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"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 su
by 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 agoYeah 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 agoI 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 agoAs 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 agoThat'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 agoA proxy war between NATO and Russia isn’t that rare of an edge case.
- greesil 3y agoHindsight, dude
- HarryHirsch 3y agoThe 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 agoThe Pentagon did not push for war at all, this is a Russian invasion.
- HarryHirsch 3y agoThe 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 agoI 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.