Considering 2 hours ago is 7AM EST, you might want to wait for America to wake up before jumping to conclusions.
The article isn't even about military readiness either. Making the military more friendly to married couples is a fine goal, for sure, but the ones who chose that life know the caveats involved and if they don't like it, they leave.
China may have the largest branches of services, they are hardly the best funded and most prepared. Wars have not been decided by who is bigger for a long time.
And to top it off, the Russian progress into Ukraine is largely stalled and has mostly been a shitshow for Russia. Their propaganda machine is scarier than their military incursions.
> But then, maybe, take a government job for a while. They pay like shit, but you won't find more compelling missions and dedicated people, anywhere.
And you also won't find more red tape, not even in multi-billion international conglomerates, than in government - I've worked in government, small companies, medium companies and one so large you'll likely find on the news regularly.
When I want something like, say, a dozen hours worth of GPU compute time at <conglomerate>, I shoot over an email to my boss for approval, that's there an hour later, and I can begin to work. In government, that's weeks worth of paperwork and meetings, and by the time I got the approval, I've forgotten what I wanted to do in the first place. Not to mention sub-par machines that were outdated even when they were acquired, processes copied straight over from the mainframe era, and crap offices barely worth the name including a 10/10 SDSL for > 100 employees.
Oh and forget getting hired if you have a "grey" past - convictions of hacking, marijuana or whatever that's common in the private sector are an immediate no-go in anything government, often enough for life.
It depends on which government, and what kind of stuff that agency does.
I don't find my government customers to be more or less chock full of red tape than my non-government ones. Sometimes my large corporate (utility) customers can be worse than even the National Parks Service, and generally always worse than local government.
In my experience, government is indeed much slower in approving outlays. There may of course be exceptions to that pattern. One of my interview questions for prospective bosses of mine, is something along the lines of:
- Suppose I am on your team , and I want to develop a prototype/PoC, which costs $1,000, and you're okay with it
- What is the process to get approval for it?
- How much time elapses between starting the approval process and receiving funding/greenlight to start spending?
In my current job, the answers were "if I'm okay with the idea, you can start immediately".
In a previous one I left, it required CEO approval (hence why I ask now).
> China has the world's largest Army, Navy, and Air Force
I'm no armchair strategist but highly doubt the Chinese could hold a candle to the US who size aside is ridiculously battle hardened at this point, and that's completely ignoring NATO/Anglo/Asian allies who would definitely join the fray.
The US military has no peer on Earth and I don't think that's a controversial opinion to hold.
> They pay like shit, but you won't find more compelling missions and dedicated people, anywhere.
Not sure if there's a US equivalent but in Australia we have the reserves for people perhaps wanting to keep their dayjob.
I'd gladly take a government job - I was interested in a Military career when I was in my teens, but DADT put that out of reach - and now I'm too old and too out of shape.
I'd be interested in performing some form of public service now, but most government jobs seem to suffer from the worst kind of credential requirement inflation imaginable, so that's not an option either - I have no degree, just lots of experience.
The most impactful PM I know from Defense Digital Service doesn't have a degree in Fahrenheit. He did arrive with a 20 year track record at Microsoft though. Have a look at US Digital Service, Defense Digital Service, Defense Innovation Unit or 18F. Check out usajobs.gov. If you're in the Bay Area, feel free to PM me.
There's a TON of great jobs out there in defense tech! You could get paid well to build interesting projects (that occasionally are used, if you're lucky, to whack bad guys) and none of those jobs/founders GAF about credentials, they just care if you can do the job.
Guess we're lucky that the US military is armed and ready to find WMDs in the next middle eastern country to fall afoul of the US's foreign policy goals (and butcher some civvies while they're at it. Fun!).
But sure, Russia, China and so on. I prefer to focus on what the military's actually been up to instead of the (real) threats they use for recruitment propaganda.
I wish I could skip the money, but honestly why would I skimp out on the one thing the government seems to prioritize, which is making sure people with significant assets get maximum leverage? By taking less money I disadvantage my own kids in a world where increasingly it looks like only the wealthy are human beings.
> you won’t find more compelling missions and dedicated people, anywhere
My friends and family working for the (federal) government would take issue with this statement. If you’re looking for mission-driven people, imo a mission-based nonprofit is the way to go. I’m curious, are/were you in government yourself?
It'd be wild if what eventually killed Pax Americana was the military being unable to recruit smart people, because they can make much better money elsewhere
I would argue that that is exactly what is happening.
Good, experienced warfighters get to a point in their career where they realize they can make 2-3x what they do now in an environment with less toxic leadership.
The ones that stay in become those toxic leaders.
We've lost tons of institutional knowledge post-GWOT. Imagine if we'd've shut down our factories, alienated our allies, and not put all those vets to work after WWII. That is what's happening now.
I'm assuming you're referring to predominately the enlisted side? This also isn't a jab at enlisted people in general, just that many enlisted people come from economically disadvantaged positions in life. And, yes, many of them can yield a behavior that is questionably dedicated, but the people who continue to stay in are largely dedicated and others are rooted out in time.
