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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 w

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 2y 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 2y 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.

lostlogin 2y 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 2y 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.