> it makes me wonder what the real amount of money being invested compared to other military powers such as Russia and China Probably a lot, but it's hard to

> it makes me wonder what the real amount of money being invested compared to other military powers such as Russia and China Probably a lot, but it's hard to do apples-to-apples, because the economies are very different. US soldiers/sailors/marines/etc. need to get something on-par with US wages. Ditto for defense contractors -- those programmers need to get paid alright, otherwise they're going to piss off to SV, NYC, Denver, etc. Average salaries in China and Russia are going to be lower, as are costs of production of hardware, so you may get a lot more relative to the size of the investment.