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Military policy isn't civilian driven. The Pentagon drives the policy, as well as the weapons decisions. The surprise is when the civilians actually do exert so

Military policy isn't civilian driven. The Pentagon drives the policy, as well as the weapons decisions. The surprise is when the civilians actually do exert some control--such as in preventing the USAF from scrapping the A-10, fighting the USAF on cancelling the the JSTARs recap, or when they force extra Littoral Combat Ships on the navy against their will :)

jacobolus 8y ago
The weapons producers are where a huge amount of the money goes. From outside, it seems like policy is plenty often decided by what is best for the factory in some influential congressperson’s district (or perhaps to some influential congressperson’s key donor CEOs).
latch 8y ago
Civilians decide the budget (for the DoD and other agencies such as the VA) and when/where to go to war, right? But you're right and I was wrong. The problem isn't only that politicians / civilians have usurped "supporting the troops" as a shield (as I said), but really any decisions (whether it be made by the military or civilians) cannot be criticized / questioned without a high risk of being labeled unpatriotic.
toomanybeersies 8y ago
> Military policy isn't civilian driven Except when a congressman from Ohio decides that they need more tanks so that he can keep his voters employed [1], despite the army saying they have plenty and don't know what to do with them. They have literally thousands of tanks sitting in storage in the desert, and they're rolling tanks straight off the production line into storage. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lima_Army_Tank_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lima_Army_Tank_Plant
- toyg 8y ago
  You say that now, but you'll have to eat your words when Canada finally goes mad at your lack of universal healthcare and invades.
- sbmthakur 8y ago
  I followed the link and came down to 2010s where I couldn't understand the following sentence: The army did not convince Congress that it did not need more tanks in 2011, so in 2013, Congress funded an additional tanks to be built at a cost of ~$270M. Usually, the military provides requirement and the civilian administration provides the funds. How can the Congress order the Army to make more tanks when they don't need it? I am not an American, so probably I am missing the entire context here.
  - _delirium 8y ago
    This is reasonably common in the US. The military does have requests, but Congress also has opinions, and they can deviate from the military's request in either direction. Sometimes they decide not to fund something the military requests, but other times they might mandate something the military doesn't actually want. This could be driven by a difference of opinion over strategy (ultimately such decisions are supposed to be under civilian control, even if informed by general's requests), or it could be caused by more questionable considerations like the presence of factories in a Congressperson's district that don't want to lose business. This at least sometimes happens in Europe too... defense procurement is big business and very political, and sometimes European militaries end up in programs (esp. multinational ones) they aren't that enthusiastic about. Another example is conscription. The Swedish military wanted conscription to be abolished for years before it actually happened, but until the civilian government decided to do so, in the meantime the military had to keep taking in and training conscripts they didn't actually want.
  - toomanybeersies 8y ago
    Building tanks creates jobs, injecting money into the local economy and making you more likely to be reelected. Nobody wants to be the politician that let the tank factory close, killing hundreds or thousands of jobs. They're literally making tanks and driving them straight into storage because the army doesn't have anything to use them for or anybody to drive them.
  - xemdetia 8y ago
    If you are unfamiliar with the American procurement process it is: 1. demand is generated by the military 2. bid out contract 3. selected a bidder (bidders are defense contractors) 4. deliver contracted goods and also maintain inventory parts and tooling for sometimes up to 25 years 5. local economy becomes dependent on this manufacturing income, bidder lobbies their local congressperson directly or indirectly 6. congressperson does these wacky ass requisition appropriations 7. the factory keeps production at the same level and with same employment 8. military gets delivery for goods they never wanted so they go into storage, because what else are you supposed to do with these things? You can't resell them because it contains military secrets, you can't scrap them from both an optics level and the general military logic that having a spare is generally fine. This happens even moreso when it is navy vessels that are much larger cost investments (submarines and destroyers) as just making one will take years potentially and there are legitimate concerns for stopping the means of production but it really just turns into a jobs/national pride story.

jacobolus 8y ago

The weapons producers are where a huge amount of the money goes. From outside, it seems like policy is plenty often decided by what is best for the factory in some influential congressperson’s district (or perhaps to some influential congressperson’s key donor CEOs).

latch 8y ago

Civilians decide the budget (for the DoD and other agencies such as the VA) and when/where to go to war, right? But you're right and I was wrong. The problem isn't only that politicians / civilians have usurped "supporting the troops" as a shield (as I said), but really any decisions (whether it be made by the military or civilians) cannot be criticized / questioned without a high risk of being labeled unpatriotic.

toomanybeersies 8y ago

> Military policy isn't civilian driven Except when a congressman from Ohio decides that they need more tanks so that he can keep his voters employed [1], despite the army saying they have plenty and don't know what to do with them. They have literally thousands of tanks sitting in storage in the desert, and they're rolling tanks straight off the production line into storage. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lima_Army_Tank_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lima_Army_Tank_Plant

toyg 8y ago
You say that now, but you'll have to eat your words when Canada finally goes mad at your lack of universal healthcare and invades.
sbmthakur 8y ago
I followed the link and came down to 2010s where I couldn't understand the following sentence: The army did not convince Congress that it did not need more tanks in 2011, so in 2013, Congress funded an additional tanks to be built at a cost of ~$270M. Usually, the military provides requirement and the civilian administration provides the funds. How can the Congress order the Army to make more tanks when they don't need it? I am not an American, so probably I am missing the entire context here.
- _delirium 8y ago
  This is reasonably common in the US. The military does have requests, but Congress also has opinions, and they can deviate from the military's request in either direction. Sometimes they decide not to fund something the military requests, but other times they might mandate something the military doesn't actually want. This could be driven by a difference of opinion over strategy (ultimately such decisions are supposed to be under civilian control, even if informed by general's requests), or it could be caused by more questionable considerations like the presence of factories in a Congressperson's district that don't want to lose business. This at least sometimes happens in Europe too... defense procurement is big business and very political, and sometimes European militaries end up in programs (esp. multinational ones) they aren't that enthusiastic about. Another example is conscription. The Swedish military wanted conscription to be abolished for years before it actually happened, but until the civilian government decided to do so, in the meantime the military had to keep taking in and training conscripts they didn't actually want.
- toomanybeersies 8y ago
  Building tanks creates jobs, injecting money into the local economy and making you more likely to be reelected. Nobody wants to be the politician that let the tank factory close, killing hundreds or thousands of jobs. They're literally making tanks and driving them straight into storage because the army doesn't have anything to use them for or anybody to drive them.
- xemdetia 8y ago
  If you are unfamiliar with the American procurement process it is: 1. demand is generated by the military 2. bid out contract 3. selected a bidder (bidders are defense contractors) 4. deliver contracted goods and also maintain inventory parts and tooling for sometimes up to 25 years 5. local economy becomes dependent on this manufacturing income, bidder lobbies their local congressperson directly or indirectly 6. congressperson does these wacky ass requisition appropriations 7. the factory keeps production at the same level and with same employment 8. military gets delivery for goods they never wanted so they go into storage, because what else are you supposed to do with these things? You can't resell them because it contains military secrets, you can't scrap them from both an optics level and the general military logic that having a spare is generally fine. This happens even moreso when it is navy vessels that are much larger cost investments (submarines and destroyers) as just making one will take years potentially and there are legitimate concerns for stopping the means of production but it really just turns into a jobs/national pride story.