3 ms·

I generally agree except for the war. Personnel costs, energy, manufacturing costs, costs of specific weaponry used vary vastly across countries. Russia or Chin

by oytis 3y ago

I generally agree except for the war. Personnel costs, energy, manufacturing costs, costs of specific weaponry used vary vastly across countries. Russia or China can deliver much more firepower per USD than US.

hollerith 3y ago
Energy costs are much lower in the US than in China which must import most of its energy from the Persian Gulf (and most of the energy it gets from Russia leaves Russia from Russia's European ports). The US has environmental policies that increase the cost of energy, but in a sufficiently serious war, those would get suspended. Personnel costs though are vastly higher in the US especially if "costs" included the political costs of instituting a draft.
- maxglute 3y ago
  Most of PRC energy mix is cheap domestic coal, which they have in essentially endless amount. PRC also generates ~2x more power, that's not something US relaxing enviromental policies can overcome. PRC has many cost advantages stacked in energy/inputs/capex/labour/production/process and just sheer scale. That's where you get into personell costs, moving bodies to build new capex, assuming there's even enough qualified expertise. That said, in a sufficiently serious war, IMO there'd be homeland attacks on critical infra, be it cyber or long range strikes, so it's really about who can survive/operate/recover from capex attrition fastest.
  - hollerith 3y ago
    Interesting. Can they run their navy and air force during a war on fuel synthesized from coal?
    - maxglute 3y ago
      PRC is not Japan, they're a continental sized land power with associated resources. They don't need to synthesize fuel from coal - they extract ~4 million barrels per day, IIRC US military consumes 90 million barrels per year / 240k barrels per day. PRC domestic consumption is 14m barrels per day.~6m goes to transportation, 2m goes to heating, both in process of being electrified. 2m goes to other. Industry, uses ~4m barrels, of which PRC MIC uses relatively little as % of output. They can sustain military multiple their current size on wartime economy. There's also estimated 300m barrels and growing in strategic reserves,. Coal is useful in that coal gassification useful to make fertilizer. Which PRC did - they were NET fertlizer exporter ~10 years ago before they clamped down on coal and curtailed sector. Utimately it's not just a US+co navy+airforce vs PRC navy+airforce fight, it's a whatever US military logistics can bring in theatre vs entire Chinese industrial homefront pivotting into MIC fight with their various PPP advantages using domestic inputs, which is looking more and more to be more substantial relative to what US+co is projected/planned to muster.
blegr 3y ago
Isn’t that the consequence of them having smaller budgets to begin with? Having a trillion-dollar budget means the US defense industry can afford more graft and cost overruns.
anonylizard 3y ago
Russia and China cannot deliver more firepower per USD. Any such impression is because Russia/China only fights near-shore wars, rather than the expeditionary wars of the US. Because the US fights global wars, it focuses on quality over quantity, as logistic costs start to dominate the production costs of military power. If China tried to fight some Iraq war, it'll be just as expensive as the US effort. Even soldiers have to be paid far more in offensive expeditionary wars than defensive homeland wars, just to maintain morale. One exception is mercenary groups like Wagner, they are actually extremely cost effective. That's because of much more flexible management structure, using private enterprise structures instead of rigid formal militaries, works 100 times better for chaotic low intensity warfare.
- lostlogin 3y ago
  > Russia and China cannot deliver more firepower per USD. Any such impression is because Russia/China only fights near-shore wars, rather than the expeditionary wars of the US. Maybe once - the shambolic internal politics playing out with the funding for Ukraine (a lot of which stays in the US anyway) doesn’t indicate American power. Quite the opposite.
- maxglute 3y ago
  US expenditionary model maybe relatively economical method for US to deliver global fires given US goals/constraints, but US choosing to be visiting team doesn't negate homecourt advantage for those who choose play at home. Reality is RU/PRC can deliver firepower cheaper in most reasonable scenarios we envision they'll get involved in. And currently both countries have autarkic enough MIC that PPP makes sense even accounting for smuggling in western machinery etc. They're not isn't Japan whose GDP in USD is 60% of ~2010 peak and need to scrounge for couch USDs to buy F35s. Or ~2B to buy 400 tomahawks over years when PRC MIC signalled they can make twice that in one day, at presumably magnitude lower costs, because they don't need 6sigma reliability to balance expeditionary logistics costs. That's before tactics changing procurement economics like RU ECM negating 100k per shell Excalibure rounds from 70% effectiveness to 6%, making it closer to 1k dumb shell. Or sanctioned to death Iran's budget ballistic salvo still managed to penetrate Israel+co's exquisitely expensive missile defense that was estimated to cost one day of IL GDP in interceptors (for just their share of interceptions). PPP is more appropriate comparison for powers whose MIC isn't dependent on US relative to their strategic goals i.e. PRC likely isn't going to spend trillions building/sustaining 11 nuke carriers and securing global basing to project power in the Americas, they're going to build a few 100s of billions worth of conventional ground launched ICBMs, stored in tunnels, to hit US strategic targets (like carriers in ports) in event of peer war.

by oytis 3y ago

hollerith 3y ago

Energy costs are much lower in the US than in China which must import most of its energy from the Persian Gulf (and most of the energy it gets from Russia leaves Russia from Russia's European ports). The US has environmental policies that increase the cost of energy, but in a sufficiently serious war, those would get suspended. Personnel costs though are vastly higher in the US especially if "costs" included the political costs of instituting a draft.

maxglute 3y ago
Most of PRC energy mix is cheap domestic coal, which they have in essentially endless amount. PRC also generates ~2x more power, that's not something US relaxing enviromental policies can overcome. PRC has many cost advantages stacked in energy/inputs/capex/labour/production/process and just sheer scale. That's where you get into personell costs, moving bodies to build new capex, assuming there's even enough qualified expertise. That said, in a sufficiently serious war, IMO there'd be homeland attacks on critical infra, be it cyber or long range strikes, so it's really about who can survive/operate/recover from capex attrition fastest.
- hollerith 3y ago
  Interesting. Can they run their navy and air force during a war on fuel synthesized from coal?
  - maxglute 3y ago
    PRC is not Japan, they're a continental sized land power with associated resources. They don't need to synthesize fuel from coal - they extract ~4 million barrels per day, IIRC US military consumes 90 million barrels per year / 240k barrels per day. PRC domestic consumption is 14m barrels per day.~6m goes to transportation, 2m goes to heating, both in process of being electrified. 2m goes to other. Industry, uses ~4m barrels, of which PRC MIC uses relatively little as % of output. They can sustain military multiple their current size on wartime economy. There's also estimated 300m barrels and growing in strategic reserves,. Coal is useful in that coal gassification useful to make fertilizer. Which PRC did - they were NET fertlizer exporter ~10 years ago before they clamped down on coal and curtailed sector. Utimately it's not just a US+co navy+airforce vs PRC navy+airforce fight, it's a whatever US military logistics can bring in theatre vs entire Chinese industrial homefront pivotting into MIC fight with their various PPP advantages using domestic inputs, which is looking more and more to be more substantial relative to what US+co is projected/planned to muster.

blegr 3y ago

Isn’t that the consequence of them having smaller budgets to begin with? Having a trillion-dollar budget means the US defense industry can afford more graft and cost overruns.

anonylizard 3y ago

Russia and China cannot deliver more firepower per USD. Any such impression is because Russia/China only fights near-shore wars, rather than the expeditionary wars of the US. Because the US fights global wars, it focuses on quality over quantity, as logistic costs start to dominate the production costs of military power. If China tried to fight some Iraq war, it'll be just as expensive as the US effort. Even soldiers have to be paid far more in offensive expeditionary wars than defensive homeland wars, just to maintain morale. One exception is mercenary groups like Wagner, they are actually extremely cost effective. That's because of much more flexible management structure, using private enterprise structures instead of rigid formal militaries, works 100 times better for chaotic low intensity warfare.

lostlogin 3y ago
> Russia and China cannot deliver more firepower per USD. Any such impression is because Russia/China only fights near-shore wars, rather than the expeditionary wars of the US. Maybe once - the shambolic internal politics playing out with the funding for Ukraine (a lot of which stays in the US anyway) doesn’t indicate American power. Quite the opposite.
maxglute 3y ago
US expenditionary model maybe relatively economical method for US to deliver global fires given US goals/constraints, but US choosing to be visiting team doesn't negate homecourt advantage for those who choose play at home. Reality is RU/PRC can deliver firepower cheaper in most reasonable scenarios we envision they'll get involved in. And currently both countries have autarkic enough MIC that PPP makes sense even accounting for smuggling in western machinery etc. They're not isn't Japan whose GDP in USD is 60% of ~2010 peak and need to scrounge for couch USDs to buy F35s. Or ~2B to buy 400 tomahawks over years when PRC MIC signalled they can make twice that in one day, at presumably magnitude lower costs, because they don't need 6sigma reliability to balance expeditionary logistics costs. That's before tactics changing procurement economics like RU ECM negating 100k per shell Excalibure rounds from 70% effectiveness to 6%, making it closer to 1k dumb shell. Or sanctioned to death Iran's budget ballistic salvo still managed to penetrate Israel+co's exquisitely expensive missile defense that was estimated to cost one day of IL GDP in interceptors (for just their share of interceptions). PPP is more appropriate comparison for powers whose MIC isn't dependent on US relative to their strategic goals i.e. PRC likely isn't going to spend trillions building/sustaining 11 nuke carriers and securing global basing to project power in the Americas, they're going to build a few 100s of billions worth of conventional ground launched ICBMs, stored in tunnels, to hit US strategic targets (like carriers in ports) in event of peer war.