8 ms·

If Russia can win a war with us with 10% of our budget then our entire military industrial complex is a fraud.

by edoo 6y ago

Johnjonjoan 6y ago
Russia would be dominated in a conventional war with the United States. The problem is Russia isn't spending it's 10% on conventional assets so a conventional war is extremely unlikely.
- remarkEon 6y ago
  I'm highly skeptical Russia would even seek a conventional war at all with the United States, but rather local reinforcement of their borders, national or ethnic, if a broader conflict broke out.
  - Johnjonjoan 6y ago
    That was kind of the point of my post, sorry if it wasn't clear.
    - remarkEon 6y ago
      Yes, sorry, rereading it it is clear.
remarkEon 6y ago
I think this belies something that isn't really true: that tech rules all in war. If Russia (or China, with ~25% of our military budget) can beat us in a war this is more a statement on the design and execution of the military institution itself. What are we preparing for that Russia/China is not? What are we not preparing for that Russia/China is? Are they structuring themselves in a way that we are not? How? Why? It goes without saying (as it has been said 1000 times over) that the Taliban was able to befuddle the largest and most technologically advanced military in history for 20 years. Tech and the MIC isn't the problem.
ProAm 6y ago
We've been at war for 20 years in Afghanistan and can't win that one and they have far less than 10% of our budget.
- dx87 6y ago
  We could have won that one if politicians had listened to their military advisors. In James Mattis's recent book, he talks about how the Obama administration didn't listen to recommendations for a larger military presence because they were scoring too many political points by constantly "bringing the troops home".
  - FrankBooth 6y ago
    Does he talk about his time on the Theranos board?
  - ProAm 6y ago
    The military always says they would have won if they had more. I dont think that is the case at all in Afghanistan or Iraq, in Iraq we essentially invented an enemy and lost to them.
- hanniabu 6y ago
  It's not that it can't be won, it's that there's an incentive to never finish and stay there.
- jjcon 6y ago
  What would a winning scenario look like to you? There is no winning when it comes to conflicts like that - just mission objectives, most of which were completed.
  - ProAm 6y ago
    Us not babysitting two countries with our annual budget and servicemen and women because we are afraid to leave. If you dont have an exit strategy you probably shouldnt go start a fight you cant finish (Im obviously generalizing a complex situation but 20 years at war is beyond ridiculous), Colossal waste of money after killing bin Laden, Iraq was a made up war. No idea what the exit strategy was there beyond Bush wanting to kill Saddam.
mlb_hn 6y ago
I think it would be jumping to conclusions to say because the military has vulnerabilities that the entire military industrial complex is a fraud. Pieces of it certainly are sub-optimal and arguably fraudulent though such as DCGS (the "opportunity to improve" terminology used for it in DOD speak means failure)
ta1234567890 6y ago
Well, Vietnam already did that with probably less than 1% of the US budget. Relevant reference: War is a Racket by Smedley Buttler - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket
- Johnjonjoan 6y ago
  Unless we're going to say the war with Russia is fought with the same objectives (in this case have a US friendly government in power) I don't think we can compare against past wars.
- austincheney 6y ago
  That’s probably grossly inaccurate. Vietnam despite having a much smaller economy at time were still a major regional economic power even after consideration for internal conflict. Vietnam spent tremendous resources on the war. You also have to consider that the US participation in Vietnam was seen by the Vietnamese as foreign participants in a larger civil war. That conflict didn’t end just because Americans left, but rather when the communists took Saigon.
DethNinja 6y ago
There is a thing called cost of living and big Mac index though, are Russian military budget in this analysis adjusted for those?
- openasocket 6y ago
  You're being downvoted, but it's actually a good point that others have raised: https://warontherocks.com/2019/12/why-russian-military-expenditure-is-much-higher-than-commonly-understood-as-is-chinas/ https://warontherocks.com/2019/12/why-russian-military-expen...
rl3 6y ago
You have to remember the US military is projecting power across the globe. What the paper is likely referring to is regional scenarios. Regions take time to reinforce, and other theatres may be active at the same time, while having their own requirements in terms of force projection/deterrent. To say that military Y has a mere x% of our budget and therefore we should win is a gross oversimplification of the complexity.
handedness 6y ago
I predict a lot of comments that ignore the fact that the United States military provides free-as-in-beer global free trade to the entire planet, all while maintaining a readiness to fight a two-front war on any two fronts. (Yes, there's plenty of reasonable debate about the US's readiness.) Other militaries don't include that in their remit, so budget comparisons are largely fruitless for anything other than political purposes (one way or the other). I'm as opposed to wasteful spending as anyone–and I think that we have plenty of it–but this idea that the US military budget is strictly and solely about shooting wars completely misses the point. It has held together the world's first peaceful, global free trade in exchange for cooperation in security policy since 1946. That isn't cheap. Nor is it easy or even viable for anyone else. It's not that anyone else could do it if only they had the budget, there just isn't another piece of land on the planet that could do it, short of assuming some impossible alliances. When comparing military budgets you need to compare what it is they're buying: no other country is providing global free trade with their budgets, so of course they're comparatively small. And of course running an insurgency against occupying forces is relatively inexpensive. Of course regional security is less expensive than global security. This isn't comparing player stats on Street Fighter to see how they'd match up in some kind of March Madness bracket. Like it or not, most modern wars (at least the non-pointless ones that aren't mostly about pork and politics) aren't about winning or losing in classical terms, but about how they fit into the broader security and trade context.
- gdy 6y ago
  "no other country is providing global free trade" Who is threatening global free trade? Pirates? Are they why the US needs eleven supercarriers?
  - maccam94 6y ago
    There are multiple shipping corridors through areas with less than stable/friendly governments. Sure, there are the pirates off of Somalia, but there's also governments that could threaten blockades or charge steep fares to pass by. Check out this map and consider how many ships are passing by China, the Middle East, and Africa. https://www.wired.com/2010/01/global-shipping-map/ https://www.wired.com/2010/01/global-shipping-map/ The carrier fleet is more about maintaining the two-front fight capability. It sounds like the military is shifting away from that strategy however: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-11/two-war-strategy-overhaul-creates-many-risks https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-11/two-wa...
api 6y ago
Yes and no. Like many other things, there's probably a power law distribution in terms of the cost of reaching certain levels of military capability. It might cost 10% as much as our budget to get to 75% of the capability, and 80% of our budget to get to 90% of the capability. The military question is: is that high-end stuff war decisive or not? Or can you win a war with a better strategy or just more of the cheap stuff? Bringing up terrorism is a red herring. Terrorism gets lots of attention but it doesn't win true wars. You'd need hundreds of 9/11 events to even dent the US's war capability. A war with a nation state is very different from "asymmetric warfare" against a diffuse enemy motivated by an ideology or a set of resentments rather than a true chain of command.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
yk 6y ago
Well, the US military budget can only be understood as an aesthetic statement, there is basically no scenario were the US defense budget is not vastly oversized. The obvious counter of getting stuck in Iraq or Afghanistan, there the problem is a political, not a military one. The US forces were easily able to archive military targets, the problem is that nobody bothered to formulate clear political goals that could be archived, and consequently the western forces are stuck in limbo.
icegreentea2 6y ago
I understand that sentiment - certainly there is quite a bit of waste in your system. But you should consider that in nearly all plausible cases where you would have a "war" with Russia, it will either occur near Russia (granting them advantage of operating near their base, and minimizing cost of projecting force), and/or in a situation/context specifically designed to minimize American advantages. Russia gets to operate on the cheap since they have a much simpler and tractable goal - they don't need to be a global hyperpower, they just need regional dominance. They don't need to sustainable project conventional power to the other side of the globe - they only need to project power in their region, while having sufficient unconventional power projection (read nukes). Russia also gets to operate on the cheap since they have just less commitments. Finally, Russia also gets much looser constraints to operate in. Consider one of the more "realistic" fantasy war scenarios - Russia moves on the Baltic States. Russia is more likely to be able to absorb causalities politically than American forces. This plays into American force and war planning. There is an understanding that American forces require significant overmatch to create conditions where the current American way of war can be sustained long enough to achieve American goals without too much political/public backlash.
gdy 6y ago
No, this means that your entire military industrial complex is geared towards offensive wars on the other side of the globe. Russia has no such goals.
binarray2000 6y ago
Twenty years ago, a bearded man in a cave ("Ali Baba") and his 19 "thieves" have managed to attack the superpower with a combined security budget (military and all intelligence agencies) of around 1.000 billions (1) on its soil, (2) using only box cutters! The explanation offered to the world by the superpower was: Everyone failed. Yet, no one of those in high positions in the security aparatus of the superpower who has failed at doing his highly responsible job has resigned and no one was prosecuted. What sounds like a (bad) fairytale really happened. Over 3.000 people died that day and many more thousands have died and are still dying as a consequence of what happened that day. Attackers budget was probably 0.00...1% of the budget of the superpower.
- SkyMarshal 6y ago
  That wasn't a war, just a single one-off attack, and the attackers lost to the US in the end anyway.

If Russia can win a war with us with 10% of our budget then our entire military industrial complex is a fraud.

by edoo 6y ago

If Russia can win a war with us with 10% of our budget then our entire military industrial complex is a fraud.

Russia would be dominated in a conventional war with the United States. The problem is Russia isn't spending it's 10% on conventional assets so a conventional war is extremely unlikely.

remarkEon 6y ago
I'm highly skeptical Russia would even seek a conventional war at all with the United States, but rather local reinforcement of their borders, national or ethnic, if a broader conflict broke out.
- Johnjonjoan 6y ago
  That was kind of the point of my post, sorry if it wasn't clear.
  - remarkEon 6y ago
    Yes, sorry, rereading it it is clear.

remarkEon 6y ago

I think this belies something that isn't really true: that tech rules all in war. If Russia (or China, with ~25% of our military budget) can beat us in a war this is more a statement on the design and execution of the military institution itself. What are we preparing for that Russia/China is not? What are we not preparing for that Russia/China is? Are they structuring themselves in a way that we are not? How? Why? It goes without saying (as it has been said 1000 times over) that the Taliban was able to befuddle the largest and most technologically advanced military in history for 20 years. Tech and the MIC isn't the problem.

ProAm 6y ago

We've been at war for 20 years in Afghanistan and can't win that one and they have far less than 10% of our budget.

dx87 6y ago
We could have won that one if politicians had listened to their military advisors. In James Mattis's recent book, he talks about how the Obama administration didn't listen to recommendations for a larger military presence because they were scoring too many political points by constantly "bringing the troops home".
- FrankBooth 6y ago
  Does he talk about his time on the Theranos board?
- ProAm 6y ago
  The military always says they would have won if they had more. I dont think that is the case at all in Afghanistan or Iraq, in Iraq we essentially invented an enemy and lost to them.
hanniabu 6y ago
It's not that it can't be won, it's that there's an incentive to never finish and stay there.
jjcon 6y ago
What would a winning scenario look like to you? There is no winning when it comes to conflicts like that - just mission objectives, most of which were completed.
- ProAm 6y ago
  Us not babysitting two countries with our annual budget and servicemen and women because we are afraid to leave. If you dont have an exit strategy you probably shouldnt go start a fight you cant finish (Im obviously generalizing a complex situation but 20 years at war is beyond ridiculous), Colossal waste of money after killing bin Laden, Iraq was a made up war. No idea what the exit strategy was there beyond Bush wanting to kill Saddam.

mlb_hn 6y ago

I think it would be jumping to conclusions to say because the military has vulnerabilities that the entire military industrial complex is a fraud. Pieces of it certainly are sub-optimal and arguably fraudulent though such as DCGS (the "opportunity to improve" terminology used for it in DOD speak means failure)

ta1234567890 6y ago

Well, Vietnam already did that with probably less than 1% of the US budget. Relevant reference: War is a Racket by Smedley Buttler - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket

Johnjonjoan 6y ago
Unless we're going to say the war with Russia is fought with the same objectives (in this case have a US friendly government in power) I don't think we can compare against past wars.
austincheney 6y ago
That’s probably grossly inaccurate. Vietnam despite having a much smaller economy at time were still a major regional economic power even after consideration for internal conflict. Vietnam spent tremendous resources on the war. You also have to consider that the US participation in Vietnam was seen by the Vietnamese as foreign participants in a larger civil war. That conflict didn’t end just because Americans left, but rather when the communists took Saigon.

DethNinja 6y ago

There is a thing called cost of living and big Mac index though, are Russian military budget in this analysis adjusted for those?

openasocket 6y ago
You're being downvoted, but it's actually a good point that others have raised: https://warontherocks.com/2019/12/why-russian-military-expenditure-is-much-higher-than-commonly-understood-as-is-chinas/ https://warontherocks.com/2019/12/why-russian-military-expen...

rl3 6y ago

You have to remember the US military is projecting power across the globe. What the paper is likely referring to is regional scenarios. Regions take time to reinforce, and other theatres may be active at the same time, while having their own requirements in terms of force projection/deterrent. To say that military Y has a mere x% of our budget and therefore we should win is a gross oversimplification of the complexity.

handedness 6y ago

I predict a lot of comments that ignore the fact that the United States military provides free-as-in-beer global free trade to the entire planet, all while maintaining a readiness to fight a two-front war on any two fronts. (Yes, there's plenty of reasonable debate about the US's readiness.) Other militaries don't include that in their remit, so budget comparisons are largely fruitless for anything other than political purposes (one way or the other). I'm as opposed to wasteful spending as anyone–and I think that we have plenty of it–but this idea that the US military budget is strictly and solely about shooting wars completely misses the point. It has held together the world's first peaceful, global free trade in exchange for cooperation in security policy since 1946. That isn't cheap. Nor is it easy or even viable for anyone else. It's not that anyone else could do it if only they had the budget, there just isn't another piece of land on the planet that could do it, short of assuming some impossible alliances. When comparing military budgets you need to compare what it is they're buying: no other country is providing global free trade with their budgets, so of course they're comparatively small. And of course running an insurgency against occupying forces is relatively inexpensive. Of course regional security is less expensive than global security. This isn't comparing player stats on Street Fighter to see how they'd match up in some kind of March Madness bracket. Like it or not, most modern wars (at least the non-pointless ones that aren't mostly about pork and politics) aren't about winning or losing in classical terms, but about how they fit into the broader security and trade context.

gdy 6y ago
"no other country is providing global free trade" Who is threatening global free trade? Pirates? Are they why the US needs eleven supercarriers?
- maccam94 6y ago
  There are multiple shipping corridors through areas with less than stable/friendly governments. Sure, there are the pirates off of Somalia, but there's also governments that could threaten blockades or charge steep fares to pass by. Check out this map and consider how many ships are passing by China, the Middle East, and Africa. https://www.wired.com/2010/01/global-shipping-map/ https://www.wired.com/2010/01/global-shipping-map/ The carrier fleet is more about maintaining the two-front fight capability. It sounds like the military is shifting away from that strategy however: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-11/two-war-strategy-overhaul-creates-many-risks https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-11/two-wa...

api 6y ago

Yes and no. Like many other things, there's probably a power law distribution in terms of the cost of reaching certain levels of military capability. It might cost 10% as much as our budget to get to 75% of the capability, and 80% of our budget to get to 90% of the capability. The military question is: is that high-end stuff war decisive or not? Or can you win a war with a better strategy or just more of the cheap stuff? Bringing up terrorism is a red herring. Terrorism gets lots of attention but it doesn't win true wars. You'd need hundreds of 9/11 events to even dent the US's war capability. A war with a nation state is very different from "asymmetric warfare" against a diffuse enemy motivated by an ideology or a set of resentments rather than a true chain of command.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

yk 6y ago

Well, the US military budget can only be understood as an aesthetic statement, there is basically no scenario were the US defense budget is not vastly oversized. The obvious counter of getting stuck in Iraq or Afghanistan, there the problem is a political, not a military one. The US forces were easily able to archive military targets, the problem is that nobody bothered to formulate clear political goals that could be archived, and consequently the western forces are stuck in limbo.

icegreentea2 6y ago

I understand that sentiment - certainly there is quite a bit of waste in your system. But you should consider that in nearly all plausible cases where you would have a "war" with Russia, it will either occur near Russia (granting them advantage of operating near their base, and minimizing cost of projecting force), and/or in a situation/context specifically designed to minimize American advantages. Russia gets to operate on the cheap since they have a much simpler and tractable goal - they don't need to be a global hyperpower, they just need regional dominance. They don't need to sustainable project conventional power to the other side of the globe - they only need to project power in their region, while having sufficient unconventional power projection (read nukes). Russia also gets to operate on the cheap since they have just less commitments. Finally, Russia also gets much looser constraints to operate in. Consider one of the more "realistic" fantasy war scenarios - Russia moves on the Baltic States. Russia is more likely to be able to absorb causalities politically than American forces. This plays into American force and war planning. There is an understanding that American forces require significant overmatch to create conditions where the current American way of war can be sustained long enough to achieve American goals without too much political/public backlash.

gdy 6y ago

No, this means that your entire military industrial complex is geared towards offensive wars on the other side of the globe. Russia has no such goals.

binarray2000 6y ago

Twenty years ago, a bearded man in a cave ("Ali Baba") and his 19 "thieves" have managed to attack the superpower with a combined security budget (military and all intelligence agencies) of around 1.000 billions (1) on its soil, (2) using only box cutters! The explanation offered to the world by the superpower was: Everyone failed. Yet, no one of those in high positions in the security aparatus of the superpower who has failed at doing his highly responsible job has resigned and no one was prosecuted. What sounds like a (bad) fairytale really happened. Over 3.000 people died that day and many more thousands have died and are still dying as a consequence of what happened that day. Attackers budget was probably 0.00...1% of the budget of the superpower.

SkyMarshal 6y ago
That wasn't a war, just a single one-off attack, and the attackers lost to the US in the end anyway.