Not a military expert, but that this article doesn't contain the word "drone" at all makes me think it is more relevant to a bygone era than the present.
We Were Once Masters of the Air: It's High Time to Restore US Air Power
21–27 of 27 posts
Re: We Were Once Masters of the Air: It's High Time to Restore US Air Power
#22Re: We Were Once Masters of the Air: It's High Time to Restore US Air Power
#23Dwight Eisenhower: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school i…
Yeah, yeah, yeah. People forget the context. Eisenhower said all this in the days after Stalin died, hoping to convince the new Soviet leadership to disengage from the arms race. It did not work. And Eisenhower had zero qualms about saying something and smoking something else: the US had about 500 nukes when Eisenhower became president and about 20000 when he stepped down.
The first thing Eisenhower did after taking office was to cut the defense budget. His administration built nukes, besides fitting with the administration's policy of massive retaliation, because nukes are cheaper than conventional weapons, pound for pound.
There is a thesis to be written (if not already existing) on how both Truman and Eisenhower viewed tactical nukes as, well, very large conventional weapons and potentially usable as such on the battlefield, while still viewing strategic nukes as something different.
The thesis would deal with both presidents' military backgrounds affecting their opinions, and how being intimately involved with the discussion of just how much more powerful thermonuclear weapons are than fission weapons affected taking such a nuanced view, an ability that I think has been lost to later generations (I doubt 5% of today's politicians, let alone citizens, can explain the difference between fission and fusion bombs I'd be amazed).
Re: We Were Once Masters of the Air: It's High Time to Restore US Air Power
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. People forget the context. Eisenhower said all this in the days after Stalin died, hoping to convince the new Soviet leadership to disengage from the arms race. It did not work. And Eisenhower had zero qualms about saying something and smoking something else: the US had about 500 nukes when Eisenhower became president and about 20000 when he stepped down.
The first thing Eisenhower did after taking office was to cut the defense budget. His administration built nukes, besides fitting with the administration's policy of massive retaliation, because nukes are cheaper than conventional weapons, pound for pound. There is a thesis to be written (if not already existing) on how both Truman and Eisenhower viewed tactical nukes as, well, very large conventional weapons and pot…
> The first thing Eisenhower did after taking office was to cut the defense budget.
Yes. But aren't you forgetting something? Like the fact that the US was exiting the war in Korea?
> because nukes are cheaper than conventional weapons, pound for pound.
Yes, they are. Pound for pound. But when you get to 20000 nukes, and thousands of megatons, it stops being pound for pound.
> I doubt 5% of today's politicians, let alone citizens, can explain the difference between fission and fusion bombs I'd be amazed.
I think you are right. If they knew, at least a few would realize that the US could downgrade 90% of its nukes from thermonuclear to fission bombs without diminishing their destructive power. The most numerous warhead in the US arsenal is W76-1, with a yield of 90 kT. It is obviously not know how much comes from the fission core, but it's unlikely that the core is smaller than the core of Fat Man, because of the lower limits of the critical mass of plutonium. The efficiency of the core is certainly much higher than the efficiency of the Fat Man, so it would not surprise me if half of the yield of a W76-1 came from the fission core. And since the destructive power of a bomb is ridiculously sublinear, the difference between a 45 kT and a 90 kT bomb is not that high. The US could retain about 300 fusion bombs, and convert the other few thousands into pure fission bombs and it could be able to fulfill whatever nuclear war goals there were to fulfill. And reduce the stockpile stewardship budget. And gain some moral high ground in the process. And, why not, move the world a bit closer to a world without nuclear weapons.
Re: We Were Once Masters of the Air: It's High Time to Restore US Air Power
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
The first thing Eisenhower did after taking office was to cut the defense budget. His administration built nukes, besides fitting with the administration's policy of massive retaliation, because nukes are cheaper than conventional weapons, pound for pound. There is a thesis to be written (if not already existing) on how both Truman and Eisenhower viewed tactical nukes as, well, very large conventional weapons and pot…
> The first thing Eisenhower did after taking office was to cut the defense budget. Yes. But aren't you forgetting something? Like the fact that the US was exiting the war in Korea? > because nukes are cheaper than conventional weapons, pound for pound. Yes, they are. Pound for pound. But when you get to 20000 nukes, and thousands of megatons, it stops being pound for pound. > I doubt 5% of today's politicians, let a…
> > The first thing Eisenhower did after taking office was to cut the defense budget.
> Yes. But aren't you forgetting something? Like the fact that the US was exiting the war in Korea?
No. The Eisenhower cut of the defense budget occurred in spring 1953, right after his inauguration. It was not known then that the armistice would occur that summer.
Re: We Were Once Masters of the Air: It's High Time to Restore US Air Power
#26Why are people acting like the US and China are always on the brink of war?
How else are you going to get those clicks?
Re: We Were Once Masters of the Air: It's High Time to Restore US Air Power
#27This is some old fashioned Cold War military spending arguments. We can not have a fighter plane gap! The assumption that an air war with China will result in a 1:1 trade of aircraft needs more citations. I’m also not sure they were counting the Navy and Marines airframes in the estimate. I am not sold on the need to buy more military aircraft at the time.
The article specifically mentioned - then dismissed - the training gap between airmen.