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Yes, there are certain munitions that are hard to replace fast enough, and both Ukraine and Israel have needed them.
Guess what though? In a shooting war with North Korea or China we're gonna need a lot more e.g. interceptors than what has been used so far, and so if anything we should be grateful for the stress testing of our stockpiles and supply chains.
Well, yes. However, given that Russia, our #2 main rival, is having its military trashed pretty hard it's not like we aren't getting a pretty great ROI.
One would think that a rational person responding to the risk of population collapse would not start and maintain a bloody war killing off and maiming working-age males.
I'm sorry but I really can't take Peter Zeihan seriously at all. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 because it views the risk of Ukraine becoming aligned with the West economically, politically, and militarily to be too serious a threat to its interests of regional dominance.
Makes you wonder why we were willing to commit so much materiel to Afghanistan for so long if we care about maintaining military strength for larger enemies.
Keeping the U.S. locked in Afghanistan gave our enemies pretty solid ROI too, and we have virtually nought to show for it now.
I dunno, seems like the actual winning move would be to encourage Europe to build up enough force to deter Russia directly. Certainly less taxing on our reserves.
Why were we concerned about Russia's military at all for such purposes? What threat did they pose to the U.S.'s interests outside of our need to reassure allies we're still top dog?
Now we've got an ongoing commitment to sustain a conflict that isn't going to pay off much for us unless the Ukrainians pull off an increasingly unlikely win.
And to the extent people expect Ukraine to functionally bounce back if peace is established, surely the same could be expected of Russia.
I guess that, unless the actual strategic objective is to bring Russia to heel and then absorb it into the larger Western Coalition that is culturally liberal and directionally opposed to China becoming a global superpower (which I'm not inherently worried about either), what exactly do we think we're doing here that's worth so many deaths.
That doesn't really address the point that any invasion by Russia relies on sufficient manpower, and by absolute definition, with declining birth rates, their manpower will only decrease if they wait.
The timing is the issue, not the motivation itself.
I've yet to see anyone explain why the point that "declining demographics = economic stagnation = less globalized world = greater conflicts everywhere" doesn't follow, logically, other than us being in very uncertain times in general.
Come on. Please, just think for five seconds.
What did we actually have in Afghanistan? How much of it was remotely relevant to confronting "larger enemies"? Spoiler:Very little.
Actually the Iranians in particular hated it. But also it was a very cheap military engagement as these things go.
You can argue that the US should give up caring much about Europe and leave NATO and let Russia do whatever it wants, but that's not the world we actually live in.
Technically, we've had a commitment for decades. But also even if Ukraine loses you're failing to consider the counterfactual where Putin just took over in weeks. That would be worse.
Stopping Putin from conquering his neighbors at will? Preserving norms of liberalism and Western mutual support against aggression?
You're leaving out the side of equation where Ukraine is also facing demographic challenges. It's a symmetrical problem.
I would just flag that it arguably cost us essentially a generation of modernization as multiple procurement programs were canceled while funds were spent to fighting the GWOT rather than preparing for conventional conflict.
It seems plausible, just to use one prominent example that would be very relevant to a Pacific conflict, that absent the GWOT the B-21 would already be in service (originally the Next Generation Bomber was scheduled for 2018, but procurement was kicked down the road due to cost concerns.)
I don't think that's arguable. Go look at the budget and procurement decisions and I doubt you can find that being the causation. And, even if it were, the USN did not do much in Afghanistan.
Please don't blame GWOT expenditures on the inability of the USAF to manage the budget projections of its aircraft development and production. That's been a shitshow for a long time. Ironically, one reason Gates canceled the program at the time was because he was interested in unmanned aircraft development.
https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE53E4KG20090415/
The GWOT is not responsible for DoD development and procurement retardation, because that's been an issue for decades and continues now. Thank god the F-35 does seem to work.
Not just aircraft - ships, fighting vehicles, helicopters, tanks and artillery projects were killed or trimmed down during the relevant time-frame. I agree that DoD development retardation is a thing, but I don't believe you can spend $8 trillion and fight a 20-year unconventional war and not have it impact your ability to fight a conventional war, both in terms of procurement and in terms of troop training.
If nothing else, the DoD shifted and pursued procurement programs that were very useful in the GWOT but of dubious utility in a hot war (drones being a big example).
Again, please do not blame the USN's incompetence at program management on the GWOT. That problem predates and outlasts the GWOT.
These will almost certainly be irrelevant in a war with China.
This is a made up number. It includes veteran care. In the future. Separate budget entirely.
Look man. I was in the Army. I spent time in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Do you know who wasn't really doing much fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan? The USAF and USN. Their core assets were not affected very much by counterinsurgency operations.
Guess who is the least useful branch in a probable conflict with China? That's right, the US Army. The major exception would be air defense artillery, but they've been deployed across the world before, during, and after the GWOT due to their particular mission set. And boy are they getting a lot of attention of late that might just do them a lot of good such that if China does get frisky in the coming years they'll be better off.
This is a hilarious take since drone bros like Elon take exactly the opposite line you do on drones vs. manned platforms like the B-21. Funnily, the B-21 Wiki has it "maybe" going to replace the B-52 after it replaces the B-1 and B-2. We just don't make 'em like we used to.
Israel just used drones to assist quite a lot in a hot war. For ISR they're incredibly valuable, and that includes against China.
The GWOT was stupid for many reasons. Believe me, I know.
But the DoD's longstanding incompetence wrt major weapon programs, cost overruns, and maintaining an advantage over China can't really be blamed on us occupying Iraq for less than a decade and Afghanistan for about two decades, mostly with a light footprint of Army soldiers in light infantry and mechanized infantry formations. The USN and USAF have a lot of rot and incompetence built up.
All US revenue either comes from taxes or from debt. Neither are unlimited (well - taxes aren't unlimited, the jury might be out on the debt!) At the end of the day, it's all one budget.
This is not true for the Navy or the Air Force, although perhaps your MOS didn't encounter them much.
Yes, I do agree with this.
IMHO, the problem isn't with unmanned aircraft necessarily (although I am skeptical that 100% unmanned replacements for fighters and bombers are viable for other reasons, but from a certain POV any missile is just an unmanned aircraft, and missiles are definitely useful!) but rather that drones like the Predator and Global Hawk aren't very survivable on the modern battlefield (hence why the Houthis keep shooting them down). I'm not saying we shouldn't have some, particularly in the semi-attritable ISR role, or in the stealthy role. But I'm not sure the 300 MQ-9s we have will be super helpful if the balloon goes up against China. (Maybe in the far blockade scenario as ISR assets.)
Sure, I believe this. But I think (particularly during the Obama era) that the GWOT, admittedly combined with the Ukraine situation, slowed the "pivot to Asia" that Obama announced.
That we do not balance.
And for which defense spending is not the biggest area by a long shot these days.
Fighting the Houthis is not merely the GWOT. They're affecting freedom of the seas. That's normal shit for the USN to combat.
Also the current conflict with the Houthis and Iran is not really the GWOT anymore now is it? It's not related to contingency ops in Iraq or Afghanistan.
That article makes it pretty clear the B-1 was already had known maintenance issues and was past its service life with or without the GWOT. They had given up their primary purpose of a nuclear bomber well before the GWOT even kicked off. The hardest kind of flying is the low-level kind they do in training, for fun, not combat sorties.
If anything the GWOT made us really get our money's worth out of the platform.
Having a loitering target in the sky has its uses even against the Chinese.
But yes, we need Anduril to up the standard.
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