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Pentagon spending on drones jumps from $225M to $55B in one year

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Re: Pentagon spending on drones jumps from $225M to $55B in one year

#51

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

nickff wrote: post #49
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We spend well over a trillion dollars on education. And we spend well over a trillion dollars on defense. And yet the straight of hormuz is still closed, just like there are still children who don't have enough food and suffer for it. Comparing the total budget of one thing against a budget delta of another thing is wrong. Compare deltas of each and compare their benefits.

> "And we spend well over a trillion dollars on defense." That's just not true; the US Military Budget for 2025 was (USD) $768 BB. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...

It is true. The number you're looking at doesn't include all military spending. For example, it doesn't include the nuclear weapons programs, intelligence programs, veterans affairs, ...

https://www.defensebudget.org/en/country/united-states

The VA budget alone is over $400B, and the intelligence budget is _classified_.

Re: Pentagon spending on drones jumps from $225M to $55B in one year

#52

Post by jandrewrogers »

analogpixel wrote: post #38
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #20

It would cost less to provide free breakfast and lunch to all public school students in the US, but that might actually improve the country's future instead of blowing things up.

If we took all the money we spent on war for 2 years, and diverted it to buying $10k electric cars, we could buy everyone in America an electric car, remove our dependence on oil, and thus never need to fight wars for it ever again; let other countries fight it out for oil while we move on to bigger and better things. or we could continue spending all of our money on wars to get oil, fall further and further behind,…

> remove our dependence on oil, and thus never need to fight wars for it

The US is the largest oil producer in the world by a significant margin. They don't have a dependency on foreign oil. They are also the largest refiner of oil products in the world.

Any wars related to oil are about other countries' dependence on foreign oil and refining.

Re: Pentagon spending on drones jumps from $225M to $55B in one year

#53

Post by jonplackett »

Aboutplants wrote: post #9

The most surprising thing here is that the US was previously only spending $225 Million on drones when it’s been fully apparent for the past decade(s) that drones were the future of warfare.

What is weird is that all these current super expensive high tech weapons like aircraft carriers, f22s are basically like cavalry in the tank era.

Drones (and cheap-ish ballistic missiles) have turned it all on its head.

In the war with Iran you have the USA shooting down 50k drones with multiple multi-million dollar missiles. Some of the THAAD missiles are over 10 million each - and you have to launch 2 to get an interception.

Meanwhile they have to keep the aircraft carriers hundreds of miles off shore or they’ll be sunk with hypersonic missiles.

The economics are crazy but even if you’re willing to pay, the capacity to build enough isn’t there either.

Re: Pentagon spending on drones jumps from $225M to $55B in one year

#54

Post by cosmicgadget »

GerryAdamsSF wrote: post #27
scottyah wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It didn't make sense to physically stock up on them before. It was mostly research, prototyping, comms infrastructure, software for swarms, AI piloting, ground control, etc. The next phase of building factories and manufacturing tooling/capabilities is a little bit concerning.

Simple DJI style drones employed en masse in Afghanistan would have been helpful for a variety of tasks. I cannot see any reason, over than oversight and a lack of imagination, why something useful in Ukraine in 2022 was not feasible or useful in 2017 by the USA. We already used drones quite handily well before that time frame but in a much more limited manner in a different form factor.

Combat in Ukraine is, as I understand it, somewhat like WWI with long lines of contact that only shift slowly. So you have a good idea that if you point your drone in a given direction, you'll find an enemy tank or trench.

For Afghanistan it seems like high-flying, capable, armed drones were a better option for that type of conflict.

Re: Pentagon spending on drones jumps from $225M to $55B in one year

#56

Post by cosmicgadget »

dijit wrote: post #21
Aboutplants wrote: post #9

The most surprising thing here is that the US was previously only spending $225 Million on drones when it’s been fully apparent for the past decade(s) that drones were the future of warfare.

I think the surprising thing to me here is that there is a generation of children afraid of a clear blue sky because it means drones can see them.. ... and it only cost $225M. (source: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2013/10/saddest-words-c... )

Surely the 225M only covers tiny drones and not the Predators, Reapers, and the others employed in the GWOT.

Re: Pentagon spending on drones jumps from $225M to $55B in one year

#57

Post by cosmicgadget »

i_love_retros wrote: post #48

If only the regular folk could rise up and take back their tax money and spend it on something that collectively helps them like universal healthcare. It's so lucky for the crooks running the country that the regular folk haven't thought of that!

They had the opportunity but decided a president that would appoint Hegseth and two houses of congress from the same party was a better idea.

We will see how it works out for them.

Re: Pentagon spending on drones jumps from $225M to $55B in one year

#59

Post by idiotsecant »

nickff wrote: post #49
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We spend well over a trillion dollars on education. And we spend well over a trillion dollars on defense. And yet the straight of hormuz is still closed, just like there are still children who don't have enough food and suffer for it. Comparing the total budget of one thing against a budget delta of another thing is wrong. Compare deltas of each and compare their benefits.

> "And we spend well over a trillion dollars on defense." That's just not true; the US Military Budget for 2025 was (USD) $768 BB. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...

So when we consider school spending it's important to count every penny but when we consider military spending we can just neglect vast swathes of spending?

Re: Pentagon spending on drones jumps from $225M to $55B in one year

#60

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #52
analogpixel wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we took all the money we spent on war for 2 years, and diverted it to buying $10k electric cars, we could buy everyone in America an electric car, remove our dependence on oil, and thus never need to fight wars for it ever again; let other countries fight it out for oil while we move on to bigger and better things. or we could continue spending all of our money on wars to get oil, fall further and further behind,…

> remove our dependence on oil, and thus never need to fight wars for it The US is the largest oil producer in the world by a significant margin. They don't have a dependency on foreign oil. They are also the largest refiner of oil products in the world. Any wars related to oil are about other countries' dependence on foreign oil and refining.

> The US is the largest oil producer in the world by a significant margin.

The US is also the second largest oil importer in the world. A true fact about oil is that it's not all the same, so lumping them all into a single category is a mistake when talking about production/refining/consumption.

> They don't have a dependency on foreign oil.

It does still, because local refining is optimized for a global market not domestic self-sufficiency. It would probably require a bit of the old "seizing the means of production" to change that, and the US is generally opposed to such things.

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