Military spending out of control?

[Stylerod]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

If you are targeting insurgents which are part of the general civilian population, you can exactly use a nuclear submarine can you?

No, but you say this like "insurgents" are the only people we will ever be fighting again. Hopefully that will be the case. But you can't base your nations defense against "hopefully". The F22 will be around for probably another 20+ years. Who knows what will happen during that time.

[7960]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

NOt just high tech... but high tech items like Fighter jets, submarines, etc. Those sorts of things are only good against an enemy who also has advanced fighter planes and tanks and submarines.

No.

If the enemy doesn't have "advanced" stuff then the stuff we have still function perfectly fine as jets, submarines, etc. It might be a little overkill to send an F-22 after a '70s-era MiG, but I don't understand how it's "only good" against another modern plane.

One is built to counter the other. IF you are righting against a bunch of guys living in caves using AK-47's... A fighter jet is pretty much useless isn't it?

Jet's drop bombs.

If you are targeting insurgents which are part of the general civilian population, you can exactly use a nuclear submarine can you?

It depends on the situation. In iraq we have used (non-nuclear) missile strikes from ships. While we don't really know much about what the subs are doing does that automatically mean we didn't need them?

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by Stylerod

No, but you say this like "insurgents" are the only people we will ever be fighting again. Hopefully that will be the case. But you can't base your nations defense against "hopefully". The F22 will be around for probably another 20+ years. Who knows what will happen during that time.

I think that the days of large scale open mechanized warfare are essentially gone. We will never see anything like WW2 again. Why? Because everyone knows that if two major powers went to all out war with modern weaponry that we would probably destroy the planet. If we went to war with Russia we would all be dust right now. Can I say that the possibility is zero? Of course not. I don't know if you play texas holdem ...But you don't go all in pre flop with 7-2 off suit on the off-chance that you make a boat on the flop. You fold that shit before commiting any chips. You play the odds. It makes no sense to spend billions on something that will probably never happen. It's better to focus on the propable than the improbable. Put your money in where you KNOW it will have a benefit.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by 7960

No.

If the enemy doesn't have "advance" stuff then the stuff we have still function perfectly fine as jets, submarines, etc. It might be a little overkill to send an F-22 after a '70s-era MiG, but I don't understand how it's "only good" against another modern plane.

Jet's drop bombs.

It depends on the situation. In iraq we have used (non-nuclear) missile strikes from ships. While we don't really know much about what the subs are doing does that automatically mean we didn't need them?

We used those tomahawk missle strikes to take out infrastructure during the initial invasion. We don't use them to hit people hiding in civilian areas. Sometimes we call in air strikes using ground troops but then all you need is a
basic aircraft. IN that sense an old P51 would do just as good a job as a F22 since it doesnt need to fight other aircraft.

[7960]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

I think that the days of large scale open mechanized warfare are essentially gone. We will never see anything like WW2 again. Why? Because everyone knows that if two major powers went to all out war with modern weaponry that we would probably destroy the planet. If we went to war with Russia we would all be dust right now.

You know that's not true, right? The whole "blow the planet up" and nuclear winter shit was just that, shit...you know that, right?

It makes no sense to spend billions on something that will probably never happen. It's better to focus on the propable than the improbable. Put your money in where you KNOW it will have a benefit.

In 1981 the USSR was a real threat. You can argue that *maybe* we shoudl have stopped development in the mid '90s but using *YOUR* "probable/improbable" ruler, development shoudl have begun in '81 and (still going by "probable") we shouldn't have assumed it all ended in '91 when the USSR dissolved.

[7960]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

We used those tomahawk missle strikes to take out infrastructure during the initial invasion. We don't use them to hit people hiding in civilian areas. Sometimes we call in air strikes using ground troops but then all you need is a
basic aircraft. IN that sense an old P51 would do just as good a job as a F22 since it doesnt need to fight other aircraft.

You're thinking TODAY! and RIGHT NOW! Development of a new jet takes decades. Should we have just tossed the billions it took to get the first plane airborne and not ordered the rest and let Lockheed go under after investing hundreds of millions in a plane the pentagon promised to buy?

And why do you think that P51 would have been safe in the air? Because a shitload of US jets had it secured.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by 7960

You know that's not true, right? The whole "blow the planet up" and nuclear winter shit was just that, shit...you know that, right?

In 1981 the USSR was a real threat. You can argue that *maybe* we shoudl have stopped development in the mid '90s but using *YOUR* "probable/improbable" ruler, development shoudl have begun in '81 and (still going by "probable") we shouldn't have assumed it all ended in '91 when the USSR dissolved.

I agree with that, but after the soviet union fell why did we continue development of the F22? It no longer served a purpose.It was desgined specifically to counter soviet airpower. That was it's sole purpose. The soviet union has been kaput for how long now? and the F-22 is JUST now being deemed ready for combat. That means that we continued its development long after we knew it was going to be all but useless.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by 7960

You're thinking TODAY! and RIGHT NOW! Development of a new jet takes decades. Should we have just tossed the billions it took to get the first plane airborne and not ordered the rest and let Lockheed go under after investing hundreds of millions in a plane the pentagon promised to buy?

And why do you think that P51 would have been safe in the air? Because a shitload of US jets had it secured.

Lockheed would not have gone under. and even if it did, oh well. Thats the free market. It's not the governments job to pump taxpayer money into a private corporation to build a product that no one needs.

[7960]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

I agree with that, but after the soviet union fell why did we continue development of the F22?

Because we needed a new plane.
Because we were billions into it by then.
Because just stopping production would have sunk countless companies.

It was desgined specifically to counter soviet airpower.

No, it was not.

Well, it was designed to counter their air power, BUT it was also developed because the F-15 was coming up on 30 years old (when the f-22 was to be deployed).

[7960]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

Lockheed would not have gone under. and even if it did, oh well. Thats the free market. It's not the governments job to pump taxpayer money into a private corporation to build a product that no one needs.

You keep saying no one needs......so just stop development and keep rebuilding the 30 year old jet until we need a new one, and then it'll only take 15 years to get it in the air because we already dumped all that money into planning, right?

Wrong. Billions would have been flushed down the toilet.

And I find it funny that you say "oh well, free market, fuck the lockheed employees and the pentagon's contract with them" here when in the education thread you said "My take on it is that you can't measure all things in terms of economic profit making." If you just don't like the military, that's fine. I think we should order 5 fewer planes and send the money to our schools. But I don't think we should be breaking contracts that would put tens/hundreds of thousand out of work.

If lockheed went under it would have screwed 135,000 employees and probably that much again when you account for contractors. But hey, " free market!! "

[Publius]

If the government had a contract with lockheed, they should fulfill that contract.

edit:

a lot of the money that goes into R&Ding these projects ISN'T taxpayer money. Arms industry companies typically pour hundreds of millions, even billions, into a project of their own accord because they know that they'll be repaid by the government's contract to purchase X amount of the item from them for X amount of dollars.

Even by reducing the order, they've probably cut the profit margin considerably. These companies get A LOT of our tax dollars, but in many cases it is simply "reimbursement" in a way because they'd already spent A LOT of their dollars doing the R&D.

That said, I'm not a fan of the arms industry.

[Stylerod]

Originally Posted by 7960

Because we needed a new plane.
Because we were billions into it by then.
Because just stopping production would have sunk countless companies.

No, it was not.

Well, it was designed to counter their air power, BUT it was also developed because the F-15 was coming up on 30 years old (when the f-22 was to be deployed).

AND, the soviet union still creates and sells very high tech aircraft to countries that we might find ourselves fighting in the future. The reason why we were able to destroy Iraq's army in just a few weeks was because of how good our high tech weaponry was that we spent billions developing.

[7960]

Originally Posted by Publius

If the government had a contract with lockheed, they should fulfill that contract.

They did have a contract.

And they renegotiated the contract to buy fewer planes. I think they renegotiated 3 or 4 times and ended up paying more per plane because they cut down the number of planes by so much. Like I said, originally the pentagon was buying 700+ and the final contract is just over 300.

[Publius]

Originally Posted by 7960

They did have a contract.

And they renegotiated the contract to buy fewer planes. I think they renegotiated 3 or 4 times and ended up paying more per plane because they cut down the number of planes by so much. Like I said, originally the pentagon was buying 700+ and the final contract is just over 300.

[nbiggershaft]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

NOt just high tech... but high tech items like Fighter jets, submarines, etc. Those sorts of things are only good against an enemy who also has advanced fighter planes and tanks and submarines. One is built to counter the other. IF you are righting against a bunch of guys living in caves using AK-47's... A fighter jet is pretty much useless isn't it? If you are targeting insurgents which are part of the general civilian population, you can exactly use a nuclear submarine can you?

We've had fighter jets and submarines for years and years. The modern R&D has been going into more precise independent weaponry i. Advanced fighter jets that don't need other planes in the air to refuel, with their own radar so they don't need radar planes in the air.

I agree there is plenty of military contracting, mostly due to congressional lobbying/bribes. But advanced weaponry is entirely more applicable to taking out smaller more entrenched targets. Imagine if we actually were using WW2 technology in Iraq. We'd have to carpet bomb a city to take out one target.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by nbiggershaft

We've had fighter jets and submarines for years and years. The modern R&D has been going into more precise independent weaponry i. Advanced fighter jets that don't need other planes in the air to refuel, with their own radar so they don't need radar planes in the air.

I agree there is plenty of military contracting, mostly due to congressional lobbying/bribes. But advanced weaponry is entirely more applicable to taking out smaller more entrenched targets. Imagine if we actually were using WW2 technology in Iraq. We'd have to carpet bomb a city to take out one target.

I'[m just trying to say that we have alot of shit we don't need and our military budget is redonkulous. The fact that if you combined the military spending of every other country on the planet, we still spend more.. thats just crazy.

[DosEquis]

It is beyond out of control. Research and development is necessary in some areas, and not necessary in others. I do not mind research in body armor technology, small arms technology, night vision, armored transport, stealth technology, and a variety of other things to maintain an advantage. The last thing we want is a fair fight. We want to go in and shoot down their planes before they are there and get a shot at us. We want to sink their boats before they can shoot at our boats.

Why do we keep building newer, more precise, and more powerful nuclear weapons? The ones we have are accurate enough, and we have enough of them to destroy the world 100 times. Even if it was off target by 5 miles, I think its safe to say you hit your target. Not to mention we are never going to use it and the ones we have are enough for mutual assured destruction.

Why are we building a "rail" gun for navy ships? Do we REALLY need that? Really?

Do we really need to put 10s of billions in to a missile defense system that can only allegedly shoot down one missile at a time? Terrorists are 99.95% going to use some sort of dirty bomb, because any nation with a missile that does successfully clear the ground..the entire world will rise against them. Then do we really need to install those systems through Europe? Is it really our responsibility to "protect" them?

If we cut the waste and the idiotic programs we could cut our military budget by 100 billion a year, and still have the most advanced and most powerful military in the world.

Further...why is it when a republican administration closes a base it is "strategic" but when a democrat closes a base it is "destroying" the military?

[7960]

Originally Posted by DosEquis

.....we have enough of them to destroy the world 100 times.

This is wrong. You know that, right?

Why are we building a "rail" gun for navy ships? Do we REALLY need that? Really?

Ironically, in this thread about saving money, you're complaining about a gun that saves money. It's also safer, better, faster, etc, etc, etc.

Electromagnetic Railgun | Popular Science

Do we really need to put 10s of billions in to a missile defense system that can only allegedly shoot down one missile at a time?

Because the goal is to shoot down more than one missile but you gotta crawl before you can run.

Terrorists are 99.95% going to use some sort of dirty bomb, because any nation with a missile that does successfully clear the ground..the entire world will rise against them. Then do we really need to install those systems through Europe? Is it really our responsibility to "protect" them?

We're installing them in europe to protect US.

If we cut the waste and the idiotic programs we could cut our military budget by 100 billion a year, and still have the most advanced and most powerful military in the world.

$100B. Wow. Link to your data?