8 ms·

I sincerely doubt our enormously bloated defense budget is because of research...

by mmiller9 8y ago

killjoywashere 8y ago
The DoD budget exceeds Google's market cap, and their research budget exceeds Google's annual revenue.
- ProAm 8y ago
  But they dont spend it nearly as efficiently. Gov is slow and bloated. It's why government contracts are so coveted, lots of money, long term contracts, overages are just part of life.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - mips_avatar 8y ago
    Ok but if 200 planes need to be upgraded so that they don't get shot down by ____ new weapon. It's not possible to build an ASIC for this, so you're probably looking at doing something on an FPGA. You need a few FPGA hardware engineers, electrical engineers, software engineers. Even if the project only takes a year to design, build, and test. And then you spend an extra 6 months because xilinx's fpga tools basically don't work. You've got minimum $1 million dollars in salary, and that's not including the facility, materials, and testing costs. Even if the program costs $20 million, if it saves 40 planes, you can't tell a dead airmen's family that their loved ones life wasn't worth $500,000.
    - woolvalley 8y ago
      America does that all the time with it's poor people.
      - lostlogin 8y ago
        And it’s soldiers. The IED situation took a long time to be addressed with more suitable equipment. Not that the U.K. did any better.
- ggg9990 8y ago
  That’s nuts, they could buy one Google per year. In five years they could own all the big tech companies.
  - garmaine 8y ago
    Why is thang nuts? Tech industry is peanuts.
aphextron 8y ago
Guns and bombs are cheap. Everyone has plenty of them. The power of our military is in force prjoection; that is, the ability to use those guns and bombs anywhere at any time. That requires massive, sustained logistics spending. To the point it may seem absurd and wasteful. But the alternative is fighting a fair fight on equal footing. I’d rather not do that.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- vkou 8y ago
  Who does the US intend to fight, and over what? This logistic spending is certainly not for national defense - it has two oceans, a navy, and two thousand nuclear warheads for that purpose.
- GW150914 8y ago
  Guns and bombs are cheap. The Zumwalt, F-35, B-2, and more are not cheap. I would point out that “smart” bombs and cruise missiles are not cheap, and the cost really starts to add up. Nuclear weapons research, production, and maintenance isn’t cheap. So really it’s fair to say that guns and bombs aren’t cheap, but they are also a distraction from the delivery systems, which are catastrophically expensive. the point it may seem absurd and wasteful. But the alternative is fighting a fair fight on equal footing. I’d rather not do that. Yeah? Are you sure the alternative isn’t to spend 3 or 4 or 5 times as much as any other nation instead of 7 times as much? Maybe the alternative is to avoid boondoggles, and focus on proven tech. Of course the real alternative is that doing so would get in the way of the real business of arms dealing.
  - aphextron 8y ago
    >The Zumwalt, F-35, B-2, and more are not cheap. You're right, they sure aren't. But as a result no other military force on earth besides NATO has the capability to launch air superiority fighters from amphibious assault ships, and perform multi-ton circumglobal bombing sorties. That kind of capability doesn't come cheap, and shouldn't be dismissed. Take away the B2 and we are fighting to-to-toe with Russian/Chinese long range bombers Without the F-35 we are on equal footing with Chinese/Russian carrier based aircraft Without Zumwalt class ships, we are going head on against Chinese missile destroyers and subs of equal capability. The whole point is that you don't want an even remotely fair fight. "Keeping up" with others's spending, even within an order of magnitude, is a really bad idea if you can help it.
adventured 8y ago
The large US defense budget is almost entirely due to human costs. The US has one of the highest median incomes on earth. Now combine that with the large human force that the US military has. The bases, veterans, healthcare, various benefits, retirement, equipment for the humans, salaries, and on it goes. For example missiles + munition costs are a mere 2% of the military budget. Shipbuilding and maritime systems is a mere 3%. Aircraft and related systems is 5.x%. R&D is about 9%. The budget related to operating the bases, maintenance, salaries, benefits, vets, and all other related human costs = $500 billion. There's a strong argument that if you adjust China's military spending to factor in the difference in income / per capita costs for human soldiers vs the US (basically PPP adjusted), that China outspends the US already (and that's with an economy 1/3 smaller): https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-25/china-outspends-the-u-s-on-the-military-here-s-the-math https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-25/china-out...

I sincerely doubt our enormously bloated defense budget is because of research...

killjoywashere 8y ago

The DoD budget exceeds Google's market cap, and their research budget exceeds Google's annual revenue.

ProAm 8y ago
But they dont spend it nearly as efficiently. Gov is slow and bloated. It's why government contracts are so coveted, lots of money, long term contracts, overages are just part of life.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- mips_avatar 8y ago
  Ok but if 200 planes need to be upgraded so that they don't get shot down by ____ new weapon. It's not possible to build an ASIC for this, so you're probably looking at doing something on an FPGA. You need a few FPGA hardware engineers, electrical engineers, software engineers. Even if the project only takes a year to design, build, and test. And then you spend an extra 6 months because xilinx's fpga tools basically don't work. You've got minimum $1 million dollars in salary, and that's not including the facility, materials, and testing costs. Even if the program costs $20 million, if it saves 40 planes, you can't tell a dead airmen's family that their loved ones life wasn't worth $500,000.
  - woolvalley 8y ago
    America does that all the time with it's poor people.
    - lostlogin 8y ago
      And it’s soldiers. The IED situation took a long time to be addressed with more suitable equipment. Not that the U.K. did any better.
ggg9990 8y ago
That’s nuts, they could buy one Google per year. In five years they could own all the big tech companies.
- garmaine 8y ago
  Why is thang nuts? Tech industry is peanuts.

aphextron 8y ago

Guns and bombs are cheap. Everyone has plenty of them. The power of our military is in force prjoection; that is, the ability to use those guns and bombs anywhere at any time. That requires massive, sustained logistics spending. To the point it may seem absurd and wasteful. But the alternative is fighting a fair fight on equal footing. I’d rather not do that.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
vkou 8y ago
Who does the US intend to fight, and over what? This logistic spending is certainly not for national defense - it has two oceans, a navy, and two thousand nuclear warheads for that purpose.
GW150914 8y ago
Guns and bombs are cheap. The Zumwalt, F-35, B-2, and more are not cheap. I would point out that “smart” bombs and cruise missiles are not cheap, and the cost really starts to add up. Nuclear weapons research, production, and maintenance isn’t cheap. So really it’s fair to say that guns and bombs aren’t cheap, but they are also a distraction from the delivery systems, which are catastrophically expensive. the point it may seem absurd and wasteful. But the alternative is fighting a fair fight on equal footing. I’d rather not do that. Yeah? Are you sure the alternative isn’t to spend 3 or 4 or 5 times as much as any other nation instead of 7 times as much? Maybe the alternative is to avoid boondoggles, and focus on proven tech. Of course the real alternative is that doing so would get in the way of the real business of arms dealing.
- aphextron 8y ago
  >The Zumwalt, F-35, B-2, and more are not cheap. You're right, they sure aren't. But as a result no other military force on earth besides NATO has the capability to launch air superiority fighters from amphibious assault ships, and perform multi-ton circumglobal bombing sorties. That kind of capability doesn't come cheap, and shouldn't be dismissed. Take away the B2 and we are fighting to-to-toe with Russian/Chinese long range bombers Without the F-35 we are on equal footing with Chinese/Russian carrier based aircraft Without Zumwalt class ships, we are going head on against Chinese missile destroyers and subs of equal capability. The whole point is that you don't want an even remotely fair fight. "Keeping up" with others's spending, even within an order of magnitude, is a really bad idea if you can help it.

adventured 8y ago

The large US defense budget is almost entirely due to human costs. The US has one of the highest median incomes on earth. Now combine that with the large human force that the US military has. The bases, veterans, healthcare, various benefits, retirement, equipment for the humans, salaries, and on it goes. For example missiles + munition costs are a mere 2% of the military budget. Shipbuilding and maritime systems is a mere 3%. Aircraft and related systems is 5.x%. R&D is about 9%. The budget related to operating the bases, maintenance, salaries, benefits, vets, and all other related human costs = $500 billion. There's a strong argument that if you adjust China's military spending to factor in the difference in income / per capita costs for human soldiers vs the US (basically PPP adjusted), that China outspends the US already (and that's with an economy 1/3 smaller): https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-25/china-outspends-the-u-s-on-the-military-here-s-the-math https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-25/china-out...