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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

#31

Post by jltsiren »

neaden wrote: post #8
andrewstuart wrote: post #6

Doesn’t seem anywhere near enough. All future and present conflict is fundamentally based around drones.

I'm not sure how true that is. Sure it's what we're seeing in Ukraine right now with both sides using them a lot, but my understanding is that has to due with the fact that neither side is able to get air superiority with conventional aircraft. The same reason Iran is using a lot of drones now. It doesn't seem like the US would be in a conflict where they don't have air superiority. Now I would agree that the US mili…

What we're seeing in Ukraine suggests that drones cannot win the war for you, but they are essential for not losing it. And what we saw in Iran was that US air superiority is no longer a given. While the US had conventional air superiority, it was unable to neutralize the threat from Iranian drones.

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

#32

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

tptacek wrote: post #28
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.

We spend drastically more money than this on education; it isn't even in the same ballpark. People get tripped up about this because the funding comes from different taxing bodies (most education funding is state and local) --- but all taxation is linked. We also couldn't fully fund free school meals for this sum, this sum is an ambit claim by the administration not a budget, and a large component of this funding req…

Please don't compare the entirety of the US education system against an incremental fragment of military spending as though that isn't a completely bogus evaluation. We spend just as much on the war machine if not more.

We're talking about an incremental fragment of the US military budget. It's fair to compare it to an incremental fragment of public wellness that would cost less and have profound impact.

> and a large component of this funding request is for capital expenditures, not ongoing operational expenditure

Oh, of course. You're right. I forgot that drones have zero operational costs and that military spending will decrease next year instead of increasing again and again and again like always.

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

#33

Post by 8note »

neaden wrote: post #8
andrewstuart wrote: post #6

Doesn’t seem anywhere near enough. All future and present conflict is fundamentally based around drones.

I'm not sure how true that is. Sure it's what we're seeing in Ukraine right now with both sides using them a lot, but my understanding is that has to due with the fact that neither side is able to get air superiority with conventional aircraft. The same reason Iran is using a lot of drones now. It doesn't seem like the US would be in a conflict where they don't have air superiority. Now I would agree that the US mili…

you can keep looking at iran as the example - the US is uneilling to boots on the ground because even with air superiority, the drones are too dangerous

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

#34

Post by fontain »

tptacek wrote: post #28
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.

We spend drastically more money than this on education; it isn't even in the same ballpark. People get tripped up about this because the funding comes from different taxing bodies (most education funding is state and local) --- but all taxation is linked. We also couldn't fully fund free school meals for this sum, this sum is an ambit claim by the administration not a budget, and a large component of this funding req…

School meal funding would not cost more than $55bn or even close to $55bn. California’s program, subtracting initial implementation cost, was close to $1bn to feed ~10% of U.S. public school students 2 free meals per day. $55bn couldn’t fund a free school meal program indefinitely but I am sure the ongoing costs of the drone program could, this $55bn isn’t a one time cost.

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

#35

Post by ljf »

tptacek wrote: post #28
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.

We spend drastically more money than this on education; it isn't even in the same ballpark. People get tripped up about this because the funding comes from different taxing bodies (most education funding is state and local) --- but all taxation is linked. We also couldn't fully fund free school meals for this sum, this sum is an ambit claim by the administration not a budget, and a large component of this funding req…

The rough cost to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students in the US is $30b - so as the go says, less than $55b.

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

#36

Post by mc32 »

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 we sorely miss people like Paul van Riper. I’m pretty confident he’d have seen their use and advocated for them years ago.

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

#38

Post by analogpixel »

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, and be living like the Flintstons in a few years while all the other countries that actually invested in useful stuff forge forward.

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

#40

Post by rayiner »

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.

I would love to have a Japan-style universal lunch program. But this point is an empty appeal to emotion. Kids are being fed. The U.S. spends $100 billion a year on SNAP and $18 billion a year on the National School Lunch Program. We just focus most of the money on cash benefits to parents of children rather than feeding kids at school.
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