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It’s always really easy to armchair criticize using versions of, “why weren’t you prepared for every contingency at all times?” And I see versions of that in th

• andrewflnr 3y ago
  "An actual war breaking out" is an extremely foreseeable contingency when building weapons of war. That said, I blame the government more for not keeping the supply chain alive, and in particular not ensuring they can change manufacturers.
  • Waterluvian 3y ago
    Yeah but that’s just the same kind of unqualified broad answer. Then there’s someone blaming the government for spending so much money during peacetime. Then someone will say that military spending is such that they ought to be able to. And someone will say the Stinger is 50 years old and they should be building something entirely new instead. And nobody can actually quantify any of their feelings on the matter.
    • andrewflnr 3y ago
      I think when the dust settles from all the supply chains restarting, we'll be able to quantify the benefits pretty well. For anyone actually interested in truth, anyway.
      • Waterluvian 3y ago
        As long as we also quantify every other instance where not maintaining production over two generations was the advantageous choice.
        • deleted 3y ago
          [deleted]
        • andrewflnr 3y ago
          That's the tricky thing with preparatory expenses, though, right? Skipping them always looks like "the advantageous choice", right up until you bitterly regret it.
  • Scarblac 3y ago
    "An actual war breaking out, against the full Russian army, that NATO isn't directly involved in so it's fought in a very different way than NATO would, but in which a large part of the equipment is still provided by NATO" is quite different though. NATO would have air superiority and not need as many stingers.
    • semicolon_storm 3y ago
      A proxy war between NATO and Russia isn’t that rare of an edge case.
      • greesil 3y ago
        Hindsight, dude
      • HarryHirsch 3y ago
        The proxy war started in 2014 with Euromaidan. Here is what's baffling: no army goes to war except with strategic plans. The geniuses in the Pentagon decided to push for war but omitted to make plans for armament supplies! The same mistake thankfully did Hitler in - the switch to the war economy came only in 1942 when it was clear that Stalingrad was going to fall.
        • Scarblac 3y ago
          The Pentagon did not push for war at all, this is a Russian invasion.
          • HarryHirsch 3y ago
            The Pentagon should have recognized that the Eastern expansion of NATO would collide with the national security interests of Russia, and that war would be the inevitable consequence. It probably even did, the task of the High Command is to draw up and revise plans for every contingency. What went on between the Pentagon and the Secretary of State's office? Why was the military establishment with all its experience in logistics overruled? The incompetence and lack of preparedness that are on view here is staggering.
  • JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > I blame the government more for not keeping the supply chain alive A broad section of Americans, from the 1970s (roughly post peak Soviet power) through today (albeit declining), has called for dismantling our military-industrial complex. That production capacity is the military-industrial complex. The peace dividend of the 90s was a direct result of reörienting military production to civilian use, making fewer guns and more butter.
  • x0x0 3y ago
    I think the blame should be less for not keeping the supply chain alive, and way more for being caught by surprise. The interval between needing/buying X and receiving X is critical to understand. Crucial electronic components for a piece of equipment designed in 1978 and last manufactured in 1987 are no longer manufactured, and replacing them will require a redesign and a requalification? Who could have understood that, besides anyone with a EE degree.
• formerly_proven 3y ago
  > “why weren’t you prepared for every contingency at all times?” And when you are: “wow the MIC is leeching the country dry!”
  • enterprise_cog 3y ago
    They already are and we are even less prepared for war now. It’s a giant grift.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
• xattt 3y ago
  > Supply chain is really really really hard. Keeping it warm for decades is really really really expensive. I’m glad this realization is making its way to the knowledge of the general population. People have been seduced by cheap foreign goods, and balked at the idea of something costing more than the lowest cost. Come to think of it, I am wondering if making cheap industrial labour generally available was a “soft power” exercised by some countries. This enabled the dismantling of flexible Western production capabilities, increased reliance on these countries, and dissuaded aggression towards them. Also see the reliance of Europe on Russian fossil fuel imports.
  • sitkack 3y ago
    > cheap industrial labour generally available was a “soft power” Of course it is. But US and Global Capitalism fought tooth and nail to get into China. The manufacturing base in the US was dismantled (literally) on purpose by American billionaires and the politicians they owned.
    • ren_engineer 3y ago
      the initial plan made sense as a way to weaken the Soviets, but after the USSR collapsed in the 90s the US should have pulled out and also not let China into the World Trade Organization unless they played fair. Going to be seen as an all time historical blunder. Tiananmen square made it clear China wasn't going to change and the idea that "improving economy leads to democracy" has literally never happened unless that nation was occupied by the US military like Germany and Japan
      • sitkack 3y ago
        The US never cared about Democracy, we don't defend it, or support it. The only thing the the US cares about is markets.
    • throwawayswiss 3y ago
      [flagged]
  • 3y ago
• ren_engineer 3y ago
  I think the issue is that there should have been a plan in place to create an equivalent in functionality even if it isn't an exact copy. The US doesn't need Stingers, they need something/anything that functions as a MANPAD. Not having a way to increase production of Stingers is acceptable, but they've apparently done nothing since 1987 to make sure they have a viable blueprint for scaling production of a critical part of any modern military. That's the real story here, because it shows a fundamental problem in how the US military procures things and there is most likely similar issues all over the place for other critical things(artillery shells have similar shortages). How does the military not have a plan for war breaking out and needing to scale production? That's supposed to be their core job
  • CydeWeys 3y ago
    Stingers aren't a critical part of the US military though. We go for air supremacy through fighters, Patriots, and NASAMs. The Russian-Ukraine War, with no direct US involvement, is a weird edge case we weren't prepared for.
    • ren_engineer 3y ago
      Stingers are just a symptom of the bigger problem like I mentioned, US also has shortages in artillery, Javelins, rockets, and many other things https://www.npr.org/2023/04/07/1168725028/manufacturing-price-gauging-new-u-s-military-arms https://www.npr.org/2023/04/07/1168725028/manufacturing-pric... https://www.ausa.org/news/csis-warns-ammunition-shortages https://www.ausa.org/news/csis-warns-ammunition-shortages this whole situation shows deep issues in how the US military does procurement and also basic forecasting/planning
      • appplication 3y ago
        I don’t disagree that it shows these issues, but identifying these empirically is one of the reasons the US likes to constantly inject itself into international conflict.
      • adventured 3y ago
• mschuster91 3y ago
  > Though I imagine there are valid criticisms if we had all the details. “They didn’t think to preserve X specimens.” “Y software was lost on a tape drive somewhere.” “Z blueprints got improperly stored inside the Ark of the Covenant.” The thing is, in IT it's a common saying "a backup ain't a backup unless you regularly validate it". The US MIC clocks in at many hundred billion dollars a year in budget - seriously it can't be that hard for the government to select every five years a couple dozen small metalwork, electronic and other companies needed to make arms parts, give them all the blueprints and instructions and look if they can make parts that meet the specs? Had they done that instead of allowing the weapon manufacturers to gobble up small competitors left and right, they wouldn't be stuck with the current clusterfuck. Because what I just said is precisely what would happen should the US be forced to enter a full blown war with China instead of just steamrolling over some poor guys in deserts armed with Kalashnikovs.
• akira2501 3y ago
  > Supply chain is really really really hard. Does the traditional idea of "supply chain" actually apply here? There isn't a "market" for these parts. There's a single buyer and a single supplier behind an exclusive government contract. The single-use equipment has no intrinsic value, can't be put to any other use, and can't be sold after it's shelf life has expired.
  • elgenie 3y ago
    There's a single buyer that wants a particular missile, and multiple defense contractors bidding on right to supply it. At some point hopefully before, but sometimes after the bid is won, that contractor has to figure out how to make and deliver that thing, which is a standard manufacturing process involving a bunch of components and subsystems, some of which are made in house, some of which are bought of the shelf, and some of which are outsourced. That part's the supply chain.
  • hef19898 3y ago
    Oh, the idea of supply chains, and supply chain management make aboslute sense. Traditionally, logistics, and as an out grow of that supply chains, started with the military. In the case of military goods, especially of the more expendable type like all kinds of ammunitions but also complex systems like tank or fighter jets, it is even harder since there is, in piece time at least, no continious demand. That means as soon as the large initial production runs are delivered, production capacity sits there unused. And gets ultimately dismanteled, technology becomes obsolete, people change jobs and retire. All that is left at some point is maintenance capabilities, which only gets you that far in terms of building new gear, and low level production to replenish stores or conduct retrofits. Increasing that lost capacity is expensive and time consuming. Generally, a supply chain is everything that has a supplier and a customer and moves physical goods. And the general, underlying principles haven't really changed since the days of the first silk road, or heck, since as early as the bronze age.
  • greedo 3y ago
    There are multiple buyers of most US weapon systems. For the FIM-92 (Stinger), there are over 30 not counting the US.
• iancmceachern 3y ago
  Exactly. Oftentimes its not even that they don't have the original design data and files. Sometimes it's that they don't even have the computer and software to open it anymore because it doesn't exist. It's akin to trying to re-shoot a movie with just the script and a few DVDs of the movie. It's like step 1 - boot up your SGI indigo workstation and open this software, if you don't have those two things contact this guy who retired long ago. And then it's a whole engineering project just to open the files
• oatmeal1 3y ago
  Russia annexed Crimea in February 2014. A full scale invasion in 2022 was totally unforeseeable.