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Absolutely incorrect. The attitude within the military industrial complex towards drone/UAVs has shifted enormously since the Russia/Ukraine conflict. However,

Absolutely incorrect. The attitude within the military industrial complex towards drone/UAVs has shifted enormously since the Russia/Ukraine conflict. However, procurement times on new equipment is on the order of several years to nearly a decade. There's not enough time to produce nor acquire this hardware. The US military is sitting on decades of older equipment. The Ukraine conflict started four years ago. Complaining that the US has not overhauled its inventory in just four years is unreasonable and unrealistic.

sam_lowry_ 5mo ago
Well then they have to hurry up or loose the war ;-)
inglor_cz 5mo ago
"However, procurement times on new equipment is on the order of several years to nearly a decade." Interesting that the Ukrainians can design, develop, produce and deploy a new type of a drone in something like 6 weeks. Of course, they are in a life-or-death struggle and thus cannot afford a decade of paper wars with various lawyerly and MBA types who want to have their say. That said, the US cannot afford those either, but it is under the illusion that it still can. Structural ossification at its best, and the result is ... inability to beat an impoverished, long sanctioned Middle-Eastern authoritarian regime into submission.
- tristanj 5mo ago
  Ukraine has been operating under general mobilization and martial law since 2022. Comparing Ukraine to the United States which is under no mobilization and civilian rule is not a fair comparison. If the United States was fully mobilized and restructured into a war economy like Ukraine, we would see rapid changes in military doctrine. On Iran, describing the US as "inable" to win is structurally incorrect. The US could always win the war whenever it wants to. Same with Russia vs Ukraine. Both the USA and Russia have ICBMs. Neither choose to use them, for political reasons.
  - inglor_cz 5mo ago
    The gap between weeks and years is big, though. Even in peacetime conditions, this process could be sped up if necessary. Indeed it might not make any sense at all to think in years and decades when it comes to such a quick-evolving industry. Whatever drone the DoD sets in stone now, will likely be obsolete by 2030. The Ukrainian drone industry isn't particularly expensive, BTW, and mostly grew up from private sector grassroots. Ukrainian military has had its own share of problems with ossified Soviet-era leadership. They were able to route around these, though. The US does not want to do this so far; probably too much money involved, and not enough risk to rock those boats (or yachts). On Iran, describing the US as "inable" to win is structurally incorrect. The US could always win the war whenever it wants to. Are you sure, with the shortages of equipment that take years to replenish? In what sense? I am not even sure if the US has enough naval capability to make a D-day-like landing in Iran right now. That requires specialized ships and training. The US could probably win the war if it went in fully: as you say, if it was fully mobilized and restructured into a war economy like Ukraine. But that is already quite a bad situation to be in. If a superpower needs to do this in order to fight someone like Iran, it is not really a (conventional) superpower anymore. The US could also wipe Iran using nuclear missiles, but the political ramifications of such a step would be catastrophic. So could Pakistan. Pakistan has enough nukes to wipe Iran off the Earth (not that they want to). But no one mistakes Pakistan for a superpower just because they have deliverable nukes.
    - tristanj 5mo ago
      My impression from reading your comment is that you do not understand US doctrine. The US focuses on blitzkrieg, air supremacy, and precision strikes. Its doctrine is totally opposite of what is happening in the Ukraine/Russia conflict, which is a protracted WWI-era trench warfare conflict with minimal airpower by either side. The US is not optimized to fight such a war. Neither do you understand that the US has optimized its military around conflict against the PRoC. The US has fought multiple proxy wars against the PRoC. Arguably, the current Iran conflict is a proxy war against the PRoC. Future military spending is focused on countering China, not on the style of conflict Ukraine is facing. That is why the US is phasing out military assets such as infantry forces and artillery, and is investing in unmanned vehicles and long-range missiles. Further, you incorrectly quote and misinterpret what I wrote about ICBMs. The US (and Russia) could always win their current conflicts with ICBMs, but choose not to. That is a calculated choice, not an inability to win as you claim.
- Steltek 5mo ago
  You present two issues: 1) the US is slow to adapt to drone warfare and 2) the US is losing to Iran. For 1), the US isn't in a hurry because there's no actual threat. The lack of drone warfare capabilities only impacts US action overseas and of the little bipartisan consensus left, one thing is clear: no new wars (Trump's Iran war is seen as betrayal from his own party but it's hard to oppose Dear Leader). For 2), it's hard to win when you don't know what you're doing or declare victory when you don't know what your goals are. I'm not sure there's even domestic agreement that it's a war.
  - inglor_cz 5mo ago
    1) actual threats tend to mature in weeks, so this is a good recipe to get caught with pants down. 2) I concur, there seem to be no actual goals there. There is a Croatian saying that "form whomever who doesn't know where he wants to sail, no wind is useful". This fits.
    - Steltek 5mo ago
      1) Threats from who? Canada? Mexico? For the past ~150 years, the US has really only had overseas conflicts with few threats to domestic territory. The best argument you could make it the Cuba Missile Crisis, I suppose? If your immediate plan is to stop fighting in far away places, then drones aren't really a worry.
      - inglor_cz 5mo ago
        Threats to your allies, for example. "If your immediate plan is to stop fighting in far away places, then drones aren't really a worry." Yes, you can dismantle the entire coalition your presidents put together for 70+ years, but at some cost. The US economy is heavily intertwined with the rest of the world, and it probably cannot decouple from China AND forty democratic countries that used to be US allies at the same time. Might be cheaper just to respect the current entanglements, at least in the long run.
        deleted 5mo ago
Planktonne 5mo ago
> However, procurement times on new equipment is on the order of several years to nearly a decade. There's not enough time to produce nor acquire this hardware. This has not seemed to be a problem for the countries using them; what makes the US so uniquely inefficient?
- SirFatty 5mo ago
  Unlike Iran and Ukraine, the US military weapons are not manufactured in someone's garage or basement.
  - Planktonne 5mo ago
    But Iran and Ukraine are being very effective with their basement drones. If the US's manufacturing is fancier but not faster, meaning that it takes longer to get weaponry, that's not a good thing. It sounds like waste more than industry.
    - inglor_cz 5mo ago
      US-produced Hornets (ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt is the CEO) are very modern and are now destroying Russian logistics to Crimea. From what I have heard, they are iterating fast based on what the Ukrainian operators report back. This shows that the US private sector can well produce contemporary drones on a compressed time scale. It is the Pentagon which is not interested in overhauling settled vendor relations.
  - inglor_cz 5mo ago
    Quite a lot of Ukrainian-designed drones are nowadays produced in Western Europe in normal factories and sent to Ukraine. That is one of the reasons why Russia cannot simply destroy Ukrainian factories. Ukraine deploys several million drones a year, you can't get there by mere artisan workshops in garages. Sure, the designer teams back in Ukraine are lean, their members wear tracksuits and don't have a 50-head Human Resources to watch their behavior, nor three levels of managers wearing Philippe Patek above them. That is part of the efficiency and lower cost.
adjejmxbdjdn 5mo ago
Trump class warships and plans for more aircraft carriers suggest otherwise.

sam_lowry_ 5mo ago

Well then they have to hurry up or loose the war ;-)

inglor_cz 5mo ago

"However, procurement times on new equipment is on the order of several years to nearly a decade." Interesting that the Ukrainians can design, develop, produce and deploy a new type of a drone in something like 6 weeks. Of course, they are in a life-or-death struggle and thus cannot afford a decade of paper wars with various lawyerly and MBA types who want to have their say. That said, the US cannot afford those either, but it is under the illusion that it still can. Structural ossification at its best, and the result is ... inability to beat an impoverished, long sanctioned Middle-Eastern authoritarian regime into submission.

tristanj 5mo ago
Ukraine has been operating under general mobilization and martial law since 2022. Comparing Ukraine to the United States which is under no mobilization and civilian rule is not a fair comparison. If the United States was fully mobilized and restructured into a war economy like Ukraine, we would see rapid changes in military doctrine. On Iran, describing the US as "inable" to win is structurally incorrect. The US could always win the war whenever it wants to. Same with Russia vs Ukraine. Both the USA and Russia have ICBMs. Neither choose to use them, for political reasons.
- inglor_cz 5mo ago
  The gap between weeks and years is big, though. Even in peacetime conditions, this process could be sped up if necessary. Indeed it might not make any sense at all to think in years and decades when it comes to such a quick-evolving industry. Whatever drone the DoD sets in stone now, will likely be obsolete by 2030. The Ukrainian drone industry isn't particularly expensive, BTW, and mostly grew up from private sector grassroots. Ukrainian military has had its own share of problems with ossified Soviet-era leadership. They were able to route around these, though. The US does not want to do this so far; probably too much money involved, and not enough risk to rock those boats (or yachts). On Iran, describing the US as "inable" to win is structurally incorrect. The US could always win the war whenever it wants to. Are you sure, with the shortages of equipment that take years to replenish? In what sense? I am not even sure if the US has enough naval capability to make a D-day-like landing in Iran right now. That requires specialized ships and training. The US could probably win the war if it went in fully: as you say, if it was fully mobilized and restructured into a war economy like Ukraine. But that is already quite a bad situation to be in. If a superpower needs to do this in order to fight someone like Iran, it is not really a (conventional) superpower anymore. The US could also wipe Iran using nuclear missiles, but the political ramifications of such a step would be catastrophic. So could Pakistan. Pakistan has enough nukes to wipe Iran off the Earth (not that they want to). But no one mistakes Pakistan for a superpower just because they have deliverable nukes.
  - tristanj 5mo ago
    My impression from reading your comment is that you do not understand US doctrine. The US focuses on blitzkrieg, air supremacy, and precision strikes. Its doctrine is totally opposite of what is happening in the Ukraine/Russia conflict, which is a protracted WWI-era trench warfare conflict with minimal airpower by either side. The US is not optimized to fight such a war. Neither do you understand that the US has optimized its military around conflict against the PRoC. The US has fought multiple proxy wars against the PRoC. Arguably, the current Iran conflict is a proxy war against the PRoC. Future military spending is focused on countering China, not on the style of conflict Ukraine is facing. That is why the US is phasing out military assets such as infantry forces and artillery, and is investing in unmanned vehicles and long-range missiles. Further, you incorrectly quote and misinterpret what I wrote about ICBMs. The US (and Russia) could always win their current conflicts with ICBMs, but choose not to. That is a calculated choice, not an inability to win as you claim.
Steltek 5mo ago
You present two issues: 1) the US is slow to adapt to drone warfare and 2) the US is losing to Iran. For 1), the US isn't in a hurry because there's no actual threat. The lack of drone warfare capabilities only impacts US action overseas and of the little bipartisan consensus left, one thing is clear: no new wars (Trump's Iran war is seen as betrayal from his own party but it's hard to oppose Dear Leader). For 2), it's hard to win when you don't know what you're doing or declare victory when you don't know what your goals are. I'm not sure there's even domestic agreement that it's a war.
- inglor_cz 5mo ago
  1) actual threats tend to mature in weeks, so this is a good recipe to get caught with pants down. 2) I concur, there seem to be no actual goals there. There is a Croatian saying that "form whomever who doesn't know where he wants to sail, no wind is useful". This fits.
  - Steltek 5mo ago
    1) Threats from who? Canada? Mexico? For the past ~150 years, the US has really only had overseas conflicts with few threats to domestic territory. The best argument you could make it the Cuba Missile Crisis, I suppose? If your immediate plan is to stop fighting in far away places, then drones aren't really a worry.
    - inglor_cz 5mo ago
      Threats to your allies, for example. "If your immediate plan is to stop fighting in far away places, then drones aren't really a worry." Yes, you can dismantle the entire coalition your presidents put together for 70+ years, but at some cost. The US economy is heavily intertwined with the rest of the world, and it probably cannot decouple from China AND forty democratic countries that used to be US allies at the same time. Might be cheaper just to respect the current entanglements, at least in the long run.
      - deleted 5mo ago

Planktonne 5mo ago

> However, procurement times on new equipment is on the order of several years to nearly a decade. There's not enough time to produce nor acquire this hardware. This has not seemed to be a problem for the countries using them; what makes the US so uniquely inefficient?

SirFatty 5mo ago
Unlike Iran and Ukraine, the US military weapons are not manufactured in someone's garage or basement.
- Planktonne 5mo ago
  But Iran and Ukraine are being very effective with their basement drones. If the US's manufacturing is fancier but not faster, meaning that it takes longer to get weaponry, that's not a good thing. It sounds like waste more than industry.
  - inglor_cz 5mo ago
    US-produced Hornets (ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt is the CEO) are very modern and are now destroying Russian logistics to Crimea. From what I have heard, they are iterating fast based on what the Ukrainian operators report back. This shows that the US private sector can well produce contemporary drones on a compressed time scale. It is the Pentagon which is not interested in overhauling settled vendor relations.
- inglor_cz 5mo ago
  Quite a lot of Ukrainian-designed drones are nowadays produced in Western Europe in normal factories and sent to Ukraine. That is one of the reasons why Russia cannot simply destroy Ukrainian factories. Ukraine deploys several million drones a year, you can't get there by mere artisan workshops in garages. Sure, the designer teams back in Ukraine are lean, their members wear tracksuits and don't have a 50-head Human Resources to watch their behavior, nor three levels of managers wearing Philippe Patek above them. That is part of the efficiency and lower cost.

adjejmxbdjdn 5mo ago

Trump class warships and plans for more aircraft carriers suggest otherwise.