Military Thread: Humanity Hanging from a Cross of Iron

[Katphood]

This is how I feel every time one of my cats barfs on the carpet:

 

[kanisatha]

18 hours ago, Sarex said:

Interesting read

https://warontherocks.com/2019/12/why-russian-military-expenditure-is-much-higher-than-commonly-understood-as-is-chinas/

Yup. This was a big part of what I researched and wrote on in my doctoral project. And every semester I have to explain this to my students in my intro to international relations class.

Also, I use WotR articles a lot in my classes for current world affairs exposure for my students.

Edited December 26, 2021 by kanisatha

[ComradeYellow]

@kanisatha you seem to posses some form of academic proficiency.  Would you argue to the progressive assertion that U.S. military budget is largely bloated and not very effective?  I mean the CIA, NSA, and FBI clearly posses some powerful surveillance programs, according to whistle blowers, and I'm unsure as how effective all these VPN's and Onion directories are at deterring them but military analysts don't seem very convincing for some reason.

[kanisatha]

19 hours ago, ComradeYellow said:

@kanisatha you seem to posses some form of academic proficiency.  Would you argue to the progressive assertion that U.S. military budget is largely bloated and not very effective?  I mean the CIA, NSA, and FBI clearly posses some powerful surveillance programs, according to whistle blowers, and I'm unsure as how effective all these VPN's and Onion directories are at deterring them but military analysts don't seem very convincing for some reason.

Yeah military budgets/expenditures are what's most commonly used to assess the macro-level military capabilities of states, because they are the easiest to use and to understand and they naturally lend themselves to comparison. But many studies have shown expenditures are a very poor variable for assessing military power/capacity, not only because in some countries the numbers don't accurately reflect true expenditures but also because in other countries (typically Western democracies) they are highly inflated (bloated?) in value and padded with expenditures only tangentially/marginally associated with military capability.

In the U.S., for example, there's a lot that goes into the defense budget that's not defense-related because the defense budget usually passes with overwhelming support and so it's a good vehicle through which to pass pork-barrel spending that individual members of Congress want for their states/districts. Plus, there's a ton of spending that's welfare for troops and their families that you won't find in most other national defense budgets. Not saying we shouldn't be spending on the welfare of our troops; just saying it should be counted under the general social welfare part of spending and not as defense spending. And yes, then you also have a LOT of waste and mismanagement, because you can more easily get away with that kind of waste and mismanagement when it's associated with something so serious as national defense, whereas the public would never accept that kind of waste and mismanagement in any other area of spending.

A side-note: the U.S. intelligence and black programs budget is very small compared with the defense budget. I think the black programs are probably actually managed better than the regular defense programs.

Edited December 27, 2021 by kanisatha

[kanisatha]

Back in the Cold War the huge disparity in the military expenditures of NATO v. the Warsaw Pact clearly also showed up in the disparity in technology quality between the two sides. This was especially true after Belenko's defection with his MiG-25 in '79(?), where before we were so awed by Soviet fighter jets but after we got to examine the -25 we learned that it was pretty much crap. But looking at where the Chinese are now, the same pattern does not hold. Despite spending a lot less on defense than us, they have largely caught up with us in many areas of military tech and are ahead of us now in some areas. They are now able to field a navy that is bigger than ours. This is why it has been such a shock to US military analysts and especially members of Congress. We all were told for many years that U.S. spending far outstripped Chinese spending (including in story after story in the newsmedia as justification for defense cutbacks), which then meant we were way ahead of them in capability (it was logically assumed -- though not by me). Then, just like that over the past year or so, the Joint Chiefs are testifying before Congress that the Chinese have caught up with us and even surpassed us. But how can that be?!! We've been outspending them by vast sums of money!!! This is the best ever example of official budget numbers not being reliable indicators of military capability. The Chinese are clearly able to do a LOT more with their defense dollars than we are.

[Sarex]

Calling the MiG-25 crap is a bit of a stretch... It's biggest flaw was that it was tailor made to combat a non-existent threat. That's kind of like calling the SR-71 crap.

[Gfted1]

Iirc, the F-15 was tailor made to fight the MiG-25, then we got our hands on one and realized the F-15 clearly outmatched it.

[Guard Dog]

3 hours ago, kanisatha said:

Back in the Cold War the huge disparity in the military expenditures of NATO v. the Warsaw Pact clearly also showed up in the disparity in technology quality between the two sides. This was especially true after Belenko's defection with his MiG-25 in '79(?), where before we were so awed by Soviet fighter jets but after we got to examine the -25 we learned that it was pretty much crap. But looking at where the Chinese are now, the same pattern does not hold. Despite spending a lot less on defense than us, they have largely caught up with us in many areas of military tech and are ahead of us now in some areas. They are now able to field a navy that is bigger than ours. This is why it has been such a shock to US military analysts and especially members of Congress. We all were told for many years that U.S. spending far outstripped Chinese spending (including in story after story in the newsmedia as justification for defense cutbacks), which then meant we were way ahead of them in capability (it was logically assumed -- though not by me). Then, just like that over the past year or so, the Joint Chiefs are testifying before Congress that the Chinese have caught up with us and even surpassed us. But how can that be?!! We've been outspending them by vast sums of money!!! This is the best ever example of official budget numbers not being reliable indicators of military capability. The Chinese are clearly able to do a LOT more with their defense dollars than we are.

That's the US for you. Ready and armed to fight yesterday's war. Not tomorrows. That's why I REALLY hope China does not invade Taiwan. That goes one of two ways: They invade and the rest of the world does nothing. They invade and the US and other powers intervene which will all but guarantee escalation and the probable use of nuclear weapons.  The former guarantees war right now. The latter guarantees war in the near future because unchallenged aggression begets more aggression.  The only way there is no war in the Pacific is if the status quo is maintained. 

Edited December 27, 2021 by Guard Dog

[Raithe]

It's also a lot more cost effective for the Chinese to put a small amount of money into stealing the tech from the US than it is to research it themselves.

In a sense, the USA is funding China's research game..

[Gfted1]

Now that theyre in the lead we can steal all their advancements!

Unrelated, but I sometimes wonder in the recent "loss of our hacking tools" isnt actually another honeypot like the "secure" phones that were provided by the FBI?

[Sarex]

2 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

Iirc, the F-15 was tailor made to fight the MiG-25, then we got our hands on one and realized the F-15 clearly outmatched it.

The mig-25 was made to counter hypersonic bombers that the US never made.

2 hours ago, Raithe said:

It's also a lot more cost effective for the Chinese to put a small amount of money into stealing the tech from the US than it is to research it themselves.

In a sense, the USA is funding China's research game..

I mean the US outright stole the technology for a supersonic plane from the British. It's a great myth that China is the biggest thief of tech in the world, the US was caught numerous times stealing tech, from it's own allies even, they just have better PR. Where do you think the Titanium the Blackbirds were made off came from?

edit: I forgot about operation Paperclip.

edit2:  Supersonic not hypersonic.

Edited December 27, 2021 by Sarex

[Malcador]

Well in that case they got it from their enemy, nothing too shady there.

[Gfted1]

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

I mean the US outright stole the technology for a hypersonic plane from the British.

No wonder ours doesnt work. D'oh!

[Sarex]

14 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Well in that case they got it from their enemy, nothing too shady there.

My point being not that China is not shady, it certainly is as much as any of the superpowers are, but that corporate and military espionage is simply an integral part of any powerful country, it's how they remain so.

[Sarex]

3 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

No wonder ours doesnt work. D'oh!

I meant supersonic...

[Malcador]

7 minutes ago, Sarex said:

My point being not that China is not shady, it certainly is as much as any of the superpowers are, but that corporate and military espionage is simply an integral part of any powerful country, it's how they remain so.

Yes.  Not sure if it is really a myth that they are the biggest thieves, currently  And being hypocritical is a part of being a powerful country, or just having a dog in the fight.

[Gfted1]

Fwiw, I wasnt busting your chops, I took your statement at face value.

I wonder if kinetic platforms (planes, missiles, etc.) will be obviated in the foreseeable future (for first world militaries)? Imo, within years, lasers will reach the required power output level to burn anything out of the sky. Then we can simply create platforms that are nothing but generators and laser turrets. But we still need to make things go boom (which lasers wont do), so the next evolution of kinetic weapons needs to have some ability to withstand lasers. Mirror finish (hypersonic disco ball ftw!), plasma shield, something we dont know about yet?

[kanisatha]

3 hours ago, Sarex said:

Calling the MiG-25 crap is a bit of a stretch... It's biggest flaw was that it was tailor made to combat a non-existent threat. That's kind of like calling the SR-71 crap.

Actually no, if you read the evaluations that were done. The -25 was billed as a M3.2 jet, but the manufacturing was so bad that any more than a few seconds at those speeds and the airframe literally tore apart at the seams. Also, its Tumansky engines only had about 200 hours of flight time, again because of very poor manufacturing. The design of the aircraft was pretty decent, but Soviet manufacturing was atrocious.

[Sarex]

1 minute ago, Gfted1 said:

Fwiw, I wasnt busting your chops, I took your statement at face value.

I wonder if kinetic platforms (planes, missiles, etc.) will be obviated in the foreseeable future (for first world militaries)? Imo, within years, lasers will reach the required power output level to burn anything out of the sky. Then we can simply create platforms that are nothing but generators and laser turrets. But we still need to make things go boom (which lasers wont do), so the next evolution of kinetic weapons needs to have some ability to withstand lasers. Mirror finish (hypersonic disco ball ftw!), plasma shield, something we dont know about yet?

No, no I just caught my mistake there. I guess the hypersonic is the current trend now, so I just derped.

Could they not just plate the missiles with what the space shuttles used, it's not like it needs to be reusable. As for the planes, I think they will go the way of the drones, where it will simply be quantity over quality.

[Sarex]

8 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

Actually no, if you read the evaluations that were done. The -25 was billed as a M3.2 jet, but the manufacturing was so bad that any more than a few seconds at those speeds and the airframe literally tore apart at the seams. Also, its Tumansky engines only had about 200 hours of flight time, again because of very poor manufacturing. The design of the aircraft was pretty decent, but Soviet manufacturing was atrocious.

Yes, it's even told in the video I linked, but they still fulfilled the role they were designed for, it's just that the enemy it was meant to combat never came to be. Just like the sr-71 was not very useful for any actual reconnaissance of mainland Russia and was made obsolete by satellites.

I get what you are saying, I'm not trying to strawman. What I'm trying to say is that they were good enough for what they were made to do. It's also a testament to their design that in spite of Soviet manufacturing capabilities they were able to that much. Some of the migs records still stand.

The biggest mark against the mig-25 is that it's one of the ugliest plane the Soviets made.

Edited December 27, 2021 by Sarex

[kanisatha]

2 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

That's the US for you. Ready and armed to fight yesterday's war. Not tomorrows. That's why I REALLY hope China does not invade Taiwan. That goes one of two ways: They invade and the rest of the world does nothing. They invade and the US and other powers intervene which will all but guarantee escalation and the probable use of nuclear weapons.  The former guarantees war right now. The latter guarantees war in the near future because unchallenged aggression begets more aggression.  The only way there is no war in the Pacific is if the status quo is maintained. 

Well, my expectation is that war with China is inevitable one way or the other. The question is which country gains with the passage of time. Some analysts believe that China has peaked, and so the balance of power will become more favorable to us the longer we can delay that fight. I disagree, and believe we are better off fighting them sooner rather than later.

There is also the issue of ever-increasing strategic coordination among China, Russia, and Iran these days. I think the Chinese would very much like to wait until the three revisionist allies can carry out a coordinated assault on the US international order: China invading Taiwan, Russia invading Ukraine, and Iran moving to take control of Iraq through its proxies. But Putin seems to be messing up China's plans by being overly aggressive and impatient right now vis-a-vis his plan to take Ukraine. I think Putin feels that at his age his time may be running out to go into Russia's history books as Vladimir the Great.

[Raithe]

1 hour ago, Gfted1 said:

No wonder ours doesnt work. D'oh!

Well, there was a reason so many issues were raised up about Concorde being allowed to land in the US... Those tender hurt feelings because it got developed on this side of the pond first...

[Gfted1]

You know, I always thought the Concorde was made by France, but now I see it was co-developed by England too!

[Zoraptor]

They had a fight about whether to use the British or French spelling. One of the few times the French won vs the British.

4 hours ago, Sarex said:

The biggest mark against the mig-25 is that it's one of the ugliest plane the Soviets made.

Yet somehow it's positively beautiful compared to the MiG-31. Post 70s Interceptors are just plain ugly.

(OTOH, if I ever win a ludicrous amount on lotto I would pay pretty much anything for the Su-47 prototype. And if [museumname/ VKS/ whoever] doesn't want to give it up Sukhoi can build me another one)

[ComradeYellow]

19 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

That's the US for you. Ready and armed to fight yesterday's war. Not tomorrows. That's why I REALLY hope China does not invade Taiwan. That goes one of two ways: They invade and the rest of the world does nothing. They invade and the US and other powers intervene which will all but guarantee escalation and the probable use of nuclear weapons.  The former guarantees war right now. The latter guarantees war in the near future because unchallenged aggression begets more aggression.  The only way there is no war in the Pacific is if the status quo is maintained. 

Ah see but the U.S. and "The Rest of the World" did nothing when the Iranians (A much more pitiful adversary) bombed U.S. forces (not an island of a foreign nation) so it would be surprising if the U.S. did any kind of retaliation in Taiwan, going by recent developments anyway.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/07/trump-iran-suleimani-threats-retaliation

Edited December 28, 2021 by ComradeYellow