President Trump has proposed a $54 billion increase in defense spending, which he said would be "one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history."
Past administrations have increased military spending, but typically to fulfil a specific mission. Jimmy Carter expanded operations in the Persian Gulf. Ronald Reagan pursued an arms race with the Soviet Union, and George W. Bush waged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr. Trump has not articulated a new mission that would require a military spending increase. This has left analysts wondering what goals he has in mind. Erin M. Simpson, a national security consultant, called Mr. Trump's plans "a budget in search of a strategy."
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/03/22/us/is-americas-military-big-enough.html
Donald J. Trump - Military Readiness Remarks
[Related]: 2017 Outlook for Navy Shipbuilding
What do you think about the proposed increase in military spending ? Does USA really need more weapons ?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @11:39PM (13 children)
First, the U.S. Military needs to get rid of all of these external vendors. They are a vampire draining the blood money away. Somehow, the U.S. were able to defeat the enemy in World War 2 without needing Haliburton, Blackwater, et. al.
Invest in education. Rather than turning soldiers into mindless killing drones, and sticking them in oil hotspots around the world, invest in education. There is so much technology out there, and the soldiers that use it every day could make it better, if they knew how.
Clean out the bad apples. The rapists in the military need to be put in prison, along with the ones posting women's private photos for their own group enjoyment. Those that do those acts are not fit to serve.
Teach the Military to do more with less. Somehow, we got into this mode where we pump endless money into the Military-Industrial Complex. The Military could be smaller, and more efficient than it is now. Do we really need the F-35 money-pit?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday March 24 2017, @11:44PM (7 children)
Yes! We have to be "ready" for that hot war with China.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:29AM (2 children)
China will churn up more low-tech drones than you'll be able to destroy then swamp the operation theatre with them [teamliquid.net].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday March 25 2017, @10:27AM (1 child)
Do we really need the F-35 money-pit?
Yes! We have to be "ready" for that hot war with China.
China will churn up more low-tech drones than you'll be able to destroy then swamp the operation theatre with them.
If it actually ever really came to a war between China and the US, China would dump its T-bills and cause the US dollar to collapse. No need to fire a shot.
Before people jump in and say "that would never work", it already has, and it was the US that did it. They told the UK to get out of Egypt or they'd destroy the pound, and the UK did, ending the Suez crisis.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday March 25 2017, @11:38AM
Would have been effective close to 2008, but today that's disputable [wikipedia.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @02:35AM (2 children)
That smells of sarcasm, but...
World War I was originally The Great War, the war to end all wars. It was silly to prepare for more war, and such a waste of money, since there would be everlasting peace. An even bigger war was unthinkable.
Uh, that didn't work out.
The fact that we can't be perfectly 100% ideally prepared is no reason to give up and just throw in the towel. Such is treason, demonstrating that you value neither your own generation nor the next.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @03:49AM (1 child)
Uh, that didn't work out.
A big war breaking out is always a possibility, but that is no reason to be constantly paranoid and no reason to steal massive amounts of people's money to fund a ridiculously bloated military.
The fact that we can't be perfectly 100% ideally prepared is no reason to give up and just throw in the towel.
We're not. Last time I looked, I believe we spend more on our military than the next 7 or so countries combined. If anything, we need to halve the military budget (and that's being generous), and then they can figure out how to become more efficient with the money they do have. It's funny how, to the inconsistent 'small government' types, throwing endless amounts of money at other problems (such as schools) could not possibly fix them, but throwing endless amounts of money at the military is a-okay.
Such is treason, demonstrating that you value neither your own generation nor the next.
This has nothing to do with treason, idiot. I'd say it's worse to continually steal people's money for the military and then leave our own citizens to die in the streets than it is to maybe be unprepared for some giant hypothetical war. 'The land of the free and the home of the brave' seems to be in a perpetual state of fear and is unwilling to take any risks whatsoever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @03:22PM
Bravo, well said!
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Saturday March 25 2017, @09:26PM
Wasn't Trump cutting that F-35 project?
(Score: 4, Informative) by fishybell on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:36AM
Are you sure about that? What do you think General Motors was doing during the war? Making Cadillacs?
WWII is what gave us the Military Industrial [congressional] Complex [independent.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @01:17AM (1 child)
The main issue with the F-35 is sunk costs, water under the bridge, and the often-wrong idea that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.
The effort that led to the F-35, called the Joint Strike Fighter project, was a mistake on day 1 and this should have been obvious. We've been down this path before. The FB-111 was intended to serve as both a fighter and a bomber, for both the air force and the navy. It ended up too small to be much of a bomber, but to large to be a fighter and way too large for an aircraft carrier. The navy eventually wiggled out of the requirement to accept the plane. The air force bought a few, which they barely used. Canada and Australia bought a few, probably under US pressure, and nobody else bothered. Overall, it was a disaster.
The problem is that the 1-size-fits-all approach produces bad results. We've now repeated our FB-111 mistake with the F-35, with only a minor difference: we replaced the bomber requirement with a vertical lift requirement.
We continuously face a choice. Do we continue or not? It's like the choice you face when copying the content of a large network file server to another large network file server. The progress bar is at best a joke, probably with moving diagonal stripes, but maybe just jumping up to 99% and then staying there for hours. When will it be done? Are we there yet? With the F-35, we also wonder if it will work OKish. We know that a new design started today would be better, but if you always cancel projects for that reason then you never get any product.
Note however that a canceled project is not all waste. It still manages to do two things. It develops technology, and it retains the availability of the engineering talent. You can't just stop designing aircraft; if you do then the people get laid off and then become unavailable. Rebuilding an engineering team from nothing is extremely difficult: expensive, time-consuming, and likely to produce a few horrible disasters due to inexperience.
(Score: 2) by deadstick on Saturday March 25 2017, @01:55PM
The progress bar is at best a joke, probably with moving diagonal stripes, but maybe just jumping up to 99% and then staying there for hours.
What a bloody good simile.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @07:03AM (1 child)
Easier said than done. Preventing wasteful practices often requires adding more rules and monitors, which costs yet more.
(Score: 2) by fishybell on Saturday March 25 2017, @06:03PM
The fact that they are bureaucracy of enormous size is the biggest problem. Things don't happen electronically, you fill out forms in triplicate and they go to three different offices and three different people process and file them three different ways for three different purposes.
When I was in the Marines (for a very short time) the process of getting sent home on medical took over a month. They literally signed the papers saying I was going home, and it took over a month to put me on a plane. There were people in the recruit-separation-platoon that had been there for over a year, just waiting to be processed out.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday March 24 2017, @11:44PM (7 children)
Throwing more money at the problem is not going to be the solution.
What would help greatly, though, is if leadership were chosen for their accomplishments and merit rather than playing politics. This is why, despite being the biggest and most powerful military in the world, they get their asses kicked by Gook farmers and Jihadi goat-fuckers (if you ever doubted that Jihadis are goat-fuckers, you can google "Muslim rape goat" and easily see the video yourself. Another feasible option is to refine existing proven designs rather than gamble on cheap plastic shit and bug-ridden compromises, hell, we still use the B-52 among many other 70's-era designs.
Not to mention that the past few years brought a lot of young pukes and liberalism into the military, which is an organization that by design should not be "soft." When Hadjis are strapping bombs to kids and sending them your way, there should be no question or hesitation about what to do with that gun in your hand -- they don't call assault rifles "big black scary baby-killers" for nothing.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:05AM (5 children)
most powerful military in the world
According to what standard? Americans are still living the WW2 fantasies where they carpet-bomb entire cities and leave nothing standing and call themselves "most powerful".
Gook farmers and Jihadi goat-fuckers
So it seems the above group is more powerful than "the most powerful military in ... the Americans' minds". You Americans are good at fighting the last war and have no imagination (just like the devil) and are secretly still fighting WW2 (to which you invited yourself!). You Americans work for the jews.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:16AM (2 children)
No, that is incorrect. If we did carpet-bomb entire cities and leave nothing standing like in the good ol' days, then we would still be the most powerful.
Unfortunately, Americans are held to a higher standard of civilization than the savage goat-fuckers we are fighting. There is a lot of other complicated politics going on, like CIA arming the same goat-fuckers our military fights and not being able to nuke the Middle-East because of foreign lobbyist bribery and the petrodollar. If we said, "fuck it" and nuked the entire Middle-East including Israel, then 99% of the world's problems would be solved overnight.
Many of our congressmen and judicial branch do, but there are many others who don't. The AIPAC/SPLC/Mossad cancers will be difficult but possible to remove.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by cubancigar11 on Saturday March 25 2017, @02:42AM
Because that has worked before? Or you mean the problem of not starting ww3? Or problem of americans still living?
Damn fantastic morons of America. Believe me the kind of navel gazing Americans spend their life doing, is the only problem that would be solved by nuking anything.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Saturday March 25 2017, @04:25AM
Really? To you, is it less civilized to fuck a goat than to fuck a child?
Because it is known the "higher standard of civilization" didn't stop using your citizens from [wikipedia.org] using [google.com.au] children [huffingtonpost.com] in Bosnia/Iraq/Afghanistan. Even more, they used your money [cnn.com] to pay for the services.
I gather your morals let you sleep well knowing your money went for the "entrainment" of the "good guys"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 25 2017, @01:14AM
"You Americans are good at fighting the last war"
That is an ailment common to militaries of all time. For reference, look up the Maginot Line. Or, you can just google your own phrase, "fighting the last war". Heh - I typed that phrase into google, and got this as a suggested alternate search: generals always fight the last war maginot line
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @01:49PM
hey dumbass troll modder: just because someone disagrees with a post and it's a stark contrast and you get pissed off doesn't make them a troll. they are a troll if they posted just to piss people off. quit being such a socialist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:51PM
I bet you were a shining example of a boot licking suck up in the military. Oh, that's right. The military doesn't accept lazy self loathing cowardly white niggers in the military. Only real men.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snotnose on Friday March 24 2017, @11:52PM (12 children)
NASA? 3 F35s. HHS? 2 F35s. Planned parenthood? 0.1 F35.
Pulled the numbers out of my ass but you get the idea. If the media can say 150 meters is almost 2 football fields then we can certainly say program x is y number of F35s.
Me? I'd cut the defense budget by 25% and the NSA budget by 50%. Then go from there.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:02AM (11 children)
Holy shit, this snotnosed motherfucker sure hates our freedoms! How dare you suggest cutting the defense budget of the United States, God's greatest nation and the only reason the world hasn't spiraled down the drain (ahead of schedule1)! And cutting the NSA budget in half is like throwing acid into both of your eyes — Ow! It's like you want the terrorists to win! You must be one of them homegrown terrorists!
[1] [wikipedia.org]
Ok, fulfilled my politics nexus duty for the day.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:06AM (10 children)
Well, what else would the civilized world do for sport after taking the kid-gloves off and forcing all Muslims to renounce Allah and be marched through the streets being pelted with bacon or meet their maker by the barrel of a gun?
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:11AM
Shitpost. Shitpost on *chan, Plebbit, SoylentNews, Breitbart, the Washington Post, random web forums, IRC, C-SPAN, radio call-in programs, your city council meeting, and all public spaces.
In fact, forget the posting.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:17AM (8 children)
Or taking away all their goats... Or arming the goats.
Aside: why does Google auto correct goats to boats? WTF?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:39AM (7 children)
Whoa, whoa, I'm not advocating cruel and unusual punishment here. Taking away a Muslim man's goats is like taking away a diabetic's insulin.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:52AM
Well, I've never seen a diabetic fucking their insulin, but what do I know.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday March 25 2017, @01:40AM (5 children)
More like taking away the needle needed to inject the insulin.
Years ago I had a diabetic cat. Turned out I could buy the insulin without a prescription, but I needed a prescription for the needles used to inject her. When she died I had something like 75 needles left. Tried to give them to the vet, but the package was opened so she couldn't take them. Didn't know any junkies, so I ended up throwing something like $50 worth of perfectly good needles into the trash.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @01:44AM
You could have melted them into a steel ingot in your foundry.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday March 25 2017, @02:06AM (1 child)
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday March 25 2017, @05:35AM
What a waste.
My neighbor worked for a while as electronic maintenance at a local hospital - he had a garage-full of discards of perfectly good stuff like guerneys, wheelchairs, various equipment carts, and diagnostic equipment which he intended one day to load in a trailer and haul the whole shebang to Mexico. He gave me several useful items, including an ultrasonic heating assembly which I found very useful for sore muscles.
They had a budget they had to spend, and they did.
They knew if they weren't perpetually in debt, the government might cut back on the increases.
So, everybody was spending money. Lots of money. Out of someone else's pocket.
And the people did not complain too much about overwhelming costs because they are led to believe "it's covered!".
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @02:58AM
I had a cat, too. It wasn't diabetic but it was a nice cat.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Saturday March 25 2017, @10:03AM
Well, that shoots one recent theory out of the water… I discovered 6 months ago that in a current prescription is required for sterile electrolyte fluids like Lactated Ringers Solution nationwide, but that most states don't have that requirement for buying venoset tubing or needles of any size. I'd figured that the prescription requirement for fluids was primarily just so people would seek vet care before treating their pets — but if that doesn't apply to the purchase of insulin, obviously my theory was wrong.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @11:55PM
We need as much military as it takes to provide the access to foreign markets that our corporate leaders demand, and to retain our client states so they will actually buy our chlorinated chicken, and not send us missiles.
The Europeans right now benefit from Americans bearing most of the cost for their warfare, but traded the ability to then concentrate on social benefits by becoming satellites of the US. Sure, the US could reduce its military to a purely defensive force, but America's satellites would eventually go their own way. Initially maybe in the form of ignoring US sanction policy, in the end maybe back to war with the US and each other.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Unixnut on Friday March 24 2017, @11:59PM (10 children)
Things look a bit unstable in the upper echelons of US power houses. Lots of what was once backstabbing in silent areas is now open warfare in public. Maybe sensing that Trump cannot rely on the loyalty of the state department, CIA, and other political bodies, has decided to curry favour with those bodies that have shown to be the most pro Trump.
Namely the military. Would not surprise me that we are just seeing a bit power struggle, after all, those with guns will primarily follow the guy who pays them and takes care of them well.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Gaaark on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:25AM (5 children)
So, asking seriously. What would stop Trump from using the military for a coup to become Trump Jong Orange? Are there enough people in the military who would stop it cold? Some declaration of independence thing?
If military biggies REALLY wanted to.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:43AM (2 children)
What makes you think that people in power are more evil than you? Would you support a coup d'etat?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday March 25 2017, @01:25AM
Holy feck!
"What makes you think that people in power are more evil than you?"
You are an idiot. Sorry, but yeah. Idiot.
Stupidest thing I've heard all day.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:26PM
What makes you think that people in power are more evil than you?
Because you don't get into power without the desire to wield power.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:52AM
Isn't that what the 2nd amendment is for? The whole "having a militia" in case your government goes rogue? While having guns is fun for a pastime, the main reason to have it is to protect yourselves from a tyrannical government.
The negative social costs of gun culture are tolerated precisely because of the positive benefits it brings, but only if they are used when necessary.
As for what would stop Trump in such a situation? I guess it depends on whether the military stays loyal to him as a unit, or splinters into factions that fight amongst each other.
Scenario 1: You can engage in asymmetric guerrilla warfare. Be prepared to be labelled as "Terrorists" and "non-state combatants" (like every other guerrilla force in the world) with all the ex-jurisdictional droning and fun in any "interrogation chambers" that you may find yourself in. The unified military would be tough to beat, but it has happened in history that the guerrillas win.
Scenario 2: You basically have a civil war. Who wins will depend on far more factors than I can state here. Be sure that the weakening of the government and subsequent power vacuum will bring in outside countries interested in meddling for their own benefit.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @03:34AM
Let's do this thing! [wikipedia.org]
And I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for you meddling Jiggs!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:40AM (3 children)
"I've got the support of all the generals, folks! Hundreds of generals! The military's a disaster, and we're gonna fix that!"
That's his campaign promise, and he nominated many generals in his administration.
What happens, when many generals take key positions in the executive of a president with African-dictator ego and tendencies, is an exercise in speculation and/or preparedness...
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday March 25 2017, @01:51AM (2 children)
Don't see that happening. He's got less then 50% support of the general population. Assuming the odds that means he's got less then 50% support among those who control planes, trains, and artillery, A coup with our military isn't going to happen with an asshole like Trump.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday March 25 2017, @04:52AM
We can hope, but I'm not sure the demographics and psychology of those who choose to join the military necessarily coincide with those of the general population well enough to assume that will be the case.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday March 25 2017, @05:39AM
My fear is that the buildup of the military is not to counter the Communist Threat.
Rather, its my belief its to counter the insurgence of millions of displaced Americans when the bankers again pull the rug out from everyone with rate hikes, then can't magically fix the problem by lowering them again after a helluva lotta people lose their house.
Google the "Federal Funds Rate chart", look at it, and you tell me how the banks are gonna pull another rabbit out of the hat when this thing collapses again.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by its_gonna_be_yuge! on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:02AM (4 children)
Mexico's wall is so 2016. Now Trump wants the US military to have money to build a wall against China. It'll be waterproof.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:07AM (2 children)
The core module for China's new space station is going up in 2018.
So the question you must ask yourself is: "Can we build a wall out of space debris?"
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:28AM (1 child)
There's enough space debris to be shrapnel! Would that do? :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:35AM
Not nearly enough. I guess ISS needs to be used as such.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Saturday March 25 2017, @09:56AM
The wall lasted about an hour, you need Jaegars
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MostCynical on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:05AM (2 children)
fundamentally, large countries have yet to decide what their military is *for*. Many will say "the next war", but no one can agree where that will happen, and if it is urban warfare, most country's miltaries are hopeless at fighting guerrillas.
"Defence" is a term that is bandied about, when most countries (UK, US, Germany, even Australia) have sent military forces to invade, blockade, or run "peace missions" and "democracy creation" (East Timor being the only on I can think of that worked in my life time).
Further, the US hides alot of its employment problems in the military (have to find the figures, but I remember reading the US government was spending a fortune on childcare and education within the military - great for keeping the poor off the streets, not so good for actual "defence". Hiding your welfare spending like that seems to work for hard right types, though)
So - what is the army, navy, air force, marine corp, SAS, for?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:55AM
It's for buying F-35s. Without our military, the F-35 market would collapse! Oh the humanity!
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday March 25 2017, @02:38AM
What a military is for is easy. At root it is dead simple; You invest in a military or whoever replaces your defective civilization will.
The question of what threats to build your military around and the related questions of what equipment you should have, what sort of combat to train for are very much in flux currently.
And yes, once you have a large force of men with extensive capabilities beyond simple shooting at other large forces of men there are many uses you can put them to in the, hopefully long, periods of peace. Just remember what their primary purpose is and do not neglect military readiness. See above.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by jmorris on Saturday March 25 2017, @01:27AM (14 children)
What do you think about the proposed increase in military spending?
It is needed. The military is seriously depleted, Obama exhausted our stores of armaments and left replenishing them as someone else's problem. Most of our aircraft are older than the people flying them and have seen hard service in combat situations now for over a decade without sufficient time, effort and material put into their proper maintenance. We need to be buying different stuff to face new and different threats in a lot of cases.
We also seriously need to work on restoring our tech advantage over any potential enemy, especially China. We aren't always going to be fighting goat rapists, and are more likely to get into a war with someone able to field an actual army the worse our advantage degrades. Maintaining the certainty we can win any conventional war is the fastest, best and cheapest way to ensure global peace and stability. The more indistinguishable our military is from the very Wrath of God the better. A real world war with modern weapons is a horror we should spare no expense in averting, and our proven capacity to possess the might to conquer the world and withhold our hand means we are the only ones who can be trusted with the mandate to keep order
Does USA really need more weapons?
More? Probably not. Better, newer and better maintained ones? Yes. We probably should scrap the F35 project. But we need railguns. We need anti-missile tech, perhaps using railguns! We need directed energy weapons. We need an anti-drone defense system. We need our entire military hardened against EMP and then we need EMP bombs (non-nuke) to scare the bejabbers out of potential foes. We need to replace our aging nukes before something awful happens.
We need to invest in securing information systems, probably by building up a hardened Linux with every line of the core and every certified device driver gone over with a fine tooth comb and multiple million dollar bug bounties run. Once it is capable of replacing an existing system, make using it mandatory. Deploy it embedded in weapon systems, on soldier deployed systems, desktops, military servers, everywhere. Then do the same for OpenBSD and throw some of them into the mix to prevent a pure mono-culture. Ban Windows and MacOS from connecting to any military network.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday March 25 2017, @01:45AM (8 children)
It is needed. The military is seriously depleted, Obama exhausted our stores of armaments and left replenishing them as someone else's problem. Most of our aircraft are older than the people flying them and have seen hard service in combat situations now for over a decade without sufficient time, effort and material put into their proper maintenance. We need to be buying different stuff to face new and different threats in a lot of cases.
I get this. Rebuild our stockpile of armaments, build more Hornets. But buy F35's, or littoral ships, or any other seriously expensive shit? Um, how about no.
The military needs to learn what it means to live without cost-plus budgets, and decide if they want a few hundred thousand tomahawks or a few dozen F-35s.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday March 25 2017, @02:31AM (7 children)
Reading is a good idea before posting. See the part where I said we should probably scrap the F35 program?
The problem with it is that it only useful in a total war with a real enemy. It has no real place pounding goat humpers into kibble. But in a total war there is no way we can afford to field enough of the damned things to matter and every one shot down is a major blow. Better to have a dozen or more almost as good fighters stockpiled vs a single F35. Better still if we build several different ones optimized for different tasks. We need more A10 Warthogs or a new and improved replacement close air support aircraft, just for one example. Stealth is not likely to remain a thing long enough to justify the expense and compromises in performance made for the F35. Everyone is investing R&D into finding ways to defeat stealth so the odds are good somebody succeeds.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @03:01AM (3 children)
Stealth, at least at the level for a fighter plane, has almost no effect on performance. It's different for something like the B-2 of course, but you don't take the B-2 to a dogfight.
F-35 performance is killed by the requirement for vertical lift. The lift fan near the front is very wide. The engine itself has to be a bit wide, being higher bypass than ideal for a fighter. The engine exhaust needs to be far forward for balance when doing vertical lift. The wings need room for fat bleed air ducts. The cockpit and nose, being in front of the lift fan, needs to be kept light and not extend too much. The wings, which don't do much in vertical lift, need to be kept small. All this stuff compromises the shape.
You say "defeat stealth" as if stealth were a boolean. This is far from the case. Intermittent detection of an aircraft is much easier than tracking an aircraft. Ground-based supercomputers with huge antenna arrays are far more capable than enemy aircraft, and enemy aircraft are far more capable than small-diameter missiles.
The F-35 was a dumb idea, but at this point we probably ought to keep it. We'd do well to stock up on the Silent Eagle (an F-15 with moderate stealth enhancements) while designing an F-22B, like the original F-22 but with the helmet-mounted cueing system developed for the F-35. Doing a remake of the A-10, just updated for parts availability and metal fatigue, would be a good move as well. There is no substitute for numbers; we need at least a couple thousand of each.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @01:34AM (2 children)
The concepts are antithetical.
We discussed this some time back.
The F-35: A Gold-Plated Turkey [soylentnews.org]
A stealth aircraft doesn't have doors/access panels.
If something breaks (the example of a blown fuse was used), you have to cut a hole in the aircraft.
After making the repair, you then have to patch the hole with some pretty nasty chemicals and wait 3 days for the glue to cure.
Stealth aircraft are hangar queens.
...and old, cheap radars spot the "invisible" planes easily.
Stealth is a complete boondoggle.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @03:44PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @07:34AM
The man making the remarks is a top designer of high performance combat aircraft. [google.com]
I think I'll take his word over yours.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Saturday March 25 2017, @09:22AM (2 children)
What I understood about stealth is that the radar cross-section becomes as big as that of a relatively big bird. The problem, however, is that birds don't fly in straight lines at multiple hundreds of kilometers per hour.
A little bit of software tracking the trajectories of birds and seeing if any of them travels at a certain speed, and/or in a straight line, will identify the F-35 from the birds.
And if you are wrong, then militarily seen there is relatively few harm done to sending a SAM or GTAM to the object that is flying fast in a straight line towards one of your military infrastructures anyway.
Differently put: if you start flying with stealth airplanes over Russia and/or China in those straight lines (which you have to, given that your pilots can't withstand the G forces if they'd make fast turns at high speeds), and at speeds faster than the fastest birds (which you have to, else *really amazingly* simple technology will detect, track and shoot down your airplanes, then you will be shot down by a massive amount of SAM and GTAM missles.
You also can't detect the Russian and Chinese SAM and GTAM launch platforms, because during the Cold War have the Russians (who sell these systems to the Chinese) been developing mobile platforms. You know, launch platforms with wheels that constantly move around the countryside and that look just like any truck when viewed from a spying satellite.
In every possible scenario are stealth airplanes worthless against a serious enemy (Russia, China, etc). You will get shot down. Probably the same airplane multiple times: a first time by two or three simultaneously arriving missles, and a second time the wreck that is falling out of the sky. Just to make sure. And then a last time a few bombs on the metal that crashed on the ground. Your pilot will be tracked while shuting to the ground and he'll for absolutely sure will be tortured repeatedly to squeeze any information out of the poor sucker.
That will happen no matter how advanced the technology is. Unless you find a way to silence the planes completely (physically/theoretically impossible).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @12:58AM (1 child)
"like a bird" is kind of average. It blinks in and out depending on the exact angle.
The SAM has to be guided. Any onboard radar is inherently poor due to limited power and limited space, both for the computer and for the antenna. The antenna limitation is serious; no amount of technology advance can compensate for this. (basic physics issue) If the SAM is guided from the ground, then it will be unguided because the ground stations get attacked.
You damn well can detect the launch platforms. There are special aircraft designed for exactly this purpose. One can also hack into communications to determine locations. One could do even better, hacking in and doing various things.
Ultimately though, you just have to give things a best effort. Anything less is an automatic loss.
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Sunday March 26 2017, @09:44PM
The best-efford goes both ways.
The "special aircraft" will get shot down by more capable missiles if needed. Russia has space-rocket capability since decades, and can surely hit your average spying plane just fine. In fact, they have proven it repeatedly.
If you want to loose expensive gear, pilots + training and and face the music in international media by having fancy toys shot out of the high skies: fine. Because that's exactly what your "special aircraft" will encounter. RT will even put it on youtube for all to see. Even and especially if you cry-baby in the Western media about it. Shot down they will.
Another example: the blinking-on-radar by no means implies that even simple amateur software can't find a pattern of a straight line going at a certain speed out of it. It easily can. And will. And then your fancy expensive fighter jet gets shot down anyway. With all the international media drama to go with it, too.
You see. "The other side", the Russians, also invested in defence. If you fly over them in ways that they don't want you to; you get shot down. Plain and simple.
You can leave your US cowboy hat at home. As it'll get shot down, too.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday March 25 2017, @03:11AM (2 children)
You'd be able to do it only if you match China's manufacturing capabilities. That's a race you fell behind quite a long time - good luck with that, you'll need it if you want this to happen soon enough.
Tell you what: you'll start to be able to beat China the moment your PhD theses and scientific articles will be signed by Johns and Janes rather than Lius and Hengs.
In the eventuality of a war, China will pay your post-graduates better than you'll be able to do; besides, you have a habit to put them in camps [wikipedia.org]
Bullshit - not until the energy storage in chemical bonds is surpassed by the capacity of electric energy storage.
Granted, for big atomic ships it may make sense (producing the energy at a high enough rate), but even there the current materials used for rails will wear very fast - much faster than a gun bore.
But be my guest, drop your explosive driven guns for railguns if you like them better.
Let yourself opened to attacks favouring cheap low-tech en-masse, the type a big nation with large manufacturing capability can mount.
You'll finish in spending 10 times the amount of dollars to fend a low-tech attack.
That would go on a collision course with ubiquitous use of electronics, don't you think?
Especially when it's so easy to craft a non-nuke EMP bomb [wikipedia.org] - big capacitor [aliexpress.com] discharged into a conductive loop that's explosively compressed.
Carpet-bomb Wall Street with them and chaos ensures with minimal human loss.
You delude yourself that you can win any war... pretty much as the delusion you have the certainty of employment or income nowadays; nobody can.
You win a war only when you can pacify whatever territory you won - and yet... you can't pacify yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @03:51AM
Yours is the only sane post I have read yet.
Trump is merely another maniac waiting for his time to come.
I personally think he's dreaming for a crisis to happen so he can go and kick everybody's asses and take their money.
Shallow man. Shallow dreams. Money is all.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 25 2017, @10:35AM
Bullshit - not until the energy storage in chemical bonds is surpassed by the capacity of electric energy storage.
Which in the case of rail guns systems has already been done. There's no way to put that much kinetic energy on ordinance without a complex, mass-inefficient rocket system, using chemical energy. And by mass-inefficient, I mean that it's more mass effective to stow fuel for an efficient diesel or gas turbine generator than it is to store propellant on a shell intended to go several km per second.
But be my guest, drop your explosive driven guns for railguns if you like them better. Let yourself opened to attacks favouring cheap low-tech en-masse, the type a big nation with large manufacturing capability can mount. You'll finish in spending 10 times the amount of dollars to fend a low-tech attack.
The US would spend gobs anyway. Current military procurement costs are grossly overinflated no matter what military technology is being developed, be it a better gun or supposedly better food or not developed (obsoleting the A-10 without a replacement).
That would go on a collision course with ubiquitous use of electronics, don't you think? Especially when it's so easy to craft a non-nuke EMP bomb - big capacitor discharged into a conductive loop that's explosively compressed.
Carpet-bomb Wall Street with them and chaos ensures with minimal human loss.
Because no one would ever exploit an obvious military vulnerability.
You delude yourself that you can win any war... pretty much as the delusion you have the certainty of employment or income nowadays; nobody can. You win a war only when you can pacify whatever territory you won - and yet... you can't pacify yourself.
Certainty is not a bit flag you set. No military is prepared for sufficiently incompetent leadership.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @07:09AM
How so? The military budget increased under Obama, and some of the reductions were partly Republican induced via The Sequester budget fight.
(Score: 2) by andersjm on Saturday March 25 2017, @07:48AM
Not for lack of funds.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @02:06AM
..."no."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @02:17AM
yuge.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @02:41AM (1 child)
America's military needs to be big enough to deal with usurped city councils: https://www.yakimawa.gov/council/. [yakimawa.gov] From usurped city councils, the bullshit flows: http://www.yakimaherald.com/news/local/city-council-considers-immigration-policy-draft/article_af1f72d6-10c6-11e7-a015-cfd30003a260.html. [yakimaherald.com] For background info.: https://www.aclu-wa.org/cases/montes-v-city-yakima-0 [aclu-wa.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @03:56AM
Racist much, moron?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday March 25 2017, @03:05AM
As with so many things in life it depends on what you want to do with it. If you want to keep playing world-police-and-protector then you need more and more, after all you can't have any of those second-rate superpowers become uppity and think they can police the world better then you can, so you have to be able to put down all the contenders. Since the world is a fairly fucked up place you also need to be able to do this in many places at the same time. The thing is once you started you can't back down. You have to stay at the top or someone might dethrone you and then it will take a long time to rebuild, that is if the new king of the hill will even allow it.
According to the article China has twice as many soldiers, India has more then the USA and the US barely has more troops then North Korea. That said there is probably a quality and quantity issue here that doesn't come across in the graph. But then von Clausewitz did say that you could achieve military superiority with superior numbers. So it's not a completely worthless things to just have more.
Then as have been mentioned here having a large military force is great for hiding all those pesky unemployable people. Makes the stats look all nice and you get something out of it instead of just handing out welfare checks.
This has left analysts wondering what goals he has in mind.
Idiots. He had giant signs made and he said it over and over again -- he wants to make America great again. In his mind "great" is some post-wwii magical place where all is great in America, usual exceptions apply to people that don't fit the norm. Great for the country just not for every single citizen -- those are just never all happy at the same time.
Then he probably also wants to keep the yellow and red in their place and the middle east is an eternal clusterfuck of pain and death. Europe doesn't love Uncle Sam like they used to (ungrateful bastards!). China and Russia are interested in making lots of new "friends" in Africa -- can't have that. Things south of the border kinda suck so there has to be a giant wall put up to keep the riff-raff out. Then there are all these damn terrorist that want their 72 virgins. So it's not like he is lacking for goals.
So all in all from the article and graphs if we are just to take them for what they are - Trump wants to be (or remain) nr#1.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Saturday March 25 2017, @03:19AM (2 children)
Large enough to maintain our control over the Americas two times over, with an air force that could defend Japan/Vietnam/South Korea from Chinese expansion. No need for any military installations anywhere else in the world as far as I am concerned. Even with prior stipulations made there should be no bases outside of the United States with the exception of Okinawa. Non pan-America countries should not have any longterm military in the region (lookin at you England).
This should allow us to reduce our military by 50 to 60%.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1) by its_gonna_be_yuge! on Saturday March 25 2017, @05:32AM (1 child)
Funny you mention Okinawa. Not too many people there want the Americans around. Too many rapes and murders. Too much debris and noise.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Saturday March 25 2017, @02:33PM
It is a pretty serious problem. I don't see an issue with withdrawing our forces and allowing the Japanese to take them over and build their own military presence in the area. Japanese culture has changed so much since the war that they are not the same kind of threat they were when it was decided they were not to be allowed to build another military.
Okinawa is interesting because I don't think they would want a Japanese military presence either, seeing as they are culturally their own thing and were aquired by Japan just before the war started. But you are correct in that there is no reason for a soverign nation to ever put up with foreign troops encamped on their soil.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Insightful) by shortscreen on Saturday March 25 2017, @05:25AM
It's telling that the headline asks "how big" and then TFS goes on to talk only about dollars. The military is mainly an excuse to spend money. Being able to run roughshod over other countries is a secondary benefit. For these purposes it can never be big enough.
If we were to pretend that it was for self defense that would be a different story.
(Score: 1) by its_gonna_be_yuge! on Saturday March 25 2017, @05:35AM
Three months in, and he's effectively a Lame Fuck president.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @02:13PM
Should definitely work better than bombing wedding parties.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @02:25PM (3 children)
i think it's all pretty obvious what should be done. We should pull out of everywhere not absolutely necessary for defense. Audit all defense contracts and defense agencies. Drastically improve efficiency in every way and drastically reduce the military budget. Get our domestic strategic resources in order. Start teaching our kids about technology. This imperialism in un-american and most citizens should know it. I'm all for a strong military but i think it should all be like the national guard. Highly trained citizen-soldiers that live and work in country and can do other things besides kill. This huge standing army of misused/abused soldiers is disgraceful. Then, even when they get so injured they can't fight anymore, the treasonous whores don't take care of them worth a shit. Every american who votes for more military spending without drastic reform and re-prioritization is an enabler of the depleted uranium polluting the middle east, the soldiers dying by suicide every day and every other travesty committed in our name.
(Score: 1) by lonehighway on Saturday March 25 2017, @05:29PM (1 child)
This sums it up very well. Everything the U.S. military has touched since WW2 has turned to shit, and the more recent the events, the faster the turning. I hope Europe begins to route around the diseased foreign policy of the U.S. and says goodbye to NATO and the cheetoh's demand for more spending.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @06:13PM
We got nukes, we got guided bombs, and we got liberals voting.
So now we try to be "nice" about war. This drags it out. After we "finish" the war, we leave an angry foe with the same old culture. This doesn't solve anything.
To properly deal with a foe, you have to eliminate their culture. This sometimes includes language and religion. Forced conversions can get this done, as can just killing everybody. Eliminating an ethnicity is also effective, but particularly icky if you don't kill everybody: it needs rape, which is truly old-school.
So, for a random Muslim country, one might require: idol worship, eating of pork, and exclusive use of English. Those who resist are killed via blood transfusion from a pig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @01:36AM
History says you're quite wrong about that.
American expansion - 377kB animated GIF [imgur.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Saturday March 25 2017, @09:37PM (1 child)
Note China in Tibet.
Note Russia in the Ukraine.
For everyone in America who lives free and safe from both China and Russia that shouts "Fuck America, Kill Cops, save the drug dealers."
There is one in those countries who is wishing they were living under American law and culture rather than the governments of our two closest military competitors.
My honest question to liberals is: Who do you WANT to be the top dog, if not America? I guarantee you that Sweden is not in your short list of world powers. There are human rights violators, and there are human rights violators. I personally believe America is the vastly lesser evil of the two closest runner-ups.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @11:42PM
For everyone in America who lives free and safe from both China and Russia that shouts "Fuck America, Kill Cops, save the drug dealers."
So you're talking to about a very limited number of people, then, and not "liberals" in general? What do cops or drug dealers have to do with this? How does that relate to China and Russia or the US military at all, you nutjob? Are you trying to make this about your authoritarian views in general?
There is one in those countries who is wishing they were living under American law and culture rather than the governments of our two closest military competitors.
Ah, yes, let's ignore X's evils because Y is worse. Let's not even ponder how big X's military needs to be, because Y exists. What a cowardly, mindless distraction.
My honest question to liberals is
Why do you ask such vague questions to a large group of people who identify under an equally vague label? What point is there in doing that except to attack the Other? I also guarantee you that there are many in agreement with those who identify as 'liberal' about war.
And what does any of this have to do with the article? I hope you're not dumb enough to argue that we need an unlimited military budget to fend off China and Russia, because usually people would say that throwing endless amounts of money at something is not the way to fix the underlying issues, and yet it is with the military?