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What's really wild is $2M is around the cost of a single Tomahawk cruise missile, Patriot missiles can cost almost double that. The Excalibur GPS guided round c
by crystal_revenge 1y ago
What's really wild is $2M is around the cost of a single Tomahawk cruise missile, Patriot missiles can cost almost double that. The Excalibur GPS guided round costs roughly as much as a nice Mercedes and during a conflict hundreds or thousands can be fired.
I came to this realization when learning about someone driving a car into a building to do damage and thinking "wow, that's an expensive round", then looking it up and realizing, it's not actually that expensive compared to how much military projectiles really do cost.
I've found it somewhat interesting that we'll be shocked at a fire truck, which gets a life time of 15-25 years and works in the service exclusively of saving lives, costs around $2 million, but not be shocked that we effectively use something as expensive as a fire truck as a single round in a gigantic gun.
Not to say that fire trucks don't potentially cost too much, nor that military weapons aren't worth it. More that I don't think most people are really aware of the obscene costs of military conflicts.
- henry2023 1y agoIt’s daunting to think that all your lifetime contributions to the IRS might be spent launching one or two Javeline missiles in the Middle East.
- Gigachad 1y agoIt’ll be worth denying all those local citizens healthcare just so that some people far away can be blown up.
- dilawar 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- therein 1y agoWith the amount of money printing going on, it is really insincere for them to create that false dichotomy anyway. It was never about which one out of the two we could afford.
- jmcgough 1y agoThe federal bank performed quantitative easing between 2008 and 2014 as well, during the last economic crisis, but no one complained about "money printing" then. Inflation over the last few years has been a largely global phenomenon, which most economists attribute to supply chain disruptions, increased demand, and rising energy costs.
- therein 1y agoThose QE periods were minuscule in how much they printed compared to this last phase we have entered. The rise in M2 money supply is out of this world.
- lisbbb 1y agoHow many more turns do we get before the dollar is Weimar worthless? Seems like not many...
- immibis 1y agoIt can't happen as long as the US dollar is the world reserve currency - every other country will inflate almost as much as the US, keeping the demand in US dollars. And the USA will never lose that status as long as it keeps importing things from so many other countries. Oops!
- kldg 1y agoRIP Ron Paul Revolution.
- Der_Einzige 1y ago
- rayiner 1y agoThe federal government alone spends $1.9 trillion annually on healthcare. That's enough to buy almost a million Tomahawk missiles every year. The total production will be around 9,000 missiles over 46 years, or less than 200 per year. We do not meaningfully choose between paying for healthcare domestically and blowing up foreigners. Even overthrowing Iraq's government and trying to make it a democracy only cost about $2.4 trillion over 10 years.
- hiddencost 1y agoUh I think you're missing the point. Your numbers are a mess and jump wildly between scales.
- tonyhart7 1y ago[flagged]
- rayiner 1y agoThe U.S. didn't even get the oil! The Chinese got the oil. The whole thing was because George W. Bush's heart was bigger than his brain: he thought the U.S. could create a functioning democracy from the Iraqi population.
- tonyhart7 1y ago[flagged]
- ViscountPenguin 1y agoTbh, there's a non zero chance it would've been successful if not for insane policies like de baathification.
- ido 1y agoIraq's current government is still siginficantly better than Saddam's regime, depsite being currupt and somewhat dysfunctional (and things have improved over the years in case you dig up an article from a decade ago about ISIS).
- sidewndr46 1y agoThere's apparently at one least cruise missile variant that basically mounts a sword on the warhead with a thin fairing. It's apparently used for killing a single target
- BurningFrog 1y agoThis one: https://youtu.be/weJKPcOHI0U?si=BOoGqYrixa3Bulfq https://youtu.be/weJKPcOHI0U?si=BOoGqYrixa3Bulfq
- Polizeiposaune 1y agoYou're thinking of the AGM-114R-9X "Flying Ginsu", which is a variant of the short-range AGM-114 Hellfire anti-tank missile. It's not a cruise missile.
- sidewndr46 1y agoApparently yes I am. Thanks for correcting me
- red-iron-pine 1y agonot a cruise missile, basically just a modified hellfire. uses multiple swords. basically just a long tube with blades on it, designed to kill through direct kinetic force.
- lotsofpulp 1y agoHealthcare spend, not including state and local governments, is many multiples of military spend: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
- dragonwriter 1y agoThe US, by all evidence, spends more on its non-universal, gap-prone, healthcare system than any reasonable (single-payer, government-provided, or mostly private insurance with universal guarantee) universal healthcare system would cost; the US spends ludicrously more than any other country per capita, and much more than most universal systems on a per GDP basis (heck, the government side of the US system alone costs a greater share of GDP than some universal systems, and more per capita than basically any of them, even without counting the larger private side.) The US doesn't deny local citizens healthcare so that some people far away can be blown up. If anything, it limits its ability to blow people up far away with all the extra money it is spending locally to prevent people from getting healthcare. But the US has lots of money, so it still finds quite a bit for blowing people up far away.
- tstrimple 1y agoThe US has a critical case of NIH syndrome. Nothing any other country in the world does can possibly work here regardless of how much evidence because the US is a special snowflake of a country that has black people and rural areas and no other country in the world could possibly comprehend our struggles.
- thrance 1y agoYes, but think about how much money ends up in the pockets of private contractors, and how much suffering it causes. Don't you feel better?
- brookst 1y agoFortunately there are hundreds of millions of other people also paying taxes, so the Middle East can be sufficiently showered in javelin missiles.
- littlestymaar 1y agoReminds me of this quote “ Each Javelin round costs $80,000, and the idea that it's fired by a guy who doesn't make that in a year at a guy who doesn't make that in a lifetime is somehow so outrageous it almost makes the war seem winnable.”
- JamesAdir 1y agoIf those 2 missiles can change the course of planned attack similar to 9/11, then it might be not daunting at all.
- pjc50 1y agoWhat if, on seeing two missiles wipe out another set of families, someone decides that they're now radicalized to carry out a 9/11 in revenge?
- octopoc 1y agoThen it's an investment in future war profits. Ka-ching!
- JamesAdir 1y agoUnfortunately, terror finds it's ways regardless of what the attacked country does or doesn't do. Can you explain for example why the Yemenis are closing the shipping passage near Yemen?
- boston_clone 1y agoIsn’t this answer easily findable? It’s a clear response to the aggressive US/IL foreign policy in the area. Here’s an excerpt from an article in late ‘23 - “The Houthis […] say they are targeting Israel-based ships or vessels headed to Israel. They are attacking ships as they cross the strait of Bab el-Mandeb, connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. The Red Sea hostilities are part of a pattern of Middle East attacks from Iranian-backed groups against the U.S. and Israel in response to the Israel-Hamas war.” https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4382064-houthis-force-cargo-ships-to-take-long-route-at-a-cost/ https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4382064-houthis-force-car...
- Aeolun 1y ago> I don't think most people are really aware of the obscene costs of military conflicts. Would those costs still be obscene if you were in a conflict where you’d want to use a significant number of them? Right now they’re expensive because they’re essentially just sitting around.
- germinalphrase 1y ago“ Right now they’re expensive because they’re essentially just sitting around.” Why do you think that’s the reason for these high prices rather than, say, lack of competition?
- nradov 1y agoThose contracts are put out for competitive bids. Profit margins for defense contractors aren't very high. The prices are driven by a combination of strict requirements, lack of economies of scale, and legal compliance with government mandated processes.
- nine_k 1y agoWhy, yes, competition has been stifled like 30 years ago, because the US was dominating the world anyway, or so the administration was thinking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Supper_(defense_industry) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Supper_(defense_industry)
- nradov 1y agoConsolidation of defense prime contractors was inevitable due to budgetary realities and the escalating complexity of major programs. It's unlikely that keeping a bunch of small, weak companies around would have produced better results for the military or taxpayers.
- terminalshort 1y agoNo economy of scale. The cost to build one car is ~$100 million. The cost to build the second one is ~$20K. The only reason you can buy a car for $40K is because they build millions of them to spread the initial investment. The military buys missiles in units of 100s and there are no other buyers, so the cost per missile is massive.
- tylerflick 1y agoMilitary weapons cost what they do because of the requirements. Could costs come down? Sure; Ill be the first to assume we need disruption.
- scarab92 1y agoIndeed. When it comes to government work, the biggest cost savings always come from questioning the necessity of requirements. People point the fingers at defence contractors, but their net margins are typically only around 10%.
- readthenotes1 1y agoAmusingly, a decent part of the cost is to produce parts in different congressional districts as bribes for the votes. It's not that the parts are really needed for national defense (because we'd want them built in the best place) but that they're needed for national defense funding approval.
- DerSaidin 1y agohttps://www.ycombinator.com/launches/Ler-ares-industries-building-low-cost-cruise-missiles https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/Ler-ares-industries-bui...
- mulmen 1y agoWhen you assume you make an ass out of you and… formerly the worlds only remaining super power.
- bigfatkitten 1y ago> Not to say that fire trucks don't potentially cost too much The only place in the entire world where fire trucks cost that much is North America, and it’s not because there’s anything inherently special about trucks made there.
- stinkbeetle 1y ago> I've found it somewhat interesting that we'll be shocked at a fire truck, which gets a life time of 15-25 years and works in the service exclusively of saving lives, costs around $2 million, but not be shocked that we effectively use something as expensive as a fire truck as a single round in a gigantic gun. Isn't military spending and the corruption of the government military industrial complex one of the oldest gripes in the American public forum? People sure are outraged about it, or were[1] -- has that become passe now? [1] "The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement." -- Eisenhower 1953
- readthenotes1 1y agoIt didn't really take off until WW2--Eisenhower warned us of the military-industrial complex in his last days in office, but chickened out of of military-industrial-congressional complex at the last minute apparently. There was no real standing Army until WW2 since it's against the Constitution. That's why the Marines (part of the Navy) were all over the place supporting US business interests, but not draining the public purse too heavily (look up Smedly Butler for a good read)
- ForOldHack 1y agoLook up Smedly Butler for a great read!!!
- nindalf 1y ago> There was no real standing Army until WW2 since it's against the Constitution. This isn’t true. Firstly it isn’t against the Constitution to maintain a standing Army. What the Constitution says in Article I, Section 8, Clause 12 is “The Congress shall have Power To ...raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years...” The people drafting the Constitution knew that a standing army could be abused by a tyrant, but having served in the Continental Army also knew how vital a standing Army was to maintain peace. That’s why they designed it so Congress controls the purse strings and authorises military spending only for 2 years at a time. The executive may give the orders, but there’s a time limit on the Army he can give orders to. And the second part - the US has had a standing Army since 1796. You remember Robert E Lee resigning from the Army to join the Confederacy? If there was no standing Army, what did he resign from? But even leaving aside these two historical facts, think about it logically. Throughout history military advantage has always been with the better trained, more experienced troops. Even if you rely on conscripts in a war, they need to be trained and led by professionals. Saying a standing army shouldn’t exist is like firing all your firefighters and saying you’ll start hiring when someone reports a fire.
- hx8 1y agoIf you are going to blow something up, using these GPS guided smart missiles is actually much cheaper than previous generations of explosive ordinances. 1. You can only use one missile to hit a target. In pre-gps era we would would dozens or hundreds of rounds to ensure one of them destroys the target. 2. You can fire from a safe distance. Using artillery or dropping bombs from an airplane involves physically getting closer to the target. This introduces much more complexity that adds to the overall cost. 3. There is significantly less collateral damage when using a single missile for a target compared to bombing the general direction of the target. 4. We take significantly less risk of casualties when using these missiles.
- KennyBlanken 1y agoExcept that because of all those things, the government is more likely to use it so the "it's cheaper!" argument doesn't hold water. The comparison is not between "do it without smart bombs and drones" vs "do it with smart bombs and drones" and the former costing more. The comparison is between "if we didn't have the smart bombs and drones, we wouldn't have done anything because whatever it was wouldn't have been worth the cost in money and American lives" versus "we spent a million dollars blowing up some stuff because we could do it on the cheap and with no risk." On a broader scale the US's involvemnt in the foreign affairs of other nations skyrocketed when we went from having volunteer armed forces to a "professional" armed forces. Ike predicted as much in his rant about the military-industrial complex.
- hx8 1y agoExcept WW1, WW2, Korea and Vietnam were all very costly and direct engagements. US involvement in foreign affairs skyrocketed because WW1/WW2 destroyed Europe and created a power vacuum that we were eager to fill. If we didn't have these smart bombs we would just be involved in fewer but more bloody global conflicts.
- nradov 1y agoGPS guidance isn't effective against adversaries with even the most basic electronic warfare capability. Ukraine mostly stopped using those systems years ago due to Russian jamming / spoofing. But other precision guidance mechanisms remain at least somewhat effective.
- Invictus0 1y agoTomahawk missiles have a ton of tech and software inside, can fly for 1000 miles, and are also basically a jobs program for Americans in many different states.
- Workaccount2 1y agoIt's in part because the military doesn't buy stuff from China. The companies that make the parts for those missiles (not just the mega corp whose badge is on it) are likely only in business because they make the parts for it, and employ 20-200 people with decent pay and full benefits in Corn County, Midwest to do it. On the surface it looks like enormous waste, it still might be, but understand that the defense budget is primarily a jobs program and basically only thing propping up Americans manufacturing. This is why it never gets cut, but anyone red or blue. It employs way to many people and in way to many places without much good work. Republicans especially hate welfare, but if you can get people to show up and turn screws, they'll happily "waste" money on them.
- derektank 1y agoI mean, there is also the strategic benefit of not having your capacity to wage war in the stranglehold of a potential adversary. Not to say that politicians won't vote for graft that helps their districts, but there is a legitimate argument for employing only Americans in wartime industries. But yes, that's a big source of the expense. Even on the IT side of things, the government (especially the military) pays sometimes up to 50% more for FedRAMP versions of SaaS products that have their servers based in the US and which are only administered by US citizens.
- numpad0 1y agoThey also arbitrarily reduce numbers and raise unit costs by regulations because weapons bad, though they are dropped asymmetrically on living people anyway. The US isn't incentivizing weapons correctly for them to improve in cost performance.
- DoesntMatter22 1y agoI mean it definitely has to be monumental waste. Look at the cost of launching rockets prior to SpaceX versus the cost now which is really a pittance by comparison. Not that I want to see anybody build bombs
- rlt 1y ago“primarily a jobs program and basically only thing propping up Americans manufacturing” Not just a jobs program, but it is strategically important to national security to retain the ability to manufacture military hardware (or at least along with allies) It’s unfortunate that means to maximize taxpayer value we have to actually use or sell all those weapons, potentially by initiating or participating in conflicts we otherwise might not have.
- chasil 1y agoWe are also running quite low on various types of interceptors, some of which will be very slow to replace. https://archive.ph/74N1x https://archive.ph/74N1x
- patmorgan23 1y agoWe're shocked they cost $2 million dollars because until recently they didn't, and it's not because of inflation, it's because private equity has bought up most of the industry, consolidated it, and jacked up prices.
- onecommentman 1y agoLength of time from end of WWI (the war to end all wars, remember) to start of WWII (the next war) was 20 years and 9 months. To quote the late Tom Lehrer, “we taught them a lesson in 1918 and they’ve hardly bothered us since then”. Length of time from the end of WWII (ending with two ideological opponents, victors who saw the fruits of victory, a ramped up industrial base focused on armaments and a devastated landscape of Europe and Asia to fight on) to WWIII is 79 years, 10 months and counting. No one reading this site has experienced a World War (and if you did, I’d like to shake your hand). Whatever keeps that counter ticking over have been, and are, dollars well-spent. A bit like keeping your hand raised to keep elephants away from your US house (well, it’s worked so far). But the alternative is just…unacceptable.
- hollerith 1y ago"Once all the Germans were warlike and mean, But that couldn't happen again. We taught them a lesson in 1918, And they've hardly bothered us since then."
- bouncycastle 1y agoanother perspective is that WW1 hasn't ended, and ww2 was actually WW1. Even now, if you look at the Ukrainian conflict from an economic perspective, it's a continuation of the same conflicts of ww1
- dh2022 1y agoNot quite. WW1, and its continuation WW2, was a fight between Germanic states on one side vs. Britain and France on the other side. The fight ended (it really ended!!!) when two powerful outsiders (US and USSR) invaded and split the European continent. What is happening now in the Ukraine is a result of a gross miscalculation without any grounding in reality (no, NATO was not going to attack Russia). The war in the Ukraine is not a leftover from WW2.
- pjc50 1y agoThat's mostly down to the nukes, which is why it's ineffective at preventing conflicts breaking out between (and inside!) non-nuclear powers.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- burnt-resistor 1y ago$24 billion in American taxpayer money went to Israel in 2024, or about $65M/day. That's 32 equivalent of those. Each and every day. And this is what enables burying/killing a wide ranging, unknowable number (60k-200k?) of humans, half of whom were children, by systematic aerial bombardment using 2000 lbs. unguided Mk. 84's into urban areas and terrestrial structural demolitions, forced concentration/ethnic cleansing, and engineered famine by siege. Not all Israelis and Americans are okay with this, but protesting so far hasn't made much difference.
- 4gotunameagain 1y ago[flagged]
- apples_oranges 1y agoRegardless of "truth" or whatever your opinion or my opinion is, in terms of PR Israel seems not to be able to influence the outcome in their favour. I want to be totally impartial and neutral - if that were only possible - and think about why that is so.
- 4gotunameagain 1y agoIt is not a matter of opinion, it is widely documented that Israel is blocking any external aid or journalists in Gaza. And yes, at least it gives some hope that there is still widespread outcry against the atrocities they are committing. Maybe we still have a sliver of humanity left in us amongst all the individualism and profiteering. (except Germany of course, where protests against the war crimes committed by Israel are routinely dismantled. Two wrongs don't make a right Germany.)
- msgodel 1y agoGood fences make good neighbors. Maybe they should try to have our state more distanced from theirs. People might be more friendly if they feel they have some say in the situation.
- Gothmog69 1y ago
- idkfasayer 1y ago[dead]
- dmos62 1y agoI found it surprising that regular, dumb 155mm artillery rounds cost 4-5k apiece. Imagine the kind of drones you can build for that much in Ukraine. No wonder drone warfare is taking off so fast.
- ponector 1y agoPrecision ammo is expensive. Ruzzians launched 10000+ missiles. Some estimate they are spending roughly $900m per day on the war. 1250+ days. Can only imagine how they could enhance their old underdeveloped infrastructure with all that money. But instead they are terrorizing their neighbors. Pure evil country.