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This is like complaining that someone like Vint Cerf or Guido von Rossum isn't quitting technology to go to law school. When you have 30-40 years of experience

This is like complaining that someone like Vint Cerf or Guido von Rossum isn't quitting technology to go to law school. When you have 30-40 years of experience up to literally the executive or C-suite level in a field, your best bet in your 50s is to stay in that field. And for General Officers or Flag Officers, that field is the defense sector. Sure, it's always needed to have ethics safeguards when people involved in contracting switch jobs, but domain expertise is a thing that's valued. And as much as it's an uncomfortable truth for some people on the internet, working in defense is not a dishonorable career. And while corruption in the so-called "military-industrial complex" exists, based on my 20 years in uniform, I'm not sure it's worse than in other sectors of the economy.

clintonb 3y ago
> And while corruption in the so-called "military-industrial complex" exists, based on my 20 years in uniform, I'm not sure it's worse than in other sectors of the economy. Your response to the corruption is whataboutism? Should we aim to end corruption regardless of what happens in other sectors?
- nononoenono 3y ago
  a more appropriate interpretation (according to the site guidelines) is that the poster was implying corruption in the us economy is very low and that military corruption, being no worse, is also very low. aiming to eliminate corruptoin is a bit pie in the sky.
  - psunavy03 3y ago
    Exactly this. If the Fat Leonard fiasco had been a "dog bites man" story, it wouldn't have been such a scandal. Again, looking back on a 20-year active and reserve career in uniform, my personal opinion is that a lot of the waste and inefficiency in DOD is precisely because of all the ethics rules. Not that I don't approve of ethics rules, but there are times it seems the hoops you have to jump through to spend government money are based on the assumption that A) everything has to be above board and B) all contractors involved are inherently a bunch of flim-flam artists who will fleece the government given half a chance. And this is precisely why the Pentagon bureaucracy is so infamous, and why companies want to hire retired Generals and Admirals to help them navigate it.
- psunavy03 3y ago
  Of course we should. But I'm not convinced barring four-stars from going to work with Raytheon or Lockheed Martin is the way to do it. First off, defense contracting is run through the services, not the combatant commands, so there's 11 four-star officers off the bat who aren't making contracting decisions compared to six who are. Remember, military services man, train, and equip the Joint Force. Combatant Commanders employ the Joint Force. The service heads have no command authority in the field. They are merely force providers to the Combatant Commanders. What's more, funding allocations to the services start with what's called the Defense Planning Guidance, which is a document issued by the Office of the (civilian) Secretary of Defense. This is then broken down into Service Program Guidance about where each military service spends its money. Services then come up with a Program Objective Memorandum outlining the budget they need, which then goes to the Joint Staff, because the Joint Staff's job is refereeing interservice food fights. This then goes to the (civilian) Presidential administration, who presents a budget to Congress, who approves it. So there are many cooks in this budgetary kitchen, and if Congress doesn't like the military Congress funded and approved for the President to use, then perhaps Congress can look itself in the face and ask itself why it's not fulfilling its duties under Article I of the United States Constitution, instead of trying to pass the buck onto the President's subordinate officers, when it's ultimately Congress who controls the purse strings. I keep saying "Congress" for a reason . . .
- mattmcknight 3y ago
  Yes, but ending the ability of government employees who are forced to retire to seek employment in their field of expertise is not a good solution to corruption.
femiagbabiaka 3y ago
The FY2024 Pentagon budget is 842 billion dollars. The Pentagon cannot pass an audit of its budget to save its life, it's the status quo: https://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2019/11/20/Pentagon-Fails-Audit-Again https://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2019/11/20/Pentagon-Fails-Aud.... The Pentagon makes tens of trillions of dollars of accounting adjustments each year because its internal financial controls are basically non existent. If the Pentagon was a publicly traded company, Matt Levine would be writing about it as an exemplar of fraud every week and its shareholders would be suing. You're underplaying the corruption by an order of magnitude at least.
- gruez 3y ago
  >The Pentagon cannot pass an audit of its budget to save its life, it's the status quo: https://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2019/11/20/Pentagon-Fails-Aud https://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2019/11/20/Pentagon-Fails-Aud.... That's not what the link claims though. >The fiscal 2019 audit examined more than $2.9 trillion in assets and $2.8 trillion in liabilities, the Pentagon said. The process involved about 1,400 auditors conducting 600 site visits, at a cost of nearly $1 billion. Sounds like they can't keep track of all the stuff they supposedly own (ie. "assets"). That's slightly different than its yearly budget simply disappearing. Even if this year they tracked down where every cent went, they'd still fail the audit, because they can't account for the stuff they purchased years ago.
  - femiagbabiaka 3y ago
    Granted. But it’s a difference without a distinction. The budget does disappear: into assets and liabilities that are poorly accounted for.
    - naveen99 3y ago
      It still shows up in inflation and interest rates. It’s the same with the national debt. The difference between 24 trillion and 25 trillion is basically just inflation and interest rates.
- KptMarchewa 3y ago
ajcp 3y ago
Don't you think we should hold any economic activity that impacts those working in the service of the public interest/their elected representatives to a higher standard than "other sectors of the economy"? Public servants/members of the military not only pledge to avoid conflicts of interest, but the appearance of them as well. Shouldn't we hold economic activity that services those interests to that same standard?
- gruez 3y ago
  >Public servants/members of the military not only pledge to avoid conflicts of interest, but the appearance of them as well. Shouldn't we hold economic activity that services those interests to that same standard? But are we willing to pay for it? Government jobs already pay pretty poorly compared to the private sector. Slapping the equivalent of a non-compete onto them isn't going to make them more appealing. You might have gotten rid of all the corruption, but you also ensured that the government will be staffed by monkeys.
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
    Military members, government employees, and defense contractors all receive their money from the same source - the defense budget. The government is already paying people super high salaries, just indirectly through a layer of contracts. So its not about the money.
  - ajcp 3y ago
    Yes, and it's imperative that we do. Even then an O-9/O-10 gets $17,675.10 a month[0] in base pay and $3,963 a month[1] in *tax exempt*[2] housing allowance for the DC metro area. That's $259,657.20 a year in salary. While maybe not high by C-suite or Silicone Valley standards, that ain't bad at all. 0. https://militarypay.defense.gov/Portals/3/Documents/2023%20Basic%20Pay%20Table.pdf https://militarypay.defense.gov/Portals/3/Documents/2023%20B... 1. https://veteran.com/bah-rates-state/district-of-columbia-dc/ https://veteran.com/bah-rates-state/district-of-columbia-dc/ 2. https://militarypay.defense.gov/Pay/Tax-Information/Exempt/ https://militarypay.defense.gov/Pay/Tax-Information/Exempt/
giraffe_lady 3y ago
[flagged]
- ipaddr 3y ago
  A country without a military isn't a country for very long
  - giraffe_lady 3y ago
    We're not talking about "a country without a military." We're talking about the american war machine, possibly the greatest engine of destruction and misery the world has ever known. If the US can't exist without the atrocities it has been using its military to commit for the last century then sure, it should not exist. I suspect there are other paths, however.
    - p1esk 3y ago
      And what do you think will happen in the world without US? China and Russia would love that.
    - KptMarchewa 3y ago
      US military is the best thing that have happened to the world, and is one of the main reasons for the decades of general peace and prosperity that happened since WW2 globally.
- hfuyf65 3y ago
  Could you elaborate? I disagree just because of the basic human nature, but I am curious about your rationale for the statement above.
  - giraffe_lady 3y ago
    I'm talking specific to the US military and its uses and transgressions, not condemning everyone who has ever fought a war in history. Nothing in "basic human nature" made us do agent orange or abu ghraib. We chose this course and we must unchoose it.
civilitty 3y ago
What domain expertise? They’re experts at navigating politics at that level more than anything else. The vast majority of these people are taking board seats. They don’t even work for the companies full time, let alone apply any of their expertise to AI companies and experimental drone platforms. They’re there for connections.
- thrill 3y ago
  What do you think the most valuable board members of a large company tend to be well versed in?
- psunavy03 3y ago
  Are you telling me that people who worked their way up from entry-level to executive and C-suite positions don't have any domain expertise beyond "playing politics?" Every general and flag officer started out as a junior officer or junior enlisted servicemember. There is literally no other way to get there. There are no lateral hires into the military; it's "up or out."
  - someguydave 3y ago
    Sure but it has likely been decades since they practiced their speciality. If lockheed were hiring these generals for their technical expertise why put them on the board of directors?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - psunavy03 3y ago
      This is like claiming a law firm's named partners haven't practiced law in decades.
      - someguydave 3y ago
        Law firms and the military hierarchy are not comparable.
anonyme-honteux 3y ago
War is too serious a matter to be left to the generals. An absolutely oversized military industrial complex is indeed problematic if a country wants to be a full democracy. It's not the only reason obviously, but according to the economist democracy index, the USA ranks as "flawed democracy", #30 in the world, which is better than Slovenia and Botsnawa but far from the countries from Scandinavia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index
- psunavy03 3y ago
  [flagged]
- Manuel_D 3y ago
  The main reason The Economist ranked down the US was the electral college, and gerrymandering. Not it's military industrial complex or revolving door between politics and industry.
- rewmie 3y ago
  > War is too serious a matter to be left to the generals. An absolutely oversized military industrial complex is indeed problematic if a country wants to be a full democracy. I think that the US armed forces have a far wider set of responsibilities than "war". For example, they act as a social protection service for its members, and weapons program are managed as part of economic policies as job guarantee programmes. Then there are research programs who started out as military projects which ended up benefitting the whole mankind, such as the internet or GPS. This takes place in a country whose society has been almost rabidly opposed to any policy remotely associated with socialism. It's almost a cheat code of sorts. In pragmatic terms, criticising the US armed forces just because "war" seems ignorant and foolish.
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
    The US military, in a sense then, is actually a fully self-contained centrally managed economy and state. Funny how 'communism' can be both the ultimate evil AND the structural model needed for efficient running of such a large organization like the military.
thoughtofone 3y ago
Floating without a command is uncommon even post- Department Head (which nobody wants to do). Otherwise sometimes partisan, but topical; Ctrl-F "lobby"; 2 year waiting period for lawmakers; "End Washington Corruption": https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/end-washington-corruption https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/end-washington-corruption Lord of War: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_War Tropic Thunder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_Thunder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_Thunder Barry on HBO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_(TV_series) Jack Ryan on Amazon Prime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ryan_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ryan_(TV_series)
- psunavy03 3y ago
  . . . are you seriously responding to a post about actual DOD contracting by referencing a fictional Hollywood movie, a satirical fictional Hollywood movie, an HBO series, and a Tom Clancy character?
Nullabillity 3y ago
[flagged]
- latency-guy2 3y ago
  Have you thought about the idea that you are some people on the internet?
  - Nullabillity 3y ago
    Sorry, lamp-shading is not an argument.
- rewmie 3y ago
  > [citation needed] That's not how it works. You don't get to pull out of your ass that a random career is dishonorable and pretend that it's everyone else's responsibility to fix your unsubstantiated accusation. Either you have a valid reason to argue that a career is dishonorable, or you should just stay quiet.
  - Nullabillity 3y ago
    > That's not how it works. You don't get to pull out of your ass that a random career is dishonorable and pretend that it's everyone else's responsibility to fix your unsubstantiated accusation. You find it strange to consider murderers and torturers to be dishonorable?
appplication 3y ago
> And while corruption in the so-called "military-industrial complex" exists, based on my 20 years in uniform, I'm not sure it's worse than in other sectors of the economy. The issue with defense contracting is not corruption, but the fact that it can feel like a trap for a lot of transitioning vets. For every general that retires there’s 1000+ mid level officers and enlisted not knowing what else to do with themselves. And after 6-20 years in service joining a defense company because they were under equipped to and unprepared to transition from military duty to a fully civilian position.

clintonb 3y ago

> And while corruption in the so-called "military-industrial complex" exists, based on my 20 years in uniform, I'm not sure it's worse than in other sectors of the economy. Your response to the corruption is whataboutism? Should we aim to end corruption regardless of what happens in other sectors?

nononoenono 3y ago
a more appropriate interpretation (according to the site guidelines) is that the poster was implying corruption in the us economy is very low and that military corruption, being no worse, is also very low. aiming to eliminate corruptoin is a bit pie in the sky.
- psunavy03 3y ago
  Exactly this. If the Fat Leonard fiasco had been a "dog bites man" story, it wouldn't have been such a scandal. Again, looking back on a 20-year active and reserve career in uniform, my personal opinion is that a lot of the waste and inefficiency in DOD is precisely because of all the ethics rules. Not that I don't approve of ethics rules, but there are times it seems the hoops you have to jump through to spend government money are based on the assumption that A) everything has to be above board and B) all contractors involved are inherently a bunch of flim-flam artists who will fleece the government given half a chance. And this is precisely why the Pentagon bureaucracy is so infamous, and why companies want to hire retired Generals and Admirals to help them navigate it.
psunavy03 3y ago
Of course we should. But I'm not convinced barring four-stars from going to work with Raytheon or Lockheed Martin is the way to do it. First off, defense contracting is run through the services, not the combatant commands, so there's 11 four-star officers off the bat who aren't making contracting decisions compared to six who are. Remember, military services man, train, and equip the Joint Force. Combatant Commanders employ the Joint Force. The service heads have no command authority in the field. They are merely force providers to the Combatant Commanders. What's more, funding allocations to the services start with what's called the Defense Planning Guidance, which is a document issued by the Office of the (civilian) Secretary of Defense. This is then broken down into Service Program Guidance about where each military service spends its money. Services then come up with a Program Objective Memorandum outlining the budget they need, which then goes to the Joint Staff, because the Joint Staff's job is refereeing interservice food fights. This then goes to the (civilian) Presidential administration, who presents a budget to Congress, who approves it. So there are many cooks in this budgetary kitchen, and if Congress doesn't like the military Congress funded and approved for the President to use, then perhaps Congress can look itself in the face and ask itself why it's not fulfilling its duties under Article I of the United States Constitution, instead of trying to pass the buck onto the President's subordinate officers, when it's ultimately Congress who controls the purse strings. I keep saying "Congress" for a reason . . .
mattmcknight 3y ago
Yes, but ending the ability of government employees who are forced to retire to seek employment in their field of expertise is not a good solution to corruption.

femiagbabiaka 3y ago

The FY2024 Pentagon budget is 842 billion dollars. The Pentagon cannot pass an audit of its budget to save its life, it's the status quo: https://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2019/11/20/Pentagon-Fails-Audit-Again https://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2019/11/20/Pentagon-Fails-Aud.... The Pentagon makes tens of trillions of dollars of accounting adjustments each year because its internal financial controls are basically non existent. If the Pentagon was a publicly traded company, Matt Levine would be writing about it as an exemplar of fraud every week and its shareholders would be suing. You're underplaying the corruption by an order of magnitude at least.

gruez 3y ago
>The Pentagon cannot pass an audit of its budget to save its life, it's the status quo: https://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2019/11/20/Pentagon-Fails-Aud https://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2019/11/20/Pentagon-Fails-Aud.... That's not what the link claims though. >The fiscal 2019 audit examined more than $2.9 trillion in assets and $2.8 trillion in liabilities, the Pentagon said. The process involved about 1,400 auditors conducting 600 site visits, at a cost of nearly $1 billion. Sounds like they can't keep track of all the stuff they supposedly own (ie. "assets"). That's slightly different than its yearly budget simply disappearing. Even if this year they tracked down where every cent went, they'd still fail the audit, because they can't account for the stuff they purchased years ago.
- femiagbabiaka 3y ago
  Granted. But it’s a difference without a distinction. The budget does disappear: into assets and liabilities that are poorly accounted for.
  - naveen99 3y ago
    It still shows up in inflation and interest rates. It’s the same with the national debt. The difference between 24 trillion and 25 trillion is basically just inflation and interest rates.
KptMarchewa 3y ago

ajcp 3y ago

Don't you think we should hold any economic activity that impacts those working in the service of the public interest/their elected representatives to a higher standard than "other sectors of the economy"? Public servants/members of the military not only pledge to avoid conflicts of interest, but the appearance of them as well. Shouldn't we hold economic activity that services those interests to that same standard?

gruez 3y ago
>Public servants/members of the military not only pledge to avoid conflicts of interest, but the appearance of them as well. Shouldn't we hold economic activity that services those interests to that same standard? But are we willing to pay for it? Government jobs already pay pretty poorly compared to the private sector. Slapping the equivalent of a non-compete onto them isn't going to make them more appealing. You might have gotten rid of all the corruption, but you also ensured that the government will be staffed by monkeys.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
  Military members, government employees, and defense contractors all receive their money from the same source - the defense budget. The government is already paying people super high salaries, just indirectly through a layer of contracts. So its not about the money.
- ajcp 3y ago
  Yes, and it's imperative that we do. Even then an O-9/O-10 gets $17,675.10 a month[0] in base pay and $3,963 a month[1] in *tax exempt*[2] housing allowance for the DC metro area. That's $259,657.20 a year in salary. While maybe not high by C-suite or Silicone Valley standards, that ain't bad at all. 0. https://militarypay.defense.gov/Portals/3/Documents/2023%20Basic%20Pay%20Table.pdf https://militarypay.defense.gov/Portals/3/Documents/2023%20B... 1. https://veteran.com/bah-rates-state/district-of-columbia-dc/ https://veteran.com/bah-rates-state/district-of-columbia-dc/ 2. https://militarypay.defense.gov/Pay/Tax-Information/Exempt/ https://militarypay.defense.gov/Pay/Tax-Information/Exempt/

giraffe_lady 3y ago

[flagged]

ipaddr 3y ago
A country without a military isn't a country for very long
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  We're not talking about "a country without a military." We're talking about the american war machine, possibly the greatest engine of destruction and misery the world has ever known. If the US can't exist without the atrocities it has been using its military to commit for the last century then sure, it should not exist. I suspect there are other paths, however.
  - p1esk 3y ago
    And what do you think will happen in the world without US? China and Russia would love that.
  - KptMarchewa 3y ago
    US military is the best thing that have happened to the world, and is one of the main reasons for the decades of general peace and prosperity that happened since WW2 globally.
hfuyf65 3y ago
Could you elaborate? I disagree just because of the basic human nature, but I am curious about your rationale for the statement above.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  I'm talking specific to the US military and its uses and transgressions, not condemning everyone who has ever fought a war in history. Nothing in "basic human nature" made us do agent orange or abu ghraib. We chose this course and we must unchoose it.

civilitty 3y ago

What domain expertise? They’re experts at navigating politics at that level more than anything else. The vast majority of these people are taking board seats. They don’t even work for the companies full time, let alone apply any of their expertise to AI companies and experimental drone platforms. They’re there for connections.

thrill 3y ago
What do you think the most valuable board members of a large company tend to be well versed in?
psunavy03 3y ago
Are you telling me that people who worked their way up from entry-level to executive and C-suite positions don't have any domain expertise beyond "playing politics?" Every general and flag officer started out as a junior officer or junior enlisted servicemember. There is literally no other way to get there. There are no lateral hires into the military; it's "up or out."
- someguydave 3y ago
  Sure but it has likely been decades since they practiced their speciality. If lockheed were hiring these generals for their technical expertise why put them on the board of directors?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - psunavy03 3y ago
    This is like claiming a law firm's named partners haven't practiced law in decades.
    - someguydave 3y ago
      Law firms and the military hierarchy are not comparable.

anonyme-honteux 3y ago

War is too serious a matter to be left to the generals. An absolutely oversized military industrial complex is indeed problematic if a country wants to be a full democracy. It's not the only reason obviously, but according to the economist democracy index, the USA ranks as "flawed democracy", #30 in the world, which is better than Slovenia and Botsnawa but far from the countries from Scandinavia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index

psunavy03 3y ago
[flagged]
Manuel_D 3y ago
The main reason The Economist ranked down the US was the electral college, and gerrymandering. Not it's military industrial complex or revolving door between politics and industry.
rewmie 3y ago
> War is too serious a matter to be left to the generals. An absolutely oversized military industrial complex is indeed problematic if a country wants to be a full democracy. I think that the US armed forces have a far wider set of responsibilities than "war". For example, they act as a social protection service for its members, and weapons program are managed as part of economic policies as job guarantee programmes. Then there are research programs who started out as military projects which ended up benefitting the whole mankind, such as the internet or GPS. This takes place in a country whose society has been almost rabidly opposed to any policy remotely associated with socialism. It's almost a cheat code of sorts. In pragmatic terms, criticising the US armed forces just because "war" seems ignorant and foolish.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
  The US military, in a sense then, is actually a fully self-contained centrally managed economy and state. Funny how 'communism' can be both the ultimate evil AND the structural model needed for efficient running of such a large organization like the military.

thoughtofone 3y ago

Floating without a command is uncommon even post- Department Head (which nobody wants to do). Otherwise sometimes partisan, but topical; Ctrl-F "lobby"; 2 year waiting period for lawmakers; "End Washington Corruption": https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/end-washington-corruption https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/end-washington-corruption Lord of War: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_War Tropic Thunder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_Thunder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_Thunder Barry on HBO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_(TV_series) Jack Ryan on Amazon Prime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ryan_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ryan_(TV_series)

psunavy03 3y ago
. . . are you seriously responding to a post about actual DOD contracting by referencing a fictional Hollywood movie, a satirical fictional Hollywood movie, an HBO series, and a Tom Clancy character?

Nullabillity 3y ago

[flagged]

latency-guy2 3y ago
Have you thought about the idea that you are some people on the internet?
- Nullabillity 3y ago
  Sorry, lamp-shading is not an argument.
rewmie 3y ago
> [citation needed] That's not how it works. You don't get to pull out of your ass that a random career is dishonorable and pretend that it's everyone else's responsibility to fix your unsubstantiated accusation. Either you have a valid reason to argue that a career is dishonorable, or you should just stay quiet.
- Nullabillity 3y ago
  > That's not how it works. You don't get to pull out of your ass that a random career is dishonorable and pretend that it's everyone else's responsibility to fix your unsubstantiated accusation. You find it strange to consider murderers and torturers to be dishonorable?

appplication 3y ago

> And while corruption in the so-called "military-industrial complex" exists, based on my 20 years in uniform, I'm not sure it's worse than in other sectors of the economy. The issue with defense contracting is not corruption, but the fact that it can feel like a trap for a lot of transitioning vets. For every general that retires there’s 1000+ mid level officers and enlisted not knowing what else to do with themselves. And after 6-20 years in service joining a defense company because they were under equipped to and unprepared to transition from military duty to a fully civilian position.