4 ms·

> Europe and the Gulf diversifying both their investments and defense purchases. With what? The euro, yuan? Or weapons from france? I hate to admit it, but it

by preommr 6mo ago

> Europe and the Gulf diversifying both their investments and defense purchases. With what? The euro, yuan? Or weapons from france? I hate to admit it, but it's much less that the US is great because it's the reserve currency, and much more that the world reserve currency is the dollar because the US is what it is. Weapons are expensive, and it only makes sense to buy them from a country that specializes in them. And a country that makes weapons at huge scale is likely to be big enough tilt the direction of the country to be all the ugly things the modern US military industrial complex is.

fwipsy 6mo ago
I'm having trouble reconciling this comment with reports that US stockpiles are already being depleted by the Iran war. At this point the US weapons production seems relatively specialized and inefficient, not "huge scale." Someone more informed care to weigh in?
- wat10000 6mo ago
  I’m probably not more informed, but it seems to me that it can be both. The rate of expenditure in a medium-sized war will far outstrip peacetime production needs. Even if you’re arming half the planet’s militaries, your peacetime production rate will be much smaller than what’s being used now, even if you’re building a lot by non-wartime standards.
- mrguyorama 6mo ago
  Raytheon is about half the size of Pepsico, with about the same profit margin. The supposed "Military Industrial Complex" that Ike warned about died years later, and the end of the Cold War buried what little remained. The F-35 is basically the only big military construction project we've had in a very long time, and it comes at a few hundred airframes per year. In WW2, we were producing 10k+ rather advanced airframes every single year. In each category. The company that designed and built the M1 Abrams Tank doesn't really exist anymore for example. We, like Russia, might not really have a capability of building 4000 hulls in a short timeframe, which is table stakes if we are actually concerned about a war with China. We were able to do these things back in WW2 because we, through central planning (not a free market), reorganized like 1/20th of the economy into building war assets. FDR decreed that we build 120k Shermans. We eventually managed 50k. A lot of the supposed "graft" and pork of the defense industry is about giving it a lot of leeway just to stick around. Once you lose domain knowledge it's gone forever, you have to expend considerable resources to rebuild and recollect it. No, documentation doesn't count. Reading all of our notes hasn't fixed the fact that Russia and China can't build the exceptional jet engines we can.
  - znnajdla 6mo ago
    I don’t think central planning is the only factor. Ukraine is leading a massively heroic drone innovation effort with very good results. In 2026 there are internet blackouts in Russia to hide the social chaos created by 1000+ drone strikes daily in deep Russian territory. It’s not a centrally planned war effort in Ukraine. It’s dozens of startups which started in people’s basements and bombed out ruins. The main factor is not central planning, but rather an existential threat which forced a massively heroic war effort.
  - fwipsy 6mo ago
    Thanks, this is interesting and makes sense. > A lot of the supposed "graft" and pork of the defense industry is about giving it a lot of leeway just to stick around. Even if they stick around, will they maintain an edge? Seems like their incentives are similar to a professor on tenure - do the minimum, collect paycheck. Even if they are still creating cutting-edge weapons, could they scale up efficiently when needed? Just read Casey Handmer's extremely critical posts on Orion/SLS; I would not trust the side of Lockheed/Boeing he describes with critical national security capabilities.
znnajdla 6mo ago
The US is defaulting on military orders to Europe and Germany just announced a 1 trillion euro rearmament plan. Europe is manufacturing big time. The Gulf states as of yesterday are now buying from Ukraine for fucks sake.
Gud 6mo ago
Weapons are only expensive if you want them to be expensive. Ukraine are butchering Russians for 870 USD per dead soldier. The USA has the most expensive weapons in the world, the problem is that much of it is obsolete.
- wat10000 6mo ago
  Ukraine butchers soldiers for cheap. The US drops a bomb through the Atatollah’s bedroom window for not-cheap. It’s not clear to me which is more cost effective in the end. (Ignoring for a moment that US strategy in this war seems to be nonexistent. Imagine these capabilities were being used with some actual goal in mind besides “if we take their king then we win.”)
  - Gud 6mo ago
    There is a big difference between defending against an unprovoked invasion vs assassinating an unsuspecting target. Ukraine has shown themselves very capable of surgical offensive strikes using cheap drones deep inside enemy territory , so your comparison is not valid. The US is also bombing girls going to school.
    - wat10000 6mo ago
      You seem to be confusing my comment about cost effectiveness with an analysis of morality.
Arodex 6mo ago
The US isn't delivering Patriot missiles to Switzerland. Switzerland froze paiements. The US unilaterally took the money Switzerland escrowed to buy F35s, put them towards paying for Patriot missiles they won't deliver, and asked Switzerland to refill the F35 escrow account. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been siphoned off. https://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/2026/article/les-usa-detournent-l-argent-des-f-35-suisses-pour-financer-les-patriot-29194653.html https://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/2026/article/les-usa-detourne... The US is not a reliable weapon supplier anymore. Contracts don't mean anything anymore.

by preommr 6mo ago

fwipsy 6mo ago

I'm having trouble reconciling this comment with reports that US stockpiles are already being depleted by the Iran war. At this point the US weapons production seems relatively specialized and inefficient, not "huge scale." Someone more informed care to weigh in?

wat10000 6mo ago
I’m probably not more informed, but it seems to me that it can be both. The rate of expenditure in a medium-sized war will far outstrip peacetime production needs. Even if you’re arming half the planet’s militaries, your peacetime production rate will be much smaller than what’s being used now, even if you’re building a lot by non-wartime standards.
mrguyorama 6mo ago
Raytheon is about half the size of Pepsico, with about the same profit margin. The supposed "Military Industrial Complex" that Ike warned about died years later, and the end of the Cold War buried what little remained. The F-35 is basically the only big military construction project we've had in a very long time, and it comes at a few hundred airframes per year. In WW2, we were producing 10k+ rather advanced airframes every single year. In each category. The company that designed and built the M1 Abrams Tank doesn't really exist anymore for example. We, like Russia, might not really have a capability of building 4000 hulls in a short timeframe, which is table stakes if we are actually concerned about a war with China. We were able to do these things back in WW2 because we, through central planning (not a free market), reorganized like 1/20th of the economy into building war assets. FDR decreed that we build 120k Shermans. We eventually managed 50k. A lot of the supposed "graft" and pork of the defense industry is about giving it a lot of leeway just to stick around. Once you lose domain knowledge it's gone forever, you have to expend considerable resources to rebuild and recollect it. No, documentation doesn't count. Reading all of our notes hasn't fixed the fact that Russia and China can't build the exceptional jet engines we can.
- znnajdla 6mo ago
  I don’t think central planning is the only factor. Ukraine is leading a massively heroic drone innovation effort with very good results. In 2026 there are internet blackouts in Russia to hide the social chaos created by 1000+ drone strikes daily in deep Russian territory. It’s not a centrally planned war effort in Ukraine. It’s dozens of startups which started in people’s basements and bombed out ruins. The main factor is not central planning, but rather an existential threat which forced a massively heroic war effort.
- fwipsy 6mo ago
  Thanks, this is interesting and makes sense. > A lot of the supposed "graft" and pork of the defense industry is about giving it a lot of leeway just to stick around. Even if they stick around, will they maintain an edge? Seems like their incentives are similar to a professor on tenure - do the minimum, collect paycheck. Even if they are still creating cutting-edge weapons, could they scale up efficiently when needed? Just read Casey Handmer's extremely critical posts on Orion/SLS; I would not trust the side of Lockheed/Boeing he describes with critical national security capabilities.

znnajdla 6mo ago

The US is defaulting on military orders to Europe and Germany just announced a 1 trillion euro rearmament plan. Europe is manufacturing big time. The Gulf states as of yesterday are now buying from Ukraine for fucks sake.

Gud 6mo ago

Weapons are only expensive if you want them to be expensive. Ukraine are butchering Russians for 870 USD per dead soldier. The USA has the most expensive weapons in the world, the problem is that much of it is obsolete.

wat10000 6mo ago
Ukraine butchers soldiers for cheap. The US drops a bomb through the Atatollah’s bedroom window for not-cheap. It’s not clear to me which is more cost effective in the end. (Ignoring for a moment that US strategy in this war seems to be nonexistent. Imagine these capabilities were being used with some actual goal in mind besides “if we take their king then we win.”)
- Gud 6mo ago
  There is a big difference between defending against an unprovoked invasion vs assassinating an unsuspecting target. Ukraine has shown themselves very capable of surgical offensive strikes using cheap drones deep inside enemy territory , so your comparison is not valid. The US is also bombing girls going to school.
  - wat10000 6mo ago
    You seem to be confusing my comment about cost effectiveness with an analysis of morality.

Arodex 6mo ago

The US isn't delivering Patriot missiles to Switzerland. Switzerland froze paiements. The US unilaterally took the money Switzerland escrowed to buy F35s, put them towards paying for Patriot missiles they won't deliver, and asked Switzerland to refill the F35 escrow account. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been siphoned off. https://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/2026/article/les-usa-detournent-l-argent-des-f-35-suisses-pour-financer-les-patriot-29194653.html https://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/2026/article/les-usa-detourne... The US is not a reliable weapon supplier anymore. Contracts don't mean anything anymore.