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I think you and many others here are picking on the "easy" part of that reply. Of course we need to keep investing in any field if we want it to improve. Surely

by epups 4y ago

I think you and many others here are picking on the "easy" part of that reply. Of course we need to keep investing in any field if we want it to improve. Surely there are diminishing returns though. When you overspend your competitors so wildly, at some point it can be counterproductive. The US has the best army but it is far from the most cost-efficient, and the lack of investment in other parts of its society is clearly apparent. In a political scenario where lobbying, not actual strategy is the reason why so much money is spent on defense, it is your comment that sounds naive, not the parent.

remarkEon 4y ago
Yes yes, I am a dumb US Army infantryman so I do struggle with "strategy" and so on and so forth. /s I can steelman your argument to be something like "without lobbying, DoD procurement would be much more efficient and the savings would be spent on social programs" ... which is just absurd. If you think that "lobbying" is the only reason that the US has a very very large defense budget that's on you, since the internet is widely available. Ad minimum, USN is responsible for policing the entire planet to allow trade to continue. The point of overspending your competitor (in the defense realm) is that you reach a point where they just can't catch up, or they realize it would take a decade (or many) to catch up and suddenly war makes zero sense ... unless there is a new technology that resets the gameclock. This has happened. And so, here we are, continuing to invest in new technology.
- epups 4y ago
  Sure, the US strategic goal is to dominate the world militarily. It could achieve that with half its military spending, arguably even a third. And yes, lobbying can heavily skew what ends up being prioritized, to the point of inefficiency. This is not to say there are not other sources of inefficiency too - the items in which the US spent the most money in the past 20 years have been completely pointless wars that dragged on forever and ultimately achieved nothing. Feeding more money to this largely inefficient (and harmful) machine cannot be justified solely on the basis of increased competition from other countries. Lobbying also works against efficiency by prioritizing older companies over newer, more innovative ones. Look at the progress of SpaceX vs the the ULA. Following your premise that heavy investment can create a scenario where competition will suddenly cease to exist, this type of thing should not be possible. Heck, until World War II the US was not even among the highest military spenders in the planet. It was the heavily militarized Europe that started a conflict and shot its advantages on the foot. So, your premise that you can just overspend your way into invincibility is not sound either, if anything the opposite might happen.
  - remarkEon 4y ago
    >Sure, the US strategic goal is to dominate the world militarily. It could achieve that with half its military spending, arguably even a third Major citation needed on that one. There's inefficiencies in any large organization, sure, but this has nothing to do with a need to prepare a deterrent strategy for the actual wars that matter. Agreed that playing COIN in the desert for 20 years was stupid, and we should all be upset at the politicians and media apparatus that encouraged that stupidity. That doesn't have anything to do with the current situation. I can't parse what your second paragraph is getting at, other than SpaceX is cheaper than ULA, which I'd consider to be irrelevant given their different mission profiles. >So, your premise that you can just overspend your way into invincibility is not sound either, if anything the opposite might happen. I never said this.
- gretch 4y ago
  In President Eisenhower's farewell speech, he warned us against the establishment of a military-industrial complex. https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwight-d-eisenhowers-farewell-address https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwigh... I'm largely just heeding his warning/advice. What is your take on those words? Was he wrong? Are 'not there yet'? And as a concrete example, what's your take on this 2015 event where congress purchased hundreds of millions of dollars in tanks even at the direct protest of the pentagon itself? https://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/01/28/pentagon-tells-congress-to-stop-buying-equipment-it-doesnt-need.html https://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/01/28/pentagon-tell...
  - remarkEon 4y ago
    His warning is really about the defense industry directing national policy, which is good advice and should be heeded. It doesn't conflict with what I'm saying. The 2015 example is irrelevant, because the USMC gave up their takes and turned them over to the Army. Sensational headline aside, part of the reason for maintaining that tank corps is that rebuilding that industrial capacity takes a lot of time and can be lost if you don't do it. The actual text of the article is more nuanced: >"We are still having to procure systems we don't need," Odierno said, adding that the Army spends "hundreds of millions of dollars on tanks that we simply don't have the structure for anymore." [Emphasis added] The Army had retooled itself to fight a counter-insurgency for what ended up being 20 years (stupidly), and is in the process of reverting back to fighting peer or near-peer adversaries. Obviously you need less tanks in a COIN fight than in a potential fight in Eastern Europe. Bet Odierno would be glad that we bought those tanks in 2015 now that Russia is engaging in some tomfoolery in Europe right now. I'm not denying that there's lots of inefficiency in defense procurement, but the reflexive "spending money on war machines is bad" takes are really reductive and signal a shallow understanding of geopolitics and the global security situation.
    - gretch 4y ago
      > the reflexive "spending money on war machines is bad" takes are really reductive and signal a shallow understanding of geopolitics and the global security situation I think if you revisit this comment chain, you’ll find that no one made that argument, and it almost seems like you are defensively projecting a straw man to fight. The original argument was about should we spend more money on defense (such as f35 development) given that we dominate the next 3 players put together by most metrics. Eg 11 aircraft carriers vs 2 (and yes I know that national defense does not simply boil down to num_carriers) I’m a strong advocate for the US military being the strongest in the world, but I’m anti the position that we need to be 5x the next spender. Edit: and yes, I’ll admit my understanding of the geopolitics and defense is indeed shallow, but from where I sit the “experts” got us into War in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam before that. So maybe we need less of this “expert” thinking

by epups 4y ago

remarkEon 4y ago

Yes yes, I am a dumb US Army infantryman so I do struggle with "strategy" and so on and so forth. /s I can steelman your argument to be something like "without lobbying, DoD procurement would be much more efficient and the savings would be spent on social programs" ... which is just absurd. If you think that "lobbying" is the only reason that the US has a very very large defense budget that's on you, since the internet is widely available. Ad minimum, USN is responsible for policing the entire planet to allow trade to continue. The point of overspending your competitor (in the defense realm) is that you reach a point where they just can't catch up, or they realize it would take a decade (or many) to catch up and suddenly war makes zero sense ... unless there is a new technology that resets the gameclock. This has happened. And so, here we are, continuing to invest in new technology.

epups 4y ago
Sure, the US strategic goal is to dominate the world militarily. It could achieve that with half its military spending, arguably even a third. And yes, lobbying can heavily skew what ends up being prioritized, to the point of inefficiency. This is not to say there are not other sources of inefficiency too - the items in which the US spent the most money in the past 20 years have been completely pointless wars that dragged on forever and ultimately achieved nothing. Feeding more money to this largely inefficient (and harmful) machine cannot be justified solely on the basis of increased competition from other countries. Lobbying also works against efficiency by prioritizing older companies over newer, more innovative ones. Look at the progress of SpaceX vs the the ULA. Following your premise that heavy investment can create a scenario where competition will suddenly cease to exist, this type of thing should not be possible. Heck, until World War II the US was not even among the highest military spenders in the planet. It was the heavily militarized Europe that started a conflict and shot its advantages on the foot. So, your premise that you can just overspend your way into invincibility is not sound either, if anything the opposite might happen.
- remarkEon 4y ago
  >Sure, the US strategic goal is to dominate the world militarily. It could achieve that with half its military spending, arguably even a third Major citation needed on that one. There's inefficiencies in any large organization, sure, but this has nothing to do with a need to prepare a deterrent strategy for the actual wars that matter. Agreed that playing COIN in the desert for 20 years was stupid, and we should all be upset at the politicians and media apparatus that encouraged that stupidity. That doesn't have anything to do with the current situation. I can't parse what your second paragraph is getting at, other than SpaceX is cheaper than ULA, which I'd consider to be irrelevant given their different mission profiles. >So, your premise that you can just overspend your way into invincibility is not sound either, if anything the opposite might happen. I never said this.
gretch 4y ago
In President Eisenhower's farewell speech, he warned us against the establishment of a military-industrial complex. https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwight-d-eisenhowers-farewell-address https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwigh... I'm largely just heeding his warning/advice. What is your take on those words? Was he wrong? Are 'not there yet'? And as a concrete example, what's your take on this 2015 event where congress purchased hundreds of millions of dollars in tanks even at the direct protest of the pentagon itself? https://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/01/28/pentagon-tells-congress-to-stop-buying-equipment-it-doesnt-need.html https://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/01/28/pentagon-tell...
- remarkEon 4y ago
  His warning is really about the defense industry directing national policy, which is good advice and should be heeded. It doesn't conflict with what I'm saying. The 2015 example is irrelevant, because the USMC gave up their takes and turned them over to the Army. Sensational headline aside, part of the reason for maintaining that tank corps is that rebuilding that industrial capacity takes a lot of time and can be lost if you don't do it. The actual text of the article is more nuanced: >"We are still having to procure systems we don't need," Odierno said, adding that the Army spends "hundreds of millions of dollars on tanks that we simply don't have the structure for anymore." [Emphasis added] The Army had retooled itself to fight a counter-insurgency for what ended up being 20 years (stupidly), and is in the process of reverting back to fighting peer or near-peer adversaries. Obviously you need less tanks in a COIN fight than in a potential fight in Eastern Europe. Bet Odierno would be glad that we bought those tanks in 2015 now that Russia is engaging in some tomfoolery in Europe right now. I'm not denying that there's lots of inefficiency in defense procurement, but the reflexive "spending money on war machines is bad" takes are really reductive and signal a shallow understanding of geopolitics and the global security situation.
  - gretch 4y ago
    > the reflexive "spending money on war machines is bad" takes are really reductive and signal a shallow understanding of geopolitics and the global security situation I think if you revisit this comment chain, you’ll find that no one made that argument, and it almost seems like you are defensively projecting a straw man to fight. The original argument was about should we spend more money on defense (such as f35 development) given that we dominate the next 3 players put together by most metrics. Eg 11 aircraft carriers vs 2 (and yes I know that national defense does not simply boil down to num_carriers) I’m a strong advocate for the US military being the strongest in the world, but I’m anti the position that we need to be 5x the next spender. Edit: and yes, I’ll admit my understanding of the geopolitics and defense is indeed shallow, but from where I sit the “experts” got us into War in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam before that. So maybe we need less of this “expert” thinking