
Jeff Bezos warns US military it risks losing tech supremacy - DyslexicAtheist
https://www.ft.com/content/b38c5cf6-198a-11ea-97df-cc63de1d73f4
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aurizon
China and Russia have a number of advantages. The biggest one is the top down
ossification in the US military where aged milpols (military politicians) with
old ideas and low mental capacity are in charge of all R&D as well as
purchasing. The USA has a lot of Aircraft Carriers, none of which could
withstand 50 time-on-target (hit at the same time) ship killers at 5000 MPH.
China could easily deal with them all. Russia less so, due to lack of missiles
due to budgetary limits. The same thing rules in the air, where unmanned drone
fighters that cost less than .1% of a new fighter each, with enough AI
internal to wiggle through. The USA planes will be swamped. Drones will also
take out tanks and risk no pilots. Drones are dirt cheap compared to F35s.

Military production and procurement is also 10 times as costly per unitof
weaponry compared to China or Russia.

This is due to the want-of-a-nail POV.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Want_of_a_Nail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Want_of_a_Nail)

So much attention is placed at the nail level that costs can climb to 100
times as much as what a civilian pays for the same thing. Modern electronic
parts are made robotically and have very very good reliability - yet the MIL-
SPEC procurement process often demands xrays for each part = $$$.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Military_Standar...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Military_Standard)

Have you ever wondered why Russia was able to maintain it's place in line as
to space matters, to get the first satellite etc? People in the USA wanted to
make and launch satellites well before Russia, and even conceived the
geostationary communications nets. The same old farts sat on it. Those same
old farts pushed Amazon off-the-puck for the AWS contract. We have all seen
the mess Microsoft has made of the cloud services they launched, now the US
military will suffer through that same waste of time, money and performance
due to that same old boy network. So get used to it. China is going on top and
will stay on top, Russia will carry on being robbed by it's own milpols, but
will still hit waaay above it's weight due to the US Milpols..

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friendly_fren
>The USA has a lot of Aircraft Carriers, none of which could withstand 50
time-on-target (hit at the same time) ship killers at 5000 MPH. China could
easily deal with them all.

Do you have any source on China's missile defense?

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quantumfoam
You might be interested in watching the 70th National Day anniversary to
conclude what others in the military might have concluded; China has some
military superiority. These are just the highlights [1].

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lmp51YN-7wc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lmp51YN-7wc)

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adamsea
I saw a lot of people marching in uniform together and flying fighter planes
and wearing suits and making speeches. What did I miss? Not quite sure where
the superiority in that video is.

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quantumfoam
It was the highlights, most of the full video shows China flexing its military
powers. Whatever man, we could all live in our bubbles and not admit that
other countries have a more disciplined military and one that might produce
and showcase offensive weapons that are a modern threat.

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bmiller2
Jeff Bezos built a website / online marketplace. Why does anyone care about
his opinion on global military matters?

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kevas
Supply chain & logistics is a huge part of what the military does. Don’t
understand why you’re so sour.

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toomuchtodo
The US military is still a logistics leader. Amazon.com barely breaks even and
survives with poverty wages for last mile and air transport staff.

Jeff is sour AWS lost to Microsoft for the DoD contract.

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quantumfoam
I thought this was still an ongoing battle between corporate lawyers?

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toomuchtodo
The US government has unlimited resources. I’d bet a beer the Azure win
sticks, continuing litigation or not.

