3 ms·

I really worry about the defense of the US in coming decades. Huge issues plaguing the F-35 program [1]. Other programs that aren't going well with navy vessels

I really worry about the defense of the US in coming decades. Huge issues plaguing the F-35 program [1]. Other programs that aren't going well with navy vessels. [2] Massive waste in general and "losing" a ton of equipment. [3] Plus this. It's clear it is not about actual defense of the US, but about extracting as much wealth as possible from all of us; the tax payers. This is simply not sustainable. Trillions of dollars spent on military programs that don't really give us "high-tech" weaponry and defense. [1] http://warisboring.com/the-f-35-is-a-terrible-fighter-bomber-and-attacker-and-unfit-for-aircraft-carriers/ http://warisboring.com/the-f-35-is-a-terrible-fighter-bomber... [2] http://www.thedailybeast.com/the-us-navys-expensive-new-warships-are-breaking-down-at-sea http://www.thedailybeast.com/the-us-navys-expensive-new-wars... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/pentagon-buries-evidence-of-125-billion-in-bureaucratic-waste/2016/12/05/e0668c76-9af6-11e6-a0ed-ab0774c1eaa5_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/pentagon-burie...

maxerickson 9y ago
The Ford class could be written off now and only be a ~$50 billion boondoggle. That's a lot less than a trillion.
- kilroy123 9y ago
  So what? That's one project in many. The F-35 program _will_ cost over 1 trillion. We spend ~$600 billion a year on the entire military. Trillions are spent on defense over the course of just a few years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning...
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    I thought your comment was ambiguous, maybe implying the Ford program had cost trillions. (I don't think that was your intent, it just ended up that way)
  - briffle 9y ago
    Right, why should I skip on my vacation to Hawaii next year... I already have $40k in credi card debt. Another $5k is just a small increase....
GVIrish 9y ago
> It's clear it is not about actual defense of the US, but about extracting as much wealth as possible from all of us; the tax payers. I wouldn't say that's what it's about. It's just that America's prevailing mindset about defense and weapon systems is 'performance at all costs' and 'if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing'. So they don't set out to develop a weapon system that will perform well on the battlefield at some level of risk in exchange for a reasonable cost, they set out to build a weapon system that is absolutely dominant to the point of negligible risk on the battlefield. So every system coming down the pipe gets loaded up with every bell and whistle possible. Of course the defense industry actively lobbies for bleeding edge and expensive weapons systems. But the fact is that the military and congress are all about dominance, not competence. It makes sense to a degree. If you've got stealth bombers and the enemy doesn't, they may not want to start a war at all. But at a certain point your next-gen stealth bomber becomes so expensive and complex that it may never work properly or you can't field enough of them to make a difference. Or you've built something extremely expensive to perform a job that a plane 1/20th the cost can perform at little to no risk.
- JimboOmega 9y ago
  > It's just that America's prevailing mindset about defense and weapon systems is 'performance at all costs' and 'if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing'. This seems to be plaguing a lot of areas of the American economy - areas where we basically write a blank check because we NEED x. E.g., College Tuition, Health Care, Infrastructure, Jet Fighters. We spend a ton of money for rather unimpressive outcomes in all these areas.
- ThrustVectoring 9y ago
  This attitude makes sense to me, given the revealed preferences of the electorate. They exert a lot of political pressure per US soldier combat death, and very little per wasted dollar of military R&D and equipment purchasing waste. Flip the incentives around, where war material is politically expensive and combat casualties are cheap, and you wind up with something much closer to what the Soviets did.
nostrademons 9y ago
We've got the best defensive weapon you can think of: two oceans. Realistically, unless we really piss off Canada or Mexico (okay, that part's not realistic...) or end up in a nuclear apocalypse, the U.S. isn't going to lose to any foreign power. The sheer logistics of bringing an invasion force across 3000+ miles of ocean make that basically impossible. I'd be much more worried about the U.S. breaking up under domestic pressures, and then the various regions going to war with each other.
- EliRivers 9y ago
  "the U.S. isn't going to lose to any foreign power" I think what you're saying is that the US isn't going to be successfully invaded by any foreign power. Losing a war is a very different thing (and indeed, the US has lost more than one war that didn't involve being invaded).
  - nostrademons 9y ago
    Sure, but usually we "lose" because we shouldn't have been in there in the first place and then the public eventually realizes that. The consequences of our losses in Vietnam and Iraq were basically that we stopped spending billions of dollars and thousands of lives on wars that the average American saw zero benefit from. It wasn't that we had to live under foreign occupation, have all of our houses & industry bombed out, face down the barrel of a gun, and kowtow to imperialist oppressors.
    - EliRivers 9y ago
      All that is true, and irrelevant to the winners.
    - adventured 9y ago
      > The consequences of our losses in Vietnam It's worth noting the US didn't even actually lose Vietnam. When we left, the US + South Vietnam, held 80% of territory and 90% of the population base when the Paris Accords were signed. It was a civil war the US should have never been involved with, the South lost that civil war once the US pulled out. The sole difference, is that the South would have lost it dramatically faster had the US not intervened. The North was in the end more than happy to sign on to the accords, because they knew once the US was gone they could finally take the South with relatively modest resistance.
Amezarak 9y ago
The Zumwalt is dead. There will never be more than three. The Navy is focusing instead on continuing to incrementally improve the (relatively) proven Arleigh Burke class. They're building as many of them as they can churn out and modernizing the rest.
rosege 9y ago
Maybe the US needs Musk to do to these programs what he's done to space. ie instead of going for the over-engineered super expensive option show how it can be done with the SV mindset of building things faster and cheaper. If you've read his biography it details numerous times when engineers at SpaceX would come up with ways of saving huge amounts by building the parts themselves or finding another much cheaper part that worked as well or better.
- trhway 9y ago
  defense contractors like LM also employ smart people. The difference here is how incentives are structured - "building things faster and cheaper" on a cost+ contracts would be like saying "no" to free money, and that would be a breach of fiduciary duty :)

maxerickson 9y ago

The Ford class could be written off now and only be a ~$50 billion boondoggle. That's a lot less than a trillion.

kilroy123 9y ago
So what? That's one project in many. The F-35 program _will_ cost over 1 trillion. We spend ~$600 billion a year on the entire military. Trillions are spent on defense over the course of just a few years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning...
- maxerickson 9y ago
  I thought your comment was ambiguous, maybe implying the Ford program had cost trillions. (I don't think that was your intent, it just ended up that way)
- briffle 9y ago
  Right, why should I skip on my vacation to Hawaii next year... I already have $40k in credi card debt. Another $5k is just a small increase....

GVIrish 9y ago

> It's clear it is not about actual defense of the US, but about extracting as much wealth as possible from all of us; the tax payers. I wouldn't say that's what it's about. It's just that America's prevailing mindset about defense and weapon systems is 'performance at all costs' and 'if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing'. So they don't set out to develop a weapon system that will perform well on the battlefield at some level of risk in exchange for a reasonable cost, they set out to build a weapon system that is absolutely dominant to the point of negligible risk on the battlefield. So every system coming down the pipe gets loaded up with every bell and whistle possible. Of course the defense industry actively lobbies for bleeding edge and expensive weapons systems. But the fact is that the military and congress are all about dominance, not competence. It makes sense to a degree. If you've got stealth bombers and the enemy doesn't, they may not want to start a war at all. But at a certain point your next-gen stealth bomber becomes so expensive and complex that it may never work properly or you can't field enough of them to make a difference. Or you've built something extremely expensive to perform a job that a plane 1/20th the cost can perform at little to no risk.

JimboOmega 9y ago
> It's just that America's prevailing mindset about defense and weapon systems is 'performance at all costs' and 'if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing'. This seems to be plaguing a lot of areas of the American economy - areas where we basically write a blank check because we NEED x. E.g., College Tuition, Health Care, Infrastructure, Jet Fighters. We spend a ton of money for rather unimpressive outcomes in all these areas.
ThrustVectoring 9y ago
This attitude makes sense to me, given the revealed preferences of the electorate. They exert a lot of political pressure per US soldier combat death, and very little per wasted dollar of military R&D and equipment purchasing waste. Flip the incentives around, where war material is politically expensive and combat casualties are cheap, and you wind up with something much closer to what the Soviets did.

nostrademons 9y ago

We've got the best defensive weapon you can think of: two oceans. Realistically, unless we really piss off Canada or Mexico (okay, that part's not realistic...) or end up in a nuclear apocalypse, the U.S. isn't going to lose to any foreign power. The sheer logistics of bringing an invasion force across 3000+ miles of ocean make that basically impossible. I'd be much more worried about the U.S. breaking up under domestic pressures, and then the various regions going to war with each other.

EliRivers 9y ago
"the U.S. isn't going to lose to any foreign power" I think what you're saying is that the US isn't going to be successfully invaded by any foreign power. Losing a war is a very different thing (and indeed, the US has lost more than one war that didn't involve being invaded).
- nostrademons 9y ago
  Sure, but usually we "lose" because we shouldn't have been in there in the first place and then the public eventually realizes that. The consequences of our losses in Vietnam and Iraq were basically that we stopped spending billions of dollars and thousands of lives on wars that the average American saw zero benefit from. It wasn't that we had to live under foreign occupation, have all of our houses & industry bombed out, face down the barrel of a gun, and kowtow to imperialist oppressors.
  - EliRivers 9y ago
    All that is true, and irrelevant to the winners.
  - adventured 9y ago
    > The consequences of our losses in Vietnam It's worth noting the US didn't even actually lose Vietnam. When we left, the US + South Vietnam, held 80% of territory and 90% of the population base when the Paris Accords were signed. It was a civil war the US should have never been involved with, the South lost that civil war once the US pulled out. The sole difference, is that the South would have lost it dramatically faster had the US not intervened. The North was in the end more than happy to sign on to the accords, because they knew once the US was gone they could finally take the South with relatively modest resistance.

Amezarak 9y ago

The Zumwalt is dead. There will never be more than three. The Navy is focusing instead on continuing to incrementally improve the (relatively) proven Arleigh Burke class. They're building as many of them as they can churn out and modernizing the rest.

rosege 9y ago

Maybe the US needs Musk to do to these programs what he's done to space. ie instead of going for the over-engineered super expensive option show how it can be done with the SV mindset of building things faster and cheaper. If you've read his biography it details numerous times when engineers at SpaceX would come up with ways of saving huge amounts by building the parts themselves or finding another much cheaper part that worked as well or better.

trhway 9y ago
defense contractors like LM also employ smart people. The difference here is how incentives are structured - "building things faster and cheaper" on a cost+ contracts would be like saying "no" to free money, and that would be a breach of fiduciary duty :)