folks have had to report to work unpaid multi…

It's gone way, way up in dollar terms over that time frame, in a low-inflation economy. Abrams tanks aren't billed by '% of GDP'.

I'm not questioning anyone's morale or dedication, but I AM questioning competence at the top levels when it comes to spending all that money wisely. You can blame 'political footballs' for some of that but there are plenty of failures where the military and their contractors have straight squandered fortunes. And it's not because of "too much democracy", it was after the money was allocated to a purely military-contractor relationship where nobody's voting on anything.

Re: Welcome to the Decade of Concern

#42

Post by remarkEon »

BelenusMordred wrote: post #29
dragontamer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If China attacks Taiwan with its newly minted aircraft carriers and large fleets of smaller ships, who will defend them? Now, I'm pretty sure the USA still beats China in a fair fight. But if the USA is playing defense with Taiwan, the picture is very different. China is far closer and therefore has more nearby support: in particular, air support and cruise missiles. In a neutral fight, keeping our fleets outside of…

Nuclear armed countries fighting direct hot wars will be decided in a few hours. It's astounding to think that some people still subscribe to this idea of a gentleman's battle with both sides agreeing to not use their full capability while the other is killing their own.

>Nuclear armed countries fighting direct hot wars will be decided in a few hours.

I think it's astounding that people still think nations will just hit the Doomsday Button willy nilly. Low yield tactical nukes were always a part of any response to a Russian invasion of Poland. And they will be again as well, in a hypothetical CCP invasion of Taiwan.

Re: Welcome to the Decade of Concern

#44

Post by remarkEon »

refenestrator wrote: post #28
sbierwagen wrote: post #18

>How did this happen? It started with a Clinton era decision to focus on upgrading legacy platforms instead of developing or purchasing new ones: >By the end of the Bill Clinton administration, the Pentagon had laid out a strategy to update and replace the Reagan-era fleets... Strange not to mention the USSR collapsed two years before Clinton took office. Hard to justify new weapons systems when you're the global heg…

Additionally, it kills me to see the Pentagon whining about not having enough money. They have more money than the next several militaries combined, and every weapons program for 20 years has been a gigantic cluster-fuck. They got a blank check for the littoral combat vessel, the F-35 and these new ford-class carriers. If that stuff is worthless within 1,000 miles of China because it turns out missiles are a thing, t…

It really has almost nothing to do with money, friend. It's about the direction the elite class and folks in government give to the military. Some people in the Pentagon will whine about money, I'll give you that, but the people that are whining about money are not serious about preparing for the next war. Those who are, are busy in the basement working with some engineers on trying to figure out what new technology beats what.

Re: Welcome to the Decade of Concern

#45

Post by refenestrator »

remarkEon wrote: post #44
refenestrator wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, it kills me to see the Pentagon whining about not having enough money. They have more money than the next several militaries combined, and every weapons program for 20 years has been a gigantic cluster-fuck. They got a blank check for the littoral combat vessel, the F-35 and these new ford-class carriers. If that stuff is worthless within 1,000 miles of China because it turns out missiles are a thing, t…

It really has almost nothing to do with money, friend. It's about the direction the elite class and folks in government give to the military. Some people in the Pentagon will whine about money, I'll give you that, but the people that are whining about money are not serious about preparing for the next war. Those who are, are busy in the basement working with some engineers on trying to figure out what new technology…

Military people with stars on their shoulders are part of the elite class and they're definitionally 'folks in government'.

Re: Welcome to the Decade of Concern

#46

Post by remarkEon »

refenestrator wrote: post #45
remarkEon wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really has almost nothing to do with money, friend. It's about the direction the elite class and folks in government give to the military. Some people in the Pentagon will whine about money, I'll give you that, but the people that are whining about money are not serious about preparing for the next war. Those who are, are busy in the basement working with some engineers on trying to figure out what new technology…

Military people with stars on their shoulders are part of the elite class and they're definitionally 'folks in government'.

Sure. Not clear what point you're making.

What I'm saying is that getting hyper-concerned about money will constrain your ability to prepare for war.

Re: Welcome to the Decade of Concern

#47

Post by refenestrator »

remarkEon wrote: post #46
refenestrator wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Military people with stars on their shoulders are part of the elite class and they're definitionally 'folks in government'.

Sure. Not clear what point you're making. What I'm saying is that getting hyper-concerned about money will constrain your ability to prepare for war.

I'm disagreeing with that precise point, thank you for stating it so clearly :)

Hopefully no war happens of course, but being effective with resources is actually super important. If it turns out we've dumped 25 years of spending on hardware that makes no sense, and executed inefficiently on top of that... it's not good. That's a ton of wasted opportunity cost whatever your commitment level.

Re: Welcome to the Decade of Concern

#48

Post by remarkEon »

refenestrator wrote: post #47
remarkEon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Not clear what point you're making. What I'm saying is that getting hyper-concerned about money will constrain your ability to prepare for war.

I'm disagreeing with that precise point, thank you for stating it so clearly :) Hopefully no war happens of course, but being effective with resources is actually super important. If it turns out we've dumped 25 years of spending on hardware that makes no sense, and executed inefficiently on top of that... it's not good. That's a ton of wasted opportunity cost whatever your commitment level.

I think we're saying the same and different things at once?

Perhaps we should give the folks in the basement a bit more influence in the goings on round here in defense spending.

Re: Welcome to the Decade of Concern

#49

Post by pseudo0 »

torstenvl wrote: post #35
refenestrator wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Lack of political will to shovel money through the DoD' doesn't seem to be an issue in the US.

That is objectively and obviously false. Why would you say something you know (assuming you read the OP) to be untrue? Military spending has gone from 4.89% of GDP in the first year of the Obama Administration to ~3.3-3.4% of GDP in recent years. That's a huge decrease. There's also alllll the times that military appropriations have been a political football. A lot of DoD folks have had to report to work unpaid multi…

> There's also alllll the times that military appropriations have been a political football. A lot of DoD folks have had to report to work unpaid multiple times over the past couple years. Many of them later got backpay when a budget was passed, but not all.

GEFTA (signed into law in 2019) guarantees retroactive pay for furloughs due to lapses in appropriations. Before that, anyone exempted who still had to show up was guaranteed pay, and Congress would virtually always still backpay the people who were furloughed. It wasn't legally guaranteed, but I can't think of any cases in the last 10-20 years where retroactive pay didn't happen.

It's still pretty disruptive though, and it definitely sucks for contractors if they get sent home, as they don't get retroactive pay.

Re: Welcome to the Decade of Concern

#50

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

dragontamer wrote: post #19
sbierwagen wrote: post #18

>How did this happen? It started with a Clinton era decision to focus on upgrading legacy platforms instead of developing or purchasing new ones: >By the end of the Bill Clinton administration, the Pentagon had laid out a strategy to update and replace the Reagan-era fleets... Strange not to mention the USSR collapsed two years before Clinton took office. Hard to justify new weapons systems when you're the global heg…

If China attacks Taiwan with its newly minted aircraft carriers and large fleets of smaller ships, who will defend them? Now, I'm pretty sure the USA still beats China in a fair fight. But if the USA is playing defense with Taiwan, the picture is very different. China is far closer and therefore has more nearby support: in particular, air support and cruise missiles. In a neutral fight, keeping our fleets outside of…

> I'm pretty sure the USA still beats China in a fair fight. But if the USA is playing defense with Taiwan, the picture is very different.

The background is that this has been wargamed and the the US could "lose fast", although this is probably in a "defend Taiwan" scenario. I wouldn't assume anything about a hypothetical "fair fight".

https://news.yahoo.com/were-going-to-lose-fast-us-air-force-...

https://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-apparently-gets-its-a...

https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/war-games-suggest-the-us-w...

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