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It would appear to be $500+ million wasted, fairly typically, by the Pentagon brass. >Segell maintains that information operations programmes did make a differ

by M_Grey 10y ago

It would appear to be $500+ million wasted, fairly typically, by the Pentagon brass. >Segell maintains that information operations programmes did make a difference on the ground in Iraq. Some experts question this however. A 2015 study by the Rand Corporation, a military think tank, concluded that “generating assessments of efforts to inform, influence, and persuade has proven to be challenging across the government and DoD.” What the hell though, what's half a billion dollars for something that can't even demonstrate efficacy?

microcolonel 10y ago
There's a difference between "Can't demonstrate" and "difficult to gauge efficacy". They can't gauge the efficacy because they don't get to A/B test the Iraq war. They don't even really know how many insurgents there are, and definitely not with the accuracy and latency required to judge each operation. That said, the analytical stuff with the tracking videos seems like it surely must have contributed to homeland investigations. You can't tell me they'd ignore a signal like that.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Assuming signal, rather than noise of course. Given that the only real result is that we lost that war, and that the groups we were trying to quash have morphed and taken over whole regions, it's hard to argue for any expenditure related to that endeavor. That said, even if we won it disturbs me that we're willing to spend so much on something that, at best, "might" be helpful. Worse, something that definitely didn't help in Korea or Vietnam...
theandrewbailey 10y ago
> It would appear to be $500+ million wasted, fairly typically, by the Pentagon brass. The DoD was chewing through an average of $1 billion a day for about 2 years during the height of the Iraq war. It would be a stretch to say that it was all used to the best efficiency.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Meanwhile, NASA is gutted, our education and mental health systems are downright broken, and healthcare has become the other great waster in our economy. Bad times.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  Something like 40% was for fuel. For generators. To air-condition tents.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    I think before anyone from the Pentagon is allowed to even think about invading a desert again, we have to make them read the entire Dune saga. I realize only the first one matters in this case, the rest is for punishment.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > I think before anyone from the Pentagon is allowed to even think about invading a desert again, we have to make them read the entire Dune saga. I realize only the first one matters in this case, the rest is for punishment. AFAICT, the people "from the Pentagon" (and particularly, the career military types, including the senior uniformed leadership) were generally very well locked into what the issues were; the political leadership (much of it outside the Pentagon) far less so.
      - M_Grey 10y ago
        The choice to invade, sure, the choice to waste a billion a day? Not so much.
        JoeAltmaier 10y ago
        Apparently if you build permanent buildings in another country, its politically very different than if they let you camp there. So we camped.
elif 10y ago
I think it's unfair to characterize it as a waste. If the intent was to strengthen the war on terror, you would have to quantify both the value of profits derived by the military industrial complex as well as the underlying value for the wealthy of a strong petrodollar and weigh the benefit against that. Calling it a waste is implicitly absolving those responsible of any notion of intent. Accepting that the dissemination of propaganda is primarily intended for "tracking" purposes is a very generous postulation in my opinion.

by M_Grey 10y ago

microcolonel 10y ago

There's a difference between "Can't demonstrate" and "difficult to gauge efficacy". They can't gauge the efficacy because they don't get to A/B test the Iraq war. They don't even really know how many insurgents there are, and definitely not with the accuracy and latency required to judge each operation. That said, the analytical stuff with the tracking videos seems like it surely must have contributed to homeland investigations. You can't tell me they'd ignore a signal like that.

M_Grey 10y ago
Assuming signal, rather than noise of course. Given that the only real result is that we lost that war, and that the groups we were trying to quash have morphed and taken over whole regions, it's hard to argue for any expenditure related to that endeavor. That said, even if we won it disturbs me that we're willing to spend so much on something that, at best, "might" be helpful. Worse, something that definitely didn't help in Korea or Vietnam...

theandrewbailey 10y ago

> It would appear to be $500+ million wasted, fairly typically, by the Pentagon brass. The DoD was chewing through an average of $1 billion a day for about 2 years during the height of the Iraq war. It would be a stretch to say that it was all used to the best efficiency.

M_Grey 10y ago
Meanwhile, NASA is gutted, our education and mental health systems are downright broken, and healthcare has become the other great waster in our economy. Bad times.
JoeAltmaier 10y ago
Something like 40% was for fuel. For generators. To air-condition tents.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  I think before anyone from the Pentagon is allowed to even think about invading a desert again, we have to make them read the entire Dune saga. I realize only the first one matters in this case, the rest is for punishment.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > I think before anyone from the Pentagon is allowed to even think about invading a desert again, we have to make them read the entire Dune saga. I realize only the first one matters in this case, the rest is for punishment. AFAICT, the people "from the Pentagon" (and particularly, the career military types, including the senior uniformed leadership) were generally very well locked into what the issues were; the political leadership (much of it outside the Pentagon) far less so.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      The choice to invade, sure, the choice to waste a billion a day? Not so much.
      - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
        Apparently if you build permanent buildings in another country, its politically very different than if they let you camp there. So we camped.

elif 10y ago

I think it's unfair to characterize it as a waste. If the intent was to strengthen the war on terror, you would have to quantify both the value of profits derived by the military industrial complex as well as the underlying value for the wealthy of a strong petrodollar and weigh the benefit against that. Calling it a waste is implicitly absolving those responsible of any notion of intent. Accepting that the dissemination of propaganda is primarily intended for "tracking" purposes is a very generous postulation in my opinion.