
U.S. Defense Spending Compared to Other Countries  - evo_9
http://www.pgpf.org/Chart-Archive/0053_defense-comparison.aspx
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fjorder
One thing that always amazes me about the U.S.'s defense spending is how
little they seem to be able to buy with it.

Yes, they have all sorts of cool gadgets, but the U.S. military can't even
establish order in a primitive backwater like Afghanistan, and that's with
help from a dozen other nations! The "shock and awe" campaign in Iraq (a.k.a.
terror bombing, as it would have been called in WWII) was a tremendous display
of military might, but what did it accomplish besides ensuring that there
would be lots of rebuilding work for contractors and royally pissing off the
populace? Any hope for U.S. forces to be greeted as liberators went up in
Tritonal-fueled fire with that campaign. Old-fashioned boots on the ground
with constant close contact with civilians might have helped with damage-
control, but that's not the U.S. military's way. The U.S. military's way is to
bunker down and send out choppers and mechanized patrols that shoot up
anything that looks remotely suspicious, only to be blown to bits by an IED
the locals would have told soldiers about if they had walked through instead.
Iraq is still in the grasp of terrorism (5 killed today:
<http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8545451>) and is more anti-
American than ever.

The latest technology to be abused is drones. They're deadly. They're sexy.
They're completely safe (for Americans)! It must seem like a coup to military
brass to be able to blow terrorists into a hot mess of crispy giblets without
sending a single human being within a hundred kilometers of the target.
Meanwhile, civilians are killed, sovereignty of allies is violated, and enough
anti-American sentiment is sown to more than make up for the deaths of a few
terrorists in the long run. Then some American pundit asks, "Why do they hate
us?".

This is just the latest chapter in the U.S. military's long obsession with
technology. The Vietnam war didn't turn out the way the U.S. wanted for a host
of reasons. Just one was that the military thought they could control
territory by flying from hotspot to hotspot without bothering with permanent
forces on the ground. A site would be labelled as a hotbed of enemy activity
so the military would fly in several choppers full of troops and airlift in
some artillery. Those forces would typically not stray from the safe radius of
artillery coverage, so all the NVA had to do was get outside that radius if
they didn't want to engage. The U.S.'s obsession with technology functionally
handed complete initiative to their enemy.

The U.S. military needs to stop viewing wars as a proving ground for the
latest high-tech killing devices and start focusing on results. Put the toys
away and focus on what works. Get out of the humvees and apaches and walk
through those contested regions, talking to people. Yes, some will get sniped,
but this is the only way to establish order, and that will save more lives in
the long run. Instead of spending billions on drones to kill terrorists in
Pakistan, spend a few millions to make Pakistan want to hunt them down
themselves. In short, stop trying to solve everything with new hardware and
use some brains!

~~~
holograham
I am a bit confused at your statement..."little they can buy for it". Your
post highlights lots of technology that is being used, just perhaps it is
either not necessary or the wrong use of force. Two very different statements.

I think your comment was meant to say and back up two different
opinions...that defense spending is not efficient due to lack of market
forces, corruption among procurement and military personnel, and overall
government overhead costs and regulations. The second point is that our
military directions and missions are misguided. We are not making the correct
trade off analysis for our wars and methods of warfare (e.g. trading precision
of human operations and saving US soldiers lives vs. the inaccuracies of drone
missions while saving US lives OR should we even do the missions in the first
place).

~~~
fjorder
I meant for "little" to refer to practical results. I wasn't trying to bring
up corruption or inefficiencies in procurement. I _was_ trying to highlight
the U.S. military's obsession with tech to the point of neglecting low-tech
solutions that actually work. e.g. How much has the F-22 Raptor program really
helped in Iraq in Afghanistan, and how much better off would the situation in
both countries be now if that money had simply been spent on more troops?

The U.S. relationship with war is evolving in a difficult to predict fashion.
Most nations operate on the premise that the best way to win a war is not to
get into it in the first place. However, war serves a useful purpose for the
U.S.. It gives them a chance to test out the latest tech, make their
contractors some money, reduce unemployment, and give the latest batch of
west-point kids their manhood rights. The U.S. will likely keep getting
involved in wars periodically no matter how flimsy the pretext for them is.
What nature those wars will take is what is really interesting.

Obama's "we can kill anyone we want, anywhere we want, anytime we want" policy
really does put an interesting spin on things. If extraterritorial strikes had
been commonplace ten years ago the Afghanistan war might never have happened.
Assuming bin Laden hadn't gone to ground by that point, they might simply have
executed him without the Taliban state's permission, just as he was eventually
killed without Pakistan's knowledge or permission. Avoiding a war might have
been worth the dubious legality of such an action, but it would have let a
truly nasty genie out of its bottle (one that the U.S. later released anyways
without stopping a war!). What will happen when other nations inevitably
follow the U.S.'s example? Also, it's one thing to execute terrorists in this
manner, but could the U.S. eventually pursue "regime change" this way? How
many pentagon generals are currently chomping at the bit to send drones out
after Ali Khamenei?

In the end , the root of the problem really is that war is good for business
and the U.S. political system is a thrall to business interests. Fix that and
everything changes!

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dccoolgai
Seems a little orthogonal to HN... but the numbers are not that surprising
when you have a huge raft of billion-dollar-a-piece "IT Projects and Systems"
that are literally _incentivized_ not to ship, ever - and they hire no-show
military officer retirees with a wink-wink-nod-nod to keep pumping money into
the corrupt coffers of their consultancies. If normal citizens knew the extent
of waste and fraud behind the "clearance" screen in the Dept. of Defense, they
would throw up a little in their mouths.

~~~
holograham
Agree that better measurement processes need to be in place for government IT
projects. At least your post realizes that the government is to blame as much
(if not more) as the contractors (and thus the people are truly to blame for
electing leaders who allow this to go on under their noses).

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holograham
Not a very interesting graphic with obvious deficiencies (e.g. not comparing
defense spending to GDP).

Why do we spend money on Defense? The first answer would be to protect stuff
we have (hence my compare against GDP example above) but that would be
incomplete. The real value is in protecting the system that generates that
value. Think of it in terms of a company. A companies value is in the system
for generating additional value and is the reason why companies are bought or
traded at multiples of their current earnings. Sometime extreme multiples for
fast growth, high potential companies. If you look at the US as a value
producing entity (which most folks do and still do contrary to most news
articles on US brain drain) we probably trade at a pretty high multiple of our
current GDP. Comparing are Defense spending in that light will make our
spending seem like a pretty good deal.

That said, we clearly have reform and efficiencies to pursue in the defense
sector.

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bunderbunder
Well of course we should cut back on defense spending.

But not for any of the projects being done by contractors in _my_ state. We
need those jobs.

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kibwen
So, how would entrepreneurs go about disrupting the military? Half-silly,
half-serious question.

~~~
holograham
Defense industry is too small and too regulated to create a meaningful market
for startup companies. In addition, the needs of the military are often highly
customized and niche.

