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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

by fwipsy 7mo 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 7mo 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 7mo 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 7mo 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 7mo 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.

by fwipsy 7mo ago

wat10000 7mo 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 7mo 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 7mo 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 7mo 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.