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Where are the dollars that show up on spreadsheets going? > So anyway, if we’re going to be able to match Chinese military power — even in concert with all our

Where are the dollars that show up on spreadsheets going? > So anyway, if we’re going to be able to match Chinese military power — even in concert with all our friends and allies — we need to spend a lot more on the military. If you say this in public, someone will inevitably reply that “we spend more on our military than the next 10 countries combined”,[1] and call for cutting defense spending in order to fund either social spending or tax cuts, depending on which side of the political aisle they fall. But what does it mean for the U.S. to outspend all other nations when China can build warships at 200 times the rate we can? What does it mean for the U.S. to outspend all other nations if we can’t even keep up enough munitions production to supply Ukraine? > Nothing. Dollars on paper mean nothing; shells and missiles and ships are real things that can be counted. As with health care and housing and train stations and everything else,[2] Americans have deluded themselves into believing that as long as they allocate dollars to something in a spreadsheet, then valuable and useful real stuff is actually getting built. Again and again, that delusion has been shattered when excess costs and interminable delays block the paper dollars from becoming real tangible goods.

mytailorisrich 3y ago
The delusion here is that some Americans believe that they can remain #1 forever. The hard truth is that countries like India and China that have 4x the population will ultimately have much larger economies and will thus be able to have larger military capabilities.
- Mountain_Skies 3y ago
  Nigeria also has a rapidly growing population that likely will exceed that of the United States in a couple of decades but that alone isn't the secret sauce to passing the US economically and militarily.
- OO000oo 3y ago
  If the US still made things and still made children, it could do a lot better than it is.
  - abracadaniel 3y ago
    US manufacturing is an all time high and the population is still growing. China has been below replacement levels for birth rate long enough that their population is actually shrinking.
    - OO000oo 3y ago
      The US makes almost nothing on its own and I expect you know that, and the US population would be shrinking at a suicidal rate if not for mass human labor trafficking from the 3rd world.
    - howmayiannoyyou 3y ago
      This is absurdly incorrect in the context of the article. As just one example - the US shuttered more than half of its ship building capacity after the Soviet Union fell. You cannot convert a foreign owned Toyota auto assembly plant into a shipyard. And, it would be nice if US economic stats made a distinction between manufacturing and assembly. A lot of what you call manufacturing is simply the low skilled combining of parts made overseas.
      - mcphage 3y ago
        > You cannot convert a foreign owned Toyota auto assembly plant into a shipyard. As long as it’s in the US—yeah, you can.
        fragmede 3y ago
        The US government coming in and forcibly taking control of a Toyota auto assembly plant located on US soil won't do anything to move it 320 miles down 65 from Huntsville, Alabama to the (gulf) coast. I'm no shipbuilder, but I get the impression that shipyards are typically near the ocean.
        mcphage 3y ago
        Oh, if the issue at hand is because of its physical location, then you're right, although it could still manufacture parts. I thought the GP was emphasizing the fact that it was owned by a non-US company.
- Jevon23 3y ago
  Bit like saying there's no point in wearing a seatbelt because "you're delusional if you think you can live forever." Sure, nothing lasts forever. Doesn't mean we just roll over and give up.
  - beardyw 3y ago
    It is better for a country to be realistic about it's place on the world. I live in the UK. There are still people here with an exaggerated idea of our importance which helps no one.
  - hackinthebochs 3y ago
    But if you're incapable of recognizing your reduced standing in the world, you can end up miscalculating the resistance from other nations as you promote your interests. Being unable to accurately assess the expectations of success of other nations in promoting their interests will just lead to runaway escalation and potentially a world war.
- beardyw 3y ago
  History tells us that nothing remains constant so even those changes will come and go.
- Avshalom 3y ago
  Well china currently has a larger population, but here's Noah asking us to make enough bullets to change that.
  - marricks 3y ago
    What a beautiful dream Noah promises us all.
  - NhanH 3y ago
    Just to put actual number into sight: that’s at least a billion people we are talking about. Even if a war happen 20 years from now and the US double its population while China has a population collapse, it’s still 400 million people++
    - galangalalgol 3y ago
      The problem isn't the absolute nimber, it is the ratio of producers and consumers in general to consumers of food.
      - giardini 3y ago
        It's really about the number of young men of the age to be conscripted.
  - inconceivable 3y ago
    noah is a prototypical 90's-era weeb who worships japan and absolutely despises china and chinese people in general. i'm surprised in 2023 people aren't yet tired of this schtick. it's getting old.
  - giardini 3y ago
    Need we fear a war of bullets with China? Is this not merely another diabolical plot to kill the remaining Boomers (the last American generation who know how to shoot guns and save money) by engaging them in a war of attrition with China's analogous elderly population?
- mpalmer 3y ago
  > will ultimately have much larger economies Will they necessarily? I would expect culture and system of government to be factors in whether a country can not only support 1 billion plus people, but grow their economy too. Let alone natural resources
- rhaway84773 3y ago
  Except the rich and educated Indians and Chinese want to move to the US. India and China having 4x the US’s population doesn’t mean anything if the top 5-10 productive percentile of their population emigrate to the US. Further, unlike India and China which literally share a contested border, the U.S. is surrounded by extremely friendly nations and 2 oceans. Further, the US has a 200+ year history of a relatively stable democracy whereas India is currently turning into whatever clown show Modi is trying to turn it into, and Xi Jinping has turned China into the kind of autocracy where he is telling highly educated Chinese that they should go back to their villages and try their hand at subsistence farming. I would have thought the last 6 months of Chinese collapse, which should have been a post Zero COVID era of epic growth would have disabused people of the notion that people automatically means growth and success. China is currently beyond their demographic dividend and is now in the payback stage, having f’ed their demographics massively with their 1 child policy. India is in the peak of their demographic dividend but instead of utilizing it to productive ends is engaged in the promotion of religious infighting and autocratic tendencies all to satisfy the power lust of 1 man and his lackeys.
  - klyrs 3y ago
    > India and China having 4x the US’s population doesn’t mean anything if the top 5-10 productive percentile of their population emigrate to the US. The richest, in India, China, and the US are not the "most productive" by any means. They're the most extractive. If we were immigrating hard workers, we wouldn't have labor shortages. Instead, we're immigrating investors who drive up real estate costs.
- sureglymop 3y ago
  Also, why should the US be #1? What is so much _greater_ about the US?
  - cosmic_quanta 3y ago
    Honestly, it's its geography. Only friendly neighbours on the same continent, vast swaths of some of the most fertile land in the world, water access to Europe AND Asia, etc. Regardless of the difference between Chinese and US citizens / culture / government, geography will always remain an advantage
    - dirtyid 3y ago
      Geographic benefits erodes with technology. Technology has compressed the world, global shipping gives actors with money and leverage access to resources around the world. Post war US power projection is based off the fact it has technology to reach others while others cannot reach CONUS. Which has/is going to change shortly. Now techology like precise long range strikes makes CONUS no better than Saudi. Having resource autarky =/= resource security when modern missiles can take out critical infra on CONUS. Geography matters less than ever.
    - mytailorisrich 3y ago
      As it happens, China is the same size as the US, has a lot of natural resources, and also large swaths of very fertile land (which partly explains why they have always had a large population) and, for instance, they are the largest producer of both wheat and rice in the world.
      - hollerith 3y ago
        I recently heard (on some youtube video) that China has 10% of the world's farmland and 20% of the world's population. Also, any country that is not extremely poor does mechanized farming, which has been described as "using land to turn petroleum into food", and most of the petroleum China uses comes from the Persian Gulf or even further away. (For example, I'm pretty sure that most of Russia's flow of petroleum to China comes via ports on the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea.) In contrast, (because of the fracking revolution) the US produces all the petroleum it needs domestically. If that changes in the future (for example because of a commitment to reducing carbon emissions cause regulations that discourage petroleum production in the US) then the US can probably make up any shortfall with petroleum from Canada. And I'm pretty sure China must import most of its needs for 2 of the 3 major fertilizing commodities (nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium). And they get a lot of grain and oilseed for example from Ukraine or at least they did until Russia stopped the flow (according to a Youtube video I recently watched). I see a lot of statements here to the effect of how screwed the US would be if it suddenly couldn't import things from China, but very little on how much more screwed China would be if it couldn't import things from other continents. At least the US can feed its population, keep the electricity on and keep the trucks moving on its highways without imports.
- galangalalgol 3y ago
  According to Zeihan, China, and to a lesser extent India, have a horrible demographics problem looming. The prediction was for a dramatic collapse in manufacturing capacity. China at least might have the central authority to kill all those too old to work or consume, but my understanding is that doesn't fit well with the predominant culture there which highly respects age. Also, the whole killing people thing... All the nations, especially those that industrialized quickly are facing this problem. As industrialization correlates strongly with smaller families (don't need children to work the farm). But China compounded it with the one child policy. And they industrialized faster than almost anyone. India went straight for a service economy, that may be even worse. Russia... Not sure about Brazil. The US delayed its demographic collapse via immigration. It might even effect a soft landing relative to the rest of the world if it can ramp back up manufacturing in a way that doesn't destroy shared resources or enforce permanent underclasses leading to revolt. That isn't an easy task.
  - inconceivable 3y ago
    pretty much everyone else with a public platform in geopolitical analysis has a low opinion of zeihan. this includes shapiro, papic, and other stratfor alumni who i pay attention to. zeihan's analysis is performative and is designed to make him money, not provide value to anyone in the real world. wow, america's geography makes it invincible and china will collapse any day now because they suck at innovating. that's super insightful and original. i definitely haven't been hearing that repeated ad nauseum for literally 40 years.
    - galangalalgol 3y ago
      I'd like to read them, his stuff does seem entertainment heavy. And I spot some errors in places I have expertise, if small ones. Not this Shapiro right? This one is mostly agreeing with Zeihan. https://www.dailywire.com/news/bank-on-it-ben-shapiro-predicts-the-one-move-china-will-make-towards-taiwan-thanks-to-the-biden-administration https://www.dailywire.com/news/bank-on-it-ben-shapiro-predic...
      - 3y ago
- foogazi 3y ago
  > The hard truth is that countries like India and China that have 4x the population will ultimately have much larger economies and will thus be able to have larger military capabilities. meanwhile they are still fighting with sticks in the Himalayas
  - giardini 3y ago
    foogazi says "meanwhile they are still fighting with sticks in the Himalayas." But the rats are well-fed: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=indian+temple+feeding+the+rats&iax=videos&ia=videos https://duckduckgo.com/?q=indian+temple+feeding+the+rats&iax...
- nradov 3y ago
  China has geographic and natural resource constraints which will make it quite difficult for them to ever surpass the USA regardless of population. They are deficient in most of the things necessary for a strong industrial economy including iron ore, fossil fuels, productive farmland, fertilizers, and navigable waterways. The authoritarian dictatorship system they have adopted is also highly unstable. Dictatorships are only stable until some sort of catastrophic "black swan" event occurs, and then everything collapses faster than anyone expected. Their history is full of violent uprisings and civil wars. I wouldn't be surprised to see another one within our lifetimes. Even just maintaining the security apparatus necessary to control the populace is a huge drag on their economy.
Retric 3y ago
It boils down to economies of scale. The DoD requires a significant percentage of war materials to be manufactured in the US for strategic reasons. You don’t to be unable to make bullets/boots/etc in a war because all the factories that manufacture that stuff are in the country you’re fighting. But that also extends to the components to manufacture that stuff like shoes laces, optical cables, screws etc etc. However having small scale manufacturing in the US inherently means less automation and high labor costs. Meanwhile China which is already manufacturing most things at scale doesn’t need to pay a premium for this stuff. It’s debatable how much this is necessary, but war is more about logistics than most people assume.
candiddevmike 3y ago
Does China have more or less corruption with their military spend? Who gets more for their money, US or China? Is there a case for a US military manufacturing corp?

mytailorisrich 3y ago

The delusion here is that some Americans believe that they can remain #1 forever. The hard truth is that countries like India and China that have 4x the population will ultimately have much larger economies and will thus be able to have larger military capabilities.

Mountain_Skies 3y ago
Nigeria also has a rapidly growing population that likely will exceed that of the United States in a couple of decades but that alone isn't the secret sauce to passing the US economically and militarily.
OO000oo 3y ago
If the US still made things and still made children, it could do a lot better than it is.
- abracadaniel 3y ago
  US manufacturing is an all time high and the population is still growing. China has been below replacement levels for birth rate long enough that their population is actually shrinking.
  - OO000oo 3y ago
    The US makes almost nothing on its own and I expect you know that, and the US population would be shrinking at a suicidal rate if not for mass human labor trafficking from the 3rd world.
  - howmayiannoyyou 3y ago
    This is absurdly incorrect in the context of the article. As just one example - the US shuttered more than half of its ship building capacity after the Soviet Union fell. You cannot convert a foreign owned Toyota auto assembly plant into a shipyard. And, it would be nice if US economic stats made a distinction between manufacturing and assembly. A lot of what you call manufacturing is simply the low skilled combining of parts made overseas.
    - mcphage 3y ago
      > You cannot convert a foreign owned Toyota auto assembly plant into a shipyard. As long as it’s in the US—yeah, you can.
      - fragmede 3y ago
        The US government coming in and forcibly taking control of a Toyota auto assembly plant located on US soil won't do anything to move it 320 miles down 65 from Huntsville, Alabama to the (gulf) coast. I'm no shipbuilder, but I get the impression that shipyards are typically near the ocean.
        mcphage 3y ago
        Oh, if the issue at hand is because of its physical location, then you're right, although it could still manufacture parts. I thought the GP was emphasizing the fact that it was owned by a non-US company.
Jevon23 3y ago
Bit like saying there's no point in wearing a seatbelt because "you're delusional if you think you can live forever." Sure, nothing lasts forever. Doesn't mean we just roll over and give up.
- beardyw 3y ago
  It is better for a country to be realistic about it's place on the world. I live in the UK. There are still people here with an exaggerated idea of our importance which helps no one.
- hackinthebochs 3y ago
  But if you're incapable of recognizing your reduced standing in the world, you can end up miscalculating the resistance from other nations as you promote your interests. Being unable to accurately assess the expectations of success of other nations in promoting their interests will just lead to runaway escalation and potentially a world war.
beardyw 3y ago
History tells us that nothing remains constant so even those changes will come and go.
Avshalom 3y ago
Well china currently has a larger population, but here's Noah asking us to make enough bullets to change that.
- marricks 3y ago
  What a beautiful dream Noah promises us all.
- NhanH 3y ago
  Just to put actual number into sight: that’s at least a billion people we are talking about. Even if a war happen 20 years from now and the US double its population while China has a population collapse, it’s still 400 million people++
  - galangalalgol 3y ago
    The problem isn't the absolute nimber, it is the ratio of producers and consumers in general to consumers of food.
    - giardini 3y ago
      It's really about the number of young men of the age to be conscripted.
- inconceivable 3y ago
  noah is a prototypical 90's-era weeb who worships japan and absolutely despises china and chinese people in general. i'm surprised in 2023 people aren't yet tired of this schtick. it's getting old.
- giardini 3y ago
  Need we fear a war of bullets with China? Is this not merely another diabolical plot to kill the remaining Boomers (the last American generation who know how to shoot guns and save money) by engaging them in a war of attrition with China's analogous elderly population?
mpalmer 3y ago
> will ultimately have much larger economies Will they necessarily? I would expect culture and system of government to be factors in whether a country can not only support 1 billion plus people, but grow their economy too. Let alone natural resources
rhaway84773 3y ago
Except the rich and educated Indians and Chinese want to move to the US. India and China having 4x the US’s population doesn’t mean anything if the top 5-10 productive percentile of their population emigrate to the US. Further, unlike India and China which literally share a contested border, the U.S. is surrounded by extremely friendly nations and 2 oceans. Further, the US has a 200+ year history of a relatively stable democracy whereas India is currently turning into whatever clown show Modi is trying to turn it into, and Xi Jinping has turned China into the kind of autocracy where he is telling highly educated Chinese that they should go back to their villages and try their hand at subsistence farming. I would have thought the last 6 months of Chinese collapse, which should have been a post Zero COVID era of epic growth would have disabused people of the notion that people automatically means growth and success. China is currently beyond their demographic dividend and is now in the payback stage, having f’ed their demographics massively with their 1 child policy. India is in the peak of their demographic dividend but instead of utilizing it to productive ends is engaged in the promotion of religious infighting and autocratic tendencies all to satisfy the power lust of 1 man and his lackeys.
- klyrs 3y ago
  > India and China having 4x the US’s population doesn’t mean anything if the top 5-10 productive percentile of their population emigrate to the US. The richest, in India, China, and the US are not the "most productive" by any means. They're the most extractive. If we were immigrating hard workers, we wouldn't have labor shortages. Instead, we're immigrating investors who drive up real estate costs.
sureglymop 3y ago
Also, why should the US be #1? What is so much _greater_ about the US?
- cosmic_quanta 3y ago
  Honestly, it's its geography. Only friendly neighbours on the same continent, vast swaths of some of the most fertile land in the world, water access to Europe AND Asia, etc. Regardless of the difference between Chinese and US citizens / culture / government, geography will always remain an advantage
  - dirtyid 3y ago
    Geographic benefits erodes with technology. Technology has compressed the world, global shipping gives actors with money and leverage access to resources around the world. Post war US power projection is based off the fact it has technology to reach others while others cannot reach CONUS. Which has/is going to change shortly. Now techology like precise long range strikes makes CONUS no better than Saudi. Having resource autarky =/= resource security when modern missiles can take out critical infra on CONUS. Geography matters less than ever.
  - mytailorisrich 3y ago
    As it happens, China is the same size as the US, has a lot of natural resources, and also large swaths of very fertile land (which partly explains why they have always had a large population) and, for instance, they are the largest producer of both wheat and rice in the world.
    - hollerith 3y ago
      I recently heard (on some youtube video) that China has 10% of the world's farmland and 20% of the world's population. Also, any country that is not extremely poor does mechanized farming, which has been described as "using land to turn petroleum into food", and most of the petroleum China uses comes from the Persian Gulf or even further away. (For example, I'm pretty sure that most of Russia's flow of petroleum to China comes via ports on the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea.) In contrast, (because of the fracking revolution) the US produces all the petroleum it needs domestically. If that changes in the future (for example because of a commitment to reducing carbon emissions cause regulations that discourage petroleum production in the US) then the US can probably make up any shortfall with petroleum from Canada. And I'm pretty sure China must import most of its needs for 2 of the 3 major fertilizing commodities (nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium). And they get a lot of grain and oilseed for example from Ukraine or at least they did until Russia stopped the flow (according to a Youtube video I recently watched). I see a lot of statements here to the effect of how screwed the US would be if it suddenly couldn't import things from China, but very little on how much more screwed China would be if it couldn't import things from other continents. At least the US can feed its population, keep the electricity on and keep the trucks moving on its highways without imports.
galangalalgol 3y ago
According to Zeihan, China, and to a lesser extent India, have a horrible demographics problem looming. The prediction was for a dramatic collapse in manufacturing capacity. China at least might have the central authority to kill all those too old to work or consume, but my understanding is that doesn't fit well with the predominant culture there which highly respects age. Also, the whole killing people thing... All the nations, especially those that industrialized quickly are facing this problem. As industrialization correlates strongly with smaller families (don't need children to work the farm). But China compounded it with the one child policy. And they industrialized faster than almost anyone. India went straight for a service economy, that may be even worse. Russia... Not sure about Brazil. The US delayed its demographic collapse via immigration. It might even effect a soft landing relative to the rest of the world if it can ramp back up manufacturing in a way that doesn't destroy shared resources or enforce permanent underclasses leading to revolt. That isn't an easy task.
- inconceivable 3y ago
  pretty much everyone else with a public platform in geopolitical analysis has a low opinion of zeihan. this includes shapiro, papic, and other stratfor alumni who i pay attention to. zeihan's analysis is performative and is designed to make him money, not provide value to anyone in the real world. wow, america's geography makes it invincible and china will collapse any day now because they suck at innovating. that's super insightful and original. i definitely haven't been hearing that repeated ad nauseum for literally 40 years.
  - galangalalgol 3y ago
    I'd like to read them, his stuff does seem entertainment heavy. And I spot some errors in places I have expertise, if small ones. Not this Shapiro right? This one is mostly agreeing with Zeihan. https://www.dailywire.com/news/bank-on-it-ben-shapiro-predicts-the-one-move-china-will-make-towards-taiwan-thanks-to-the-biden-administration https://www.dailywire.com/news/bank-on-it-ben-shapiro-predic...
    - 3y ago
foogazi 3y ago
> The hard truth is that countries like India and China that have 4x the population will ultimately have much larger economies and will thus be able to have larger military capabilities. meanwhile they are still fighting with sticks in the Himalayas
- giardini 3y ago
  foogazi says "meanwhile they are still fighting with sticks in the Himalayas." But the rats are well-fed: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=indian+temple+feeding+the+rats&iax=videos&ia=videos https://duckduckgo.com/?q=indian+temple+feeding+the+rats&iax...
nradov 3y ago
China has geographic and natural resource constraints which will make it quite difficult for them to ever surpass the USA regardless of population. They are deficient in most of the things necessary for a strong industrial economy including iron ore, fossil fuels, productive farmland, fertilizers, and navigable waterways. The authoritarian dictatorship system they have adopted is also highly unstable. Dictatorships are only stable until some sort of catastrophic "black swan" event occurs, and then everything collapses faster than anyone expected. Their history is full of violent uprisings and civil wars. I wouldn't be surprised to see another one within our lifetimes. Even just maintaining the security apparatus necessary to control the populace is a huge drag on their economy.

Retric 3y ago

It boils down to economies of scale. The DoD requires a significant percentage of war materials to be manufactured in the US for strategic reasons. You don’t to be unable to make bullets/boots/etc in a war because all the factories that manufacture that stuff are in the country you’re fighting. But that also extends to the components to manufacture that stuff like shoes laces, optical cables, screws etc etc. However having small scale manufacturing in the US inherently means less automation and high labor costs. Meanwhile China which is already manufacturing most things at scale doesn’t need to pay a premium for this stuff. It’s debatable how much this is necessary, but war is more about logistics than most people assume.

candiddevmike 3y ago

Does China have more or less corruption with their military spend? Who gets more for their money, US or China? Is there a case for a US military manufacturing corp?