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The US Military Is Getting Smaller, Cheaper and Smarter
- anon1199022 3y agono it is not getting cheaper, much propaganda bloomberg loves it
- jafo1989 3y agoThanks for saving me a click.
- jschveibinz 3y agoActually, as a fraction of GDP, the defense budget is getting smaller as you can see here: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/military-spending-defense-budget https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/mili... Cheers.
- LewisVerstappen 3y agoWhy would you look at it as a % of GDP? Wouldnt a better comparison be inflation adjusted dollars?
- bushbaba 3y agoPercentage of gdp would better show what percentage of our resources and people time is being spent.
- LewisVerstappen 3y agoHmm yeah makes sense
- solardev 3y agoIt could also just reflect some other program getting more money
- anovikov 3y agoGood one, but in general, don't trust Macrotrends. Almost every number you can find on it is verifiably false. Sometimes the mistakes are ridiculous and laughable. Not sure who maintains this site, but it regularly produces nonsense. World Bank database is a much better resource. So is CIA factbook although making historical comparisons using it is inconvenient.
- chiefalchemist 3y agoPerhaps. Nonetheless it's ~10x Russia's[1] and ~3.5x China's. The majority of the the remaining Top 10 spenders are allies. It's not a matter of GDP, it's a matter of: exactly who and what necessitates such excess? And what is the associated opportunity cost? [1] And yet it didn't prevent Russia's quest for Ukraine.
- hedora 3y agoThe US was winning the shooting war in Ukraine the last time I checked (we may not technically be at war with Russia, but we are in most practical senses of the word).
- xyzelement 3y ago// The US was winning the shooting war How would we know? I live in the US but speak fluent Russian and have lots of family from Ukraine, and yet I don't feel like having access to all these perspectives enables me to have a sense for where the truth is. I can say that what we see in the west is not the whole story - lots of victories, footage of droned Russians, and an occasional reference to a fallen Ukrainians hero. In more pro-russian sources, you get exactly the opposite idea and visuals - lots of blown up Ukrainian and destroyed equipment. If you don't see that on regular basis and what I described sounds surprising, you are getting a very filtered view of what's going on. I can't claim where the truth is but I know the picture most westerners get by default is very rosy vs reality.
- philwelch 3y agoUkraine is still in the fight over eighteen months after an invasion that was planned to topple Kyiv in three days. I would say the Ukrainians probably deserve more credit than the United States for this outcome, but if you asked anyone in the winter of 2021/2022 to predict the outcome of a full scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine is doing much better than one would have reasonably expected.
- chrisco255 3y ago
- chrisco255 3y agoLooks like it wavers slightly between 3.5 and 4.5%, depending on whether they're actively invading a middle eastern country or not.
- archo 3y agohttps://archive.is/OuQOY https://archive.is/OuQOY
- cornercasechase 3y agoNo, it’s not: > The FY 2023 DoD Budget request of $773.0 billion is a $30.7 billion, or 4.1% increase, from the FY 2022 enacted amount. https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2980014/the-department-of-defense-releases-the-presidents-fiscal-year-2023-defense-budg/ https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/298001...
- playday 3y agoThat’s lower than inflation, making it a reduction in real terms.
- etempleton 3y agoI think the implication is what the US military is buying is getting smaller, cheaper and smarter, not that the US military is downsizing.
- solardev 3y agoWish I could use that same logic in my budget requests. Yeah, the department is still spending a lot of money, but each library we buy is more specialized now!
- delecti 3y agoThat's actually a decent comparison. "We're spending just as much, but we're deploying lots of smaller containerized applications instead of one giant on-prem monolith."
- Hayvok 3y agoThe article is exploring the idea of moving away from large, multi-year, multi-billion platforms (like aircraft carriers). And it is doing so from the lens of most-effective warfighting capabilities, not from a budget reduction mindset.
- shove 3y agoYou can measure in nominal dollars, inflation-adjusted dollars, percentage of GDP … or in the only way that matters in war: in comparison to your adversaries Surprise! It’s neither getting smaller nor cheaper. Smarter? Well, war is pretty dumb … again, it ought to be compared to what we could be doing instead.
- DLA 3y agoUS MIL also needs to get more lethal. Smaller, cheaper (relative), and smarter are good measures moving in a good direction, but lethality a critical factor for winning wars.
- bannedbybros 3y ago[dead]
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago[dead]
- VoodooJuJu 3y agoFor those reading just the headline and not the article, it's not talking about the U.S. military downsizing budget-wise, but how they're investing more in smaller-size combat drones, which per-unit might be considered cheap, cheaper than a tank or UAV at least. There's a lot of sci-fi speculating, and in theory, swarms of thousands of small drones sounds like it has a lot of potential, but as far as I can tell, still just seems like a lot of speculation. Larger drones have played a role in modern warfare for decades, and we've seen homespun videos of Ukrainian consumer drones dropping simple explosives on sleeping Russian soldiers, but the efficacy of tiny drones seems questionable. I'd be interested in what someone who actually understands modern warfare thinks about these tiny drones and the role they'll fill.
- nvy 3y ago>but the efficacy of tiny drones seems questionable. Head on over to /r/RussiaUkraineWar2022 and you can see first person video of kamikaze drones being flown into hapless Russians on the regular. These are quadcopters with a high explosive or anti-armor round zip tied to it. They get directly into the entrance of dugouts or directly into the back of a speeding truck full of troops. It seems to me the ultimate in precision munitions. Warheads literally on foreheads. What's more it seems very difficult to defend against. There's the "anti drone rifle" that's basically a jammer on an assault rifle chassis, but the armies of today need widespread anti-drone jamming over huge areas, not point defense.
- rainworld 3y agohapless Russians Or, you know, hapless Ukrainians. Ukrainians may have been quicker to innovate in this area but that was a long time ago.
- nvy 3y ago>Or, you know, hapless Ukrainians. Ukrainians may have been quicker to innovate in this area but that was a long time ago. What's your point?
- rbanffy 3y agoI always suggest that the best way to reduce military spending, in particular for the US, would be to focus on soft power. Build schools and hospitals, turn the country into a role-model for others (make it look the country is seriously into being a democracy, improve living standards, reduce inequality, etc), and so many other relatively low-cost measures that would prevent a non-trivial amount of friction that ends up in direct offensive military action. Making more lethal and cheaper weapons is one way, sure, but one key goal of a standing military in peacetime is to maintain peace, and that can be achieved in many ways cheaper than that.
- tester756 3y ago>turn the country into a role-model for others you're assuming that they (others) care about this and do not want to hurt you
- rbanffy 3y agoNot sure what "you" means in this case. I'm not American and I don't live in the US. If it's about the US wanting to hurt me, I don't live in a country rich with oil, but I grew up in one that currently has a government less than aligned with American interests, part of the BRICS that's pushing for dedollarization of foreign commerce in the block. As for a lot of people being really upset about the US, it's not that surprising after invading two countries (one on manufactured evidence about WMD and against the recommendation of the international community), bombing them back to stone age, destabilizing their governments (with the excuse of giving them a "democracy"), and then leaving them to their own luck. And that's all part of what happened this century. I'm not even considering the American involvement in coups, extraordinary renditions, and extra-judicial executions, which generate surprisingly little international outrage, or the much bloodier involvement in South American dictatorships in the 60's and 70's. I really like the people, but I don't trust the American government to always do the moral thing.
- tester756 3y ago>Not sure what "you" means in this case. I'm not American and I don't live in the US. by "you" I meant US. so, this assumes that other do not want to hurt US.
- e63f67dd-065b 3y agoI’m not well versed on the current state of military procurement, but this kind of vaguely resembles the NGAD idea/programme that’s been going on for many years now. The article is also incredibly light on details. > How would Replicator work on the battlefield? The initial step might be mobilizing two separate swarms of small, unmanned vehicles. The first group, numbering in the tens of thousands, would be focused on surveillance and reconnaissance, sending back uncountable millions of data bits to form a precise targeting picture. Second, the battlespace would be turned over to hundreds or thousands of vehicles large enough to accommodate payloads of explosives. Working alongside them would be drones carrying out cyberattacks to blind the enemy, effectively “cloaking” our own forces while destroying an enemy’s fighting ability. Isn’t this already how the US mostly conducts operations, but without the tiny drones part? Take advantage of overwhelming air, intelligence, and logistical superiority to quickly neutralise enemy targets. I believe it’s literally in the latest edition of the released doctrine documents: use the clear superiority of US combined arms to coordinate multi domain operations. This really feels like a mostly fluff piece without any real substance. I haven’t seen any major evidence of a doctrinal change to smaller drones and platforms; NGAD seems alive and well, leaning in traditional American technological and organisational capacity as a core part of doctrine.
- lemper 3y agoalright. let's talk the number. how much would it cost to kill a sand dweller or amazon swinger? how high is the return of investment to get some oil?
- hodgesrm 3y agoThis sounds great but you still need tanks, humvees, missiles, artillery shells, anti-rocket systems, helicopters, etc. to fight wars. (Lots of them, too.) Adding drones does not address that need any more than the introduction of breech-loading rifles changed the need for other types of military equipment. And before we get too excited about eliminating carrier-like warships and transport aircraft...How does everyone think the drones will get onto the battlefield? Drones are another component of combined arms but you need the rest of the stack to use them effectively, plus boots on the ground to hold territory.
- nvy 3y agoNobody who actually understands warfare believes that aerial drones will obviate armies and navies. Among the definitional characteristics of air power are its impermanence and dependence on logistic support, and you bet your ass NATO countries know this. It's been established doctrine for years. Decades. But predicting that $thing will render boots on the ground obsolete is a tradition dating back to time immemorial.
- Ekaros 3y agoI would guess that not being in hot conflict has decent effect... You burn less money when you don't do anything yourself.
- oneTbrain23 3y agoMeaning weaker and ineffective. The last great battle they fought in Afghan was absolute humiliation. With peak of 400K troops station in Afghan for near 2 decades with near 10T spent with 1 single objective to remove Taleban. They return home fleeing in great Kabul flee incident gifting countless high tech weapons there to Talebans (to resold to Russians and Chinese). Trained 10K Afghanis commandos to join as mercs worldwide or seeded next round of 911 2.0 in USA. Tactics and weapon severely destroyed by Russians shovels (some American troops got slaughtered there as well under the guise of mercs). Talk about Syria, even more humiliating. The ops there when needed, actually had to request permissions with Wagners general there (not even Russian MoD). Cheaper? They win a war first, then we see and evaluate. As current standing, they are at best 3rd or 4th army in the world in actual combat.