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The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war

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Re: The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war

#691

Post by Fizz43 »

streetfighter64 wrote: post #687
Fizz43 wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear what your position is. You believe that US is getting involved in wars particularly the middle east because US government wants to give money directly to military contractors or it wants to boost the value of these weapons companies to benefit the people who invested.

If they just wrote the owners of the weapons companies a check directly, the public wouldn't like that as much as the "patriotic" "war on terror". But of course there's also other reasons such as religious fundamentalism (christian zionism) that influence it.

They do write weapons companies direct checks through research and procurement contracts. No one cares because the amount is tiny. Its not this huge market being pumped like slopulists pretend it is. Politicians dont need to invest in defense companies to get rich they can invest in anything with their insider knowledge. Defense companies dont need a war to get government money.

Re: The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war

#692

Post by streetfighter64 »

Fizz43 wrote: post #691
streetfighter64 wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they just wrote the owners of the weapons companies a check directly, the public wouldn't like that as much as the "patriotic" "war on terror". But of course there's also other reasons such as religious fundamentalism (christian zionism) that influence it.

They do write weapons companies direct checks through research and procurement contracts. No one cares because the amount is tiny. Its not this huge market being pumped like slopulists pretend it is. Politicians dont need to invest in defense companies to get rich they can invest in anything with their insider knowledge. Defense companies dont need a war to get government money.

> research and procurement contracts. No one cares because the amount is tiny.

> In Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, DOD obligated more money on defense contracts ($445 billion) than all other government agencies combined ($310 billion).

https://www.gao.gov/blog/snapshot-government-wide-contractin...

> Defense companies dont need a war to get government money.

> military operations in support of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). DOD's reported annual obligations for GWOT have shown a steady increase from about $0.2 billion in fiscal year 2001 to about $162.4 billion in fiscal year 2008

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-09-233r

Re: The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war

#693

Post by Fizz43 »

streetfighter64 wrote: post #692
Fizz43 wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do write weapons companies direct checks through research and procurement contracts. No one cares because the amount is tiny. Its not this huge market being pumped like slopulists pretend it is. Politicians dont need to invest in defense companies to get rich they can invest in anything with their insider knowledge. Defense companies dont need a war to get government money.

> research and procurement contracts. No one cares because the amount is tiny. > In Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, DOD obligated more money on defense contracts ($445 billion) than all other government agencies combined ($310 billion). https://www.gao.gov/blog/snapshot-government-wide-contractin... > Defense companies dont need a war to get government money. > military operations in support of the Global War on Terrorism (GW…

445 billion is tiny on the budget of the US government. your stat showing the increase in spending from 2001 to 2008 does nothing to support your narrative. Defense spending goes up after you're attacked wow shocking.

Money is spent on defense contracts regardless of an active war. There is no evidence that wars are being started to get an extra few hundred million in budget each year spread out across the entire industry.

Re: The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war

#694

Post by ericmay »

shimman wrote: post #675
strangegecko wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing with backstabbing he means China's practice of stealing technology and closing off the market for foreign companies. Lots of smaller and mid sized companies that tried to invest in the Chinese market lost everything because the government protected and supported local copycats, with no intention of giving the foreign company fair access to the market.

Okay and how does this materially hurt Americans? The elites in the US hoard all the wealth, US corporations doing well internationally means fuck all for the domestic citizens. This is what I mean by how much of a farce this all is. Why should I care that China's steal IP? Chinese products are actually good + cheap to a consumer like me, all I see our corporations being unable to compete with an actual competitor th…

Well if this is what you believe you're basically going to just end up in a world where you are sacrificing Americans or Europeans to uphold Chinese corporations and then their elites hoard all the wealth, and tax revenue to fund services vanishes in the United States, though I think Trump and co would be happy about that development.

At the end of the day, corporations will be upheld so it's a question of whether you'd like some degree of control and ownership, or whether you'd like to, well who knows what you'd do because how are you going to buy products when you don't have a job, and makes you think Chinese companies won't eventually raise their prices or start cheating out? They already do via companies like Temu which are producing e-waste and plastic junk at artificially cheap prices and of course that ends up polluting the environment too.

If nothing else, consumerism and cheap material products at the expense of all else I'd argue isn't a good thing and we should move away from that as a society.

Re: The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war

#695

Post by streetfighter64 »

Fizz43 wrote: post #693
streetfighter64 wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> research and procurement contracts. No one cares because the amount is tiny. > In Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, DOD obligated more money on defense contracts ($445 billion) than all other government agencies combined ($310 billion). https://www.gao.gov/blog/snapshot-government-wide-contractin... > Defense companies dont need a war to get government money. > military operations in support of the Global War on Terrorism (GW…

445 billion is tiny on the budget of the US government. your stat showing the increase in spending from 2001 to 2008 does nothing to support your narrative. Defense spending goes up after you're attacked wow shocking. Money is spent on defense contracts regardless of an active war. There is no evidence that wars are being started to get an extra few hundred million in budget each year spread out across the entire ind…

> 445 billion is tiny on the budget of the US government.

I don't know if you're just not very good with money or straight up denying reality, but 6.6% of the total government expenditure or 9% of total revenue for 2024, is not at all tiny. To give you an example so you might comprehend it, that's like a yearly expenditure of $5900 for a person with the mean salary of $66000 yearly. How is that tiny?

For comparison the annual spending on ALL education K-12 costs 850-950 annually. So what's 2x tiny, is that also tiny?

> Defense spending goes up after you're attacked wow shocking.

Let me help you out with the math a bit here: 162.4 / 0.2 = 812. This is an increase of 81100% in 7 years. If you compare 1940 ($17.5B) to 1945 ($89.5B) that's an increase of 411% in 5 years.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/information-resources/budget/...

Anyway, I will stop replying to you now since your statements have already became highly nonsensical.

Re: The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war

#696

Post by ares623 »

abtinf wrote: post #62
wartywhoa23 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, really? I'd like to see your top 10.

Things that are worse than war, a wildly incomplete list, in no particular order: Pogroms; slavery; totalitarian dictatorship; theocracy; intentional mass starvation; mass organ harvesting; mass forced relocation; anarchy; failing to respond to unprovoked violence; restricting freedom instead of defeating the adversary.

You forgot "losing access to Claude Code"

Re: The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war

#697

Post by Fizz43 »

streetfighter64 wrote: post #695
Fizz43 wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

445 billion is tiny on the budget of the US government. your stat showing the increase in spending from 2001 to 2008 does nothing to support your narrative. Defense spending goes up after you're attacked wow shocking. Money is spent on defense contracts regardless of an active war. There is no evidence that wars are being started to get an extra few hundred million in budget each year spread out across the entire ind…

> 445 billion is tiny on the budget of the US government. I don't know if you're just not very good with money or straight up denying reality, but 6.6% of the total government expenditure or 9% of total revenue for 2024, is not at all tiny. To give you an example so you might comprehend it, that's like a yearly expenditure of $5900 for a person with the mean salary of $66000 yearly. How is that tiny? For comparison t…

6.6% of total government expenditure is significantly smaller than you tried to make it out to be. What are you trying to show with a per captia comparison its not paid as a % of the persons salary the person make 66k is probably paying less than $100 towards the military. It doesnt even make sense towards your original point as it gets paid out in times of peace.

You're trying to cherry pick this time in history before the US was a global superpower and compare it as if it supports your point. You have nothing to show that wars are being started for profit.

All the wars are clearly geopolitical in nature. In 2001 the defense budget didnt increase because politicians said we need to make more money in the defense industry and isreal needs more land. They said holy shit we just got attacked in New York we need to retaliate.

Re: The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war

#698

Post by streetfighter64 »

Fizz43 wrote: post #697
streetfighter64 wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 445 billion is tiny on the budget of the US government. I don't know if you're just not very good with money or straight up denying reality, but 6.6% of the total government expenditure or 9% of total revenue for 2024, is not at all tiny. To give you an example so you might comprehend it, that's like a yearly expenditure of $5900 for a person with the mean salary of $66000 yearly. How is that tiny? For comparison t…

6.6% of total government expenditure is significantly smaller than you tried to make it out to be. What are you trying to show with a per captia comparison its not paid as a % of the persons salary the person make 66k is probably paying less than $100 towards the military. It doesnt even make sense towards your original point as it gets paid out in times of peace. You're trying to cherry pick this time in history bef…

It's not a "per capita comparison". I'm asking you, if you spend 6.6% of your own salary on something, would you call that "tiny"? Are you actually genuinely misunderstanding this or are you being obtuse on purpose?

> It doesnt even make sense towards your original point as it gets paid out in times of peace.

Right, so the USA is spending a huge amount on its military (remember, $445B is only the external contracts, not salaries etc.) and also simultaneously just happens to get involved in a bunch of conflicts without any clear goal or purpose. But the two are entirely unrelated, of course.

> You're trying to cherry pick

No. In case you don't know about it, there was a world war happening during the period '40-45. Why did the USA only need to increase it's spending by 400% in order to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, while needing a 81100% increase in spending in order to lose against Afghanistan etc.?

> All the wars are clearly geopolitical in nature.

Mind explaining the geopolitical goals achieved by the current war in Iran? Or the previous in Afghanistan? Or just pick any war in the middle east from the last 30 years.

> They said holy shit we just got attacked in New York we need to retaliate.

Retaliate against who exactly?

Re: The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war

#699

Post by ericmay »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #684
budsniffer952 wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hilarious. You realize the US could nuke and flatten Iran tomorrow, right? Do you imagine that Trump was trying to conquer Iran and just couldn't do it with all the American military power? There is no scenario that Iran wins a war with the USA. They were trying to overthrow the regime, for the second time in a year, and failed.

Iran has already won the war. There is no scenario that the USA comes out of this situation in a better place than it was before the war started.

By that logic Iran has lost the war too, because they can't possibly come out of this situation in a better place than before the war started, which really was back in October 2022.

Since then Iran's economy has been crushed, government was decapitated (and could be again at a time and place of our choosing), they face a naval blockade that prevents them from selling oil, their military was drastically reduced in size and capability by American bombing, they've made their fellow Arabs in the region very, very angry, and they've come to see that both China and Russia (don't forget, Iran sells drones to Russia to kill Ukrainians) were powerless to come to its aid. Their nuclear program is at best on pause.

Now we can sprinkle in that they've depleted a lot of their munitions, and both Hamas and Hezbollah were nearly destroyed and have become shells of their former selves, resorting to hiding behind children and attacking UN aid convoys.

Just in case you thought Iran was somehow coming out of this situation better than before, the above shows that is unequivocally false.

But hey, yea the US "lost the war".

Re: The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war

#700

Post by lopsotronic »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #496
marcus_holmes wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So far nobody has built a tank, plane, or ship that can run on batteries and while drone technology has continued to advance in many critical ways they don't bring the big bombs quite yet. Ukraine is proving that the "big bombs" are useless - fpv drones can and do take out tanks, planes and ships. They don't survive long enough to deliver the "big bombs". Russia is currently reduced to sending in unmechanised light…

Russia could end the war instantly with a few nukes if it wanted to. I don't get it why it hasn't done that yet. Pride?

Yeah, I was going to point out there's a few "big bombs" out there that aren't useless at all . .

Someone will break the First Use taboo, but I wouldn't put money on it being Russia, at the moment, not for Ukraine, as odd as it sounds to say that.

There are more important concerns keeping Putin from breaking First Use, but one interesting one is a genuine anxiety that the stupid thing just wouldn't work. Just lay an egg of fissionable material in Zelensky's bedroom.

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