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Wanting to reduce spending does not automatically mean reduced force capability, nor reduced deterrence. The challenge is that the next war wont look like the
by kjellsbells 1y ago
Wanting to reduce spending does not automatically mean reduced force capability, nor reduced deterrence.
The challenge is that the next war wont look like the last one or the one before that. So you might decide that instead of sinking a gazillion dollars on a 25-year project to build some fighter jets or littoral ships, you spend half a gazillion dollars on cyber and drones.
Problem is that states and their leaders (politicians, business, resident voices) find it emotionally and politically hard to pivot from building X in state A to building Y in state B.
Right now, everyone is studying the lessons of the Ukraine war. That certainly should be looked at and learned from (build drones at mass scale, say) but it would also be possible to draw entirely incorrect conclusions for the next war. As a land war in Europe, Ukraine shows us the importance of essentially 1900s-style tools: shells and ordnance by the million. Tanks. Etc. If (god forbid) someone got into a hot war with China, the needs would be entirely different.
- johnsmith1840 1y agoI don't disagree but clearly not what the op was trying to say. To your points. Isreal just leveled iran without a single plane shot down, tech still dominates. The F35 is a terrifying weapon and Irans drone and missle attacks were ineffective. Ukraine shows us what two poor and land locked countries fight like.
- noir_lord 1y agoIt’s always tempting to look at the Russian assault on Ukraine and “learn lessons” but you also have to remember that NATO countries aren’t Ukraine and Russia isn’t China. The use of drones by both sides is in part because neither side could get air superiority, Ukraine because it barely had an air force and Russia because..well decades of corruption. If the US had invaded Ukraine, Ukraine would have lost in under a month, the insurgency would be horrific and make Iraq look mild but militarily Russia was a complete basket case. The lesson we should take is that ammunition stockpiles evaporate faster than you expect always in a full scale war, this has been true all the way back to the invention of the bow though.