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Pretty amazing that the military industrial complex was of sufficient importance to him that he used his farewell address to warn against it. And now it is just

by voisin 2y ago

Pretty amazing that the military industrial complex was of sufficient importance to him that he used his farewell address to warn against it. And now it is just treated as an absolute necessity never to be scrutinized. I often wonder if spending the money is the point - simply to say “The USA spends more than the next 10 countries combined” with no consideration for whether it is getting more value for the money. Like a startup, could other countries simply be getting significantly more value for their money and so the effective gap isn’t as large as the pure numbers suggest? It comes to mind how the Pentagon running out of ammunition in recent years so to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and US donations.

kiba 2y ago
It's absolutely necessary. And we do need to scrutinize it. It's unhealthy to have such deep consolidation and little competition. Plus our shipbuilding hadn't been the best, and our shipbuilders basically depend on defense contracts to survive instead of building warships as side gigs. Definitely areas where we need to do improvement. We also need production of shells to support Ukraine and our Europeans allies had been underspending for decades at this point.
tw04 2y ago
> It comes to mind how the Pentagon running out of ammunition in recent years so to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and US donations. That’s because the munitions we spend most of our money in isn’t going to Ukraine. The stuff we would use against Russia would be wiping cities off the map from thousands of miles away. The things we gave Ukraine are intentionally limited in range and power to prevent it from escalating beyond a regional conflict (aka stuff that can’t strike important targets inside Russia).
- kiba 2y ago
  Nuclear blackmail wasn't entirely effective but it is enough to self deter the Europeans and the US from giving permission to Ukraine unrestricted permission to strike legitimate military targets. Let's make it clear. Ukraine is forced to use their own long range drones to strike targets deep inside Russia, as opposed to also using more effective and more powerful weapons to do so.
- oneshtein 2y ago
  > The things we gave Ukraine are intentionally limited in range and power to prevent it from escalating beyond a regional conflict (aka stuff that can’t strike important targets inside Russia). Can we take your words to UN crime court?
jandrewrogers 2y ago
> It comes to mind how the Pentagon running out of ammunition in recent years so to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and US donations. This is due to differences in doctrine and force structure. The Ukrainian military burns artillery ammunition at a far higher rate than the US military ever would because the US military does not use a lot of artillery. You don’t need a lot of ammunition of a type you’ll never use much.
aithrowawaycomm 2y ago
The military industrial complex is a cesspit of squandered money, but it has not corrupted US research or society the way Eisenhower warned about. I guess "we must beware the rise of incompetent generals and defense contractors who will waste taxpayer money on sci-fi boondoggles" doesn't have the same ring. The idea that the US goes to war primarily to satisfy Raytheon stockholders is almost as brainless as saying it's the Zionist lobby: why struggle with thinking about a complex problem when you can conjure a simple boogeyman?
- Schiendelman 2y ago
  The thing about defining "squandered" is that it's hard! Is the alternative how you personally would spend that money? Is it how the individuals paying taxes would spend it? How about the individuals holding wealth, assuming it's debt spending that's paid for via inflation? I like to compare to how the broader private market would have spent the same amounts toward the same goals. A lot of that money would be squandered too - many companies fail. I think if that's an issue you really care about, ask yourself how you measure the problem!
aguaviva 2y ago
And now it is just treated as an absolute necessity never to be scrutinized. I definitely don't see a lot of people pushing for the "never to be scrutinized" part.
- tsimionescu 2y ago
  Then you're not looking at congressmen a lot. Both sides of the isle are constantly approving ever increasing budgets, while TFA shows there has not been a single successful audit of what is being done with that budget for decades at this point, despite attempts at doing so.
  - aguaviva 2y ago
    You're right, I haven't been.
- Schiendelman 2y ago
  That's the problem with passive language. The person who wrote that can redefine who they posit isn't scrutinizing.
cen4 2y ago
Its just Natural. The World is much more complex and ever changing, than the chimp troupe has capacities to react to it all. When you look at Nature do you start asking why do we "need" blue whales or redwood trees? No one "needs" them but they emerge anyhow. We chimps (mysteriously) love to believe we are in control of nature and what emerges out of it. And time and again the universe takes a gigantic shit on that belief. See Theory of Bounded Rationality/Illusion of Control or read Jurassic Park. Its also why we see monopolies emerge in every sector of the Economy inspite of all kinds of speech making, laws and govt depts to "control" things. If you go look at the Annual Report of your favorite monopoly, you will find hundreds if not thousands of subsidiaries/factories/offices around the planet to manage their empire. No External Auditor visits each of those sites cause its just not possible within a reporting period. So every report has a large warning - hey man this our best guess about whats going on in the 10% of the sites we had time to visit - don't sue us. Don't fall for the notion that people have perfect control over complex ever changing systems. It will just lead to misunderstandings and confusion.
- kelseyfrog 2y ago
  A masterpiece in reification.
dralley 2y ago
> Pretty amazing that the military industrial complex was of sufficient importance to him that he used his farewell address to warn against it. And now it is just treated as an absolute necessity never to be scrutinized. You completely misunderstand the purpose of the speech. The speech is an acknowledgement that it was necessary due to the changing nature of warfare and geopolitics [0], but at the same time warning that it we should be vigilant about not allowing government to be captured by it. The same way the banking or tech industries are important and necessary, but shouldn't be allowed to directly further their own interests by setting government policy, but with additional moral gravity given the nature of the military. [0] this was an era where military weaponry was becoming sophisticated enough that you couldn't just e.g. convert civilian car factories to produce tanks anymore, and you wouldn't have time to do it either, because the ICBMs and long range bombers on the horizon removed the invulnerability of the US mainland. Sitting tight to build up a military over the course of multiple years as was the case during WWII was no longer an option, so combined with the threat of the Soviet Union it was obvious that the US would need to maintain a large standing military and the accompanying industries for the first time in it's history. It was a novel, necessary, and nonetheless dangerous development, and that's what he was trying to get across.
rangestransform 2y ago
Spending money is the point, notice how defense contractors set up shop in key congressional districts, I believe that the US could maintain the same capabilities with a significant discount I think Ukraine is a good value war for the US though, besides the issue of sending them outdated munitions, we get to cripple a geopolitical rival sacrificing other countries soldiers
- know-how 2y ago
  [dead]

by voisin 2y ago

kiba 2y ago

It's absolutely necessary. And we do need to scrutinize it. It's unhealthy to have such deep consolidation and little competition. Plus our shipbuilding hadn't been the best, and our shipbuilders basically depend on defense contracts to survive instead of building warships as side gigs. Definitely areas where we need to do improvement. We also need production of shells to support Ukraine and our Europeans allies had been underspending for decades at this point.

tw04 2y ago

> It comes to mind how the Pentagon running out of ammunition in recent years so to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and US donations. That’s because the munitions we spend most of our money in isn’t going to Ukraine. The stuff we would use against Russia would be wiping cities off the map from thousands of miles away. The things we gave Ukraine are intentionally limited in range and power to prevent it from escalating beyond a regional conflict (aka stuff that can’t strike important targets inside Russia).

kiba 2y ago
Nuclear blackmail wasn't entirely effective but it is enough to self deter the Europeans and the US from giving permission to Ukraine unrestricted permission to strike legitimate military targets. Let's make it clear. Ukraine is forced to use their own long range drones to strike targets deep inside Russia, as opposed to also using more effective and more powerful weapons to do so.
oneshtein 2y ago
> The things we gave Ukraine are intentionally limited in range and power to prevent it from escalating beyond a regional conflict (aka stuff that can’t strike important targets inside Russia). Can we take your words to UN crime court?

jandrewrogers 2y ago

> It comes to mind how the Pentagon running out of ammunition in recent years so to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and US donations. This is due to differences in doctrine and force structure. The Ukrainian military burns artillery ammunition at a far higher rate than the US military ever would because the US military does not use a lot of artillery. You don’t need a lot of ammunition of a type you’ll never use much.

aithrowawaycomm 2y ago

The military industrial complex is a cesspit of squandered money, but it has not corrupted US research or society the way Eisenhower warned about. I guess "we must beware the rise of incompetent generals and defense contractors who will waste taxpayer money on sci-fi boondoggles" doesn't have the same ring. The idea that the US goes to war primarily to satisfy Raytheon stockholders is almost as brainless as saying it's the Zionist lobby: why struggle with thinking about a complex problem when you can conjure a simple boogeyman?

Schiendelman 2y ago
The thing about defining "squandered" is that it's hard! Is the alternative how you personally would spend that money? Is it how the individuals paying taxes would spend it? How about the individuals holding wealth, assuming it's debt spending that's paid for via inflation? I like to compare to how the broader private market would have spent the same amounts toward the same goals. A lot of that money would be squandered too - many companies fail. I think if that's an issue you really care about, ask yourself how you measure the problem!

aguaviva 2y ago

And now it is just treated as an absolute necessity never to be scrutinized. I definitely don't see a lot of people pushing for the "never to be scrutinized" part.

tsimionescu 2y ago
Then you're not looking at congressmen a lot. Both sides of the isle are constantly approving ever increasing budgets, while TFA shows there has not been a single successful audit of what is being done with that budget for decades at this point, despite attempts at doing so.
- aguaviva 2y ago
  You're right, I haven't been.
Schiendelman 2y ago
That's the problem with passive language. The person who wrote that can redefine who they posit isn't scrutinizing.

cen4 2y ago

Its just Natural. The World is much more complex and ever changing, than the chimp troupe has capacities to react to it all. When you look at Nature do you start asking why do we "need" blue whales or redwood trees? No one "needs" them but they emerge anyhow. We chimps (mysteriously) love to believe we are in control of nature and what emerges out of it. And time and again the universe takes a gigantic shit on that belief. See Theory of Bounded Rationality/Illusion of Control or read Jurassic Park. Its also why we see monopolies emerge in every sector of the Economy inspite of all kinds of speech making, laws and govt depts to "control" things. If you go look at the Annual Report of your favorite monopoly, you will find hundreds if not thousands of subsidiaries/factories/offices around the planet to manage their empire. No External Auditor visits each of those sites cause its just not possible within a reporting period. So every report has a large warning - hey man this our best guess about whats going on in the 10% of the sites we had time to visit - don't sue us. Don't fall for the notion that people have perfect control over complex ever changing systems. It will just lead to misunderstandings and confusion.

kelseyfrog 2y ago
A masterpiece in reification.

dralley 2y ago

> Pretty amazing that the military industrial complex was of sufficient importance to him that he used his farewell address to warn against it. And now it is just treated as an absolute necessity never to be scrutinized. You completely misunderstand the purpose of the speech. The speech is an acknowledgement that it was necessary due to the changing nature of warfare and geopolitics [0], but at the same time warning that it we should be vigilant about not allowing government to be captured by it. The same way the banking or tech industries are important and necessary, but shouldn't be allowed to directly further their own interests by setting government policy, but with additional moral gravity given the nature of the military. [0] this was an era where military weaponry was becoming sophisticated enough that you couldn't just e.g. convert civilian car factories to produce tanks anymore, and you wouldn't have time to do it either, because the ICBMs and long range bombers on the horizon removed the invulnerability of the US mainland. Sitting tight to build up a military over the course of multiple years as was the case during WWII was no longer an option, so combined with the threat of the Soviet Union it was obvious that the US would need to maintain a large standing military and the accompanying industries for the first time in it's history. It was a novel, necessary, and nonetheless dangerous development, and that's what he was trying to get across.

rangestransform 2y ago

Spending money is the point, notice how defense contractors set up shop in key congressional districts, I believe that the US could maintain the same capabilities with a significant discount I think Ukraine is a good value war for the US though, besides the issue of sending them outdated munitions, we get to cripple a geopolitical rival sacrificing other countries soldiers

know-how 2y ago
[dead]