Government Policy and Budget Discussion Thread (no politics)

[CWSooner]

Thread killer. :-)

You have a few too many verys on there, particularly as it relates to me, but thank you. Now let's get back to some government questions...

Defense spending is an interesting topic. Since the end of World War II we have attempted to maintain a ready military, capable of immediately reacting to crises anywhere in the world (that we anticipate). This is an expensive proposition, but arguably it has more than paid for itself (many times over) by helping to stabilize a much more peaceful world than preceded it. Arguably. (I agree with that proposition, but I'm sure there are reasonable, contrary views).

A massive portion of our defense budget (the budget traditionally considered capital "D" defense), somewhere between about 1/5 and up to about 1/3 is not for operations, but is for R&D, procurement, and other forward looking expenses. Those expenses are arguably necessary to maintain the kind of military presence we've had since 1946.

More cynically, a significant portion of defense department costs are really just disguised jobs programs. It's why bases are hard to close and weapons systems are hard to cancel, even when the service for which they exist doesn't want them. As big a government cost cutter as McCain had a reputation for, one of the biggest reasons the Air Force still has the A-10 is that it is built/maintained in Arizona (McCain was FAR from the only elected official to fight for an arguably unneeded weapons system or base). Personally--as an Army guy--I really like the A-10, but listening to an Air Force officer involved in the budgeting process talk about why it should be phased out (or replaced), I came away convinced.

Another interesting question is what would happen if we simply scaled way back on R&D and particularly procurement. The U.S. will always be likely to be able to ramp up production if necessary, but that would lead to military situations like we had at the beginning of World War II, in which we were pretty far behind the curve for what we needed. There is an argument that given our economy, that would be an acceptable risk: that we should spend less on the military, knowing that we can spend more when the time comes. Obviously, that risk comes with a large cost at the outset of any large military endeavor (especially the kind that calls for total mobilization like we had during WWII).

However, another piece of these hugely expensive weapons systems--the F35 is a perfect example--is that it is the research and development, not really the procurement, that drives the massive price tags. That's why when we order more F35s, the price per aircraft comes down. It is almost certainly the case that the F35 was too expensive, but the decision to order fewer of them also drives the higher cost per unit, which may make it sound worse than it really was.

Long ago, I went to visit a female OCS classmate at Fort Ord, CA.  We went into Monterrey to a comedy club and every stand-up jackass there got up and made fun of the GIs at Ord.  They couldn't say enough hateful things about them, and the audience just laughed and laughed and laughed.  I mean, all one of them had to do is end a joke with "He was an effin' GI, whadya know?" to get uproarious laughter.  A year or two later, Ord was put on the base-closure list, and oh, how the citizens of Monterrey howled in anguish!  Suddenly, they loved, loved, loved Fort Ord and all those GIs!
I wish the Key West Agreement of 1948 would get shitcanned and the Army could provide its own close air support.  That's the Air Force's least favorite mission, and they don't want to dedicate an airframe to do it and nothing else.  So they get an air-to-air dogfighter that can drop bombs as a secondary mission and say that they are fulfilling their obligation to provide CAS.  I don't buy it.  Nothing provides CAS like an A-10.
I'm really afraid that the F-35 is a pig with a lot of lipstick on it.  Jack of all trades and master of none, and hugely expensive to boot.  And the dadgum thing still doesn't work right.  It doesn't do anything better than (or even as good as) any of the airplanes it replaces, except that it's stealthier.  And if you hang any air-to-ground ordnance on it, it's not stealty anymore.

And I think they shut down the F-22 production line too soon.  IIRC, it cannot be restarted.  We would have to start from scratch to build any more F-22s.

[CWSooner]

My thing with the military is our privileged situation, in which during a war, we concern ourselves with cost, not survival.  We are a gentleman's war-mongers....attacking from afar, attacking from above, attacking via video game joystick. 
If small groups of special ops are more effective than a giant ground army, why not get rid of it?  I don't know this to be true, but I'm confident we could snip 1/3 of the military budget and lose zero effectiveness.  Can you envision a tank battle in 2020?  How many of those do we buy every year?  Maybe it's none, but only because we have 10,000 of them sitting in a warehouse with the ark of the covenant somewheres.

Honestly, you don't know what you're talking about, any more than I know about teaching teaching kids on an Indian reservation.
I'm sure that you would recognize this in anyone else--that there is nothing more hard to change than someone's mind who doesn't know anything about a subject but is convinced that he knows all he needs to know.

[CWSooner]

The main expense in the military is manpower.  R&D as noted above is also major.  But, I think we should FIRST review out defense commitments and THEN determine what sort of military we need.  We can't just cut without Step One.

But, inherently, Congress wants to retain bases and production of items made in their districts, that simply is inherent.

Aircraft carriers are incredibly expensive to procure and operate.  The air wing costs more than the actual carrier, and of course it is terribly expensive to train aviators to fly the things.  And they then get a job at Delta because they have so much multiengine time.

The Air Force has mainly single engine jets (F-15 excepted) and their pilots get a lot of single engine time, and that matters a lot.

CD, this just isn't so.
After the F-16 and the F-35, every operational (as opposed to training) aircraft in the USAF is multi-engined.  B-52, B-1, B2, C-130, C-17 (any C-5s or C-141s left?).  They're all four-engined, and all of them except the C-130 are jets.  Then F-15s and F-22s are twin-engined jet fighters, and the A-10 is a twin-engined jet attack plane.

[CWSooner]

“The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools.” – Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (ca 410 BCE)

Thucydides was a smart man.
Our scholars haven't wanted to have much to do with warriors since the Vietnam War.  We are not the better for it.

[CWSooner]

a lot of the problem is budgeting, at least within local governments.

i have some friends in charge of some aspects of the police force here, and every year they scramble around spending what left in their budget on things they don't need, because if they don't they'll lose that amount in the next budget. so they have no "savings" for when they do need something unexpected and expensive. and when that happens, they go asking for an increase in the budget for that item, and then put it in the budget request for the next year, and so it grows and grows.

I saw that in the Army, especially in Aviation.  Oddly, in Army Aviation, getting lots of flight time for the aviators is not a high priority.  A big reason is that the more you fly, the more time and money you have to spend on maintenance.  In fact, each flying hour for each type of aircraft is budgeted to account for how much it costs to keep them running.  But flying a lot means you are working hard to keep your Operational Readiness (OR) rate up to standards.  So, every year, as the end of the fiscal year is ending, many aviation units who don't want to keep their mechanics and parts guys and maintenance test pilots working long hours and weekends try to slough off the remainder of their budget flying hours without ending up the year still holding some in the bag.  So they transfer them to some other unit that is willing to take them, fly their hours to keep their aviators proficient, and maybe take a hit on the OR rate.  When I was S3 (Operations Officer) of 1-6 Cav (Atk Hel), we took all the hours we could scrounge at the end of the year to train as hard as we could.  And we took a hit on maintenance.
But nobody wants to just give the hours back to higher HQ.  If you don't fly up your hours, one way or the other, the Army will have trouble defending its flying-hour budget.
I'm sure that sort of thing goes on in every government enterprise at every level of government faces a similar situation.  If they find a way to save money, they'll get their budget for next year cut.  All the institutional pressure is to grow the budget, not cut it.

[CWSooner]

Would there ever be another all-out ground war?

There could have been one in Ukraine, had NATO chosen to defend its fellow member instead of just letting Russia have the SE chunk of it.

[CWSooner]

A full scale ground war is unlikely in the current environment, but it wouldn't take a lot to change that (I think COVID-19 is showing how fragile many things are that we don't normally think about).

Given all the factors that go in, the military acquisition process is actually fairly efficient. Indeed, government in general is relatively efficient in more cases than people think. Particularly people who work in big business are quite familiar with the inefficiencies in it. Large bureaucracies naturally contain inefficiency. The Government is a VERY large bureaucracy, and it still manages many things more efficiently than the private sector. But it doesn't turn profits, so people think it isn't working (notwithstanding that the government's job isn't to turn a profit).

Because of the taxpayer's concern for budgets, one of the ways in which government is inefficient is the requirement (in most cases) that the government buys from the low bidder. This is true in DOD, but also throughout most of government. I was on the sidelines for a massive infrastructure project where one bidder had completed Phase I, below budget and ahead of schedule, with a better-than-expected safety record. Nonetheless, that bidder lost Phase II despite submitted a bid less than 1% higher than the winning bidder. That is an example of where the desire for low government spending almost certainly ended up costing the government more. Few businesses would ever make that decision. Anyway, I digress (a little).

The question of whether a military branch "wants" a system, base, etc. is also fraught. Generally it's not whether the military wants the thing, it's a question of how high a priority it is for the branch. The Army wants a next generation tank to replace the M1 variants (currently working on A3), but when Congress tells it to expect a certain amount of money for procurement, the new tank isn't high enough on the priority list to make the cut. The Air Force recognizes the need for a next generation close air support aircraft (i.e., to replace the A-10), but when it looks at the role We the People expect USAF to execute, that CAS airframe isn't high enough on the priority list to make the cut.

For a long time now the stated goal of the US Military was to be able to respond to two significant military crises at the same time (e.g., southwest Asia and Korea). That demands a lot of resources. Re-thinking that may be worthwhile (and is happening all the time, I think). We are also currently operating with some really old technology throughout the services. The Army's "new" transport helicopter has been in service since the 80s. The M1 came on line in the late 70s (granted, both have been upgraded, but many of those upgrades have been computer systems). The Army's "heavy" transport helicopter has been in service since the 1960s! Same with the Air Force--while it has the F-22 and F-35, the F-15s and 16s have been in service since (I think) the early 80s (maybe late 70s); and we really don't have a fleet of heavy bombers--the B52 first flew in 1952!

Nonetheless, for 35 years the US has been unchallenged on a traditional battlefield (whether ground, air, or sea).

Russia's annexation of the Crimea has the military (and policy makers) much more concerned with traditional battlefields, and China's buildup of a deepwater navy--which primarily serves as a vehicle for force projection--gives another cause for real concern about future conflict/battlefields. War with China versus war with Russia look much different from a planning/operational perspective.

Ok, but turning back to a different, if related, comment above: returning primary food and manufacturing production to the United States would take a major government intervention and would be a massive assault on the fundamentals of free-market capitalism that have been the basis for U.S. economic expansion since, essentially, the end of WWII. That is radical, leftist thinking. Seriously.

In a wartime environment, the U.S. would likely be able to shift food and manufacturing production to the home front, as required, but it wouldn't be nimble. Of course, each one of our likely competitors would have the same problem.

Excellent, SF!
I just want to point out that the Army's "new' utility helicopter (UH-60) is from the '70s.  It went operational in 1979.  The AH-64 Apache (which you didn't mention) didn't go operational until 1986.  The Apache first flew in 1975.  Anyone who thinks we could ramp up RD&A in case of a significant-sized war needs to think about that.  And sophisticated hardware is taking significantly longer now than the AH-64 took.
I'll just toss in this about trying to become self-sufficient.  Self-sufficiency (autarky) is a common cause for populist demagogues (but I repeat myself) of both the left and the right.  It's hugely statist either way.  In my lifetime, the statists have mostly been on the far left, but now we've got people who identify themselves as conservatives calling for much the same thing.

[Cincydawg]

I recall somewhere that the USAF has a LOT of F-16s and not nearly as many multiengined aircraft.  It was an article about how most commercial pilots were naval aviators.

This is somewhat correct as they have more F-16s than anything else, but they do as you note have quite a few multiengine jets and turboprops.  It looks like about half their inventory is F-16 types plus about 200 F-35s.

[OrangeAfroMan]

Honestly, you don't know what you're talking about, any more than I know about teaching teaching kids on an Indian reservation.
I'm sure that you would recognize this in anyone else--that there is nothing more hard to change than someone's mind who doesn't know anything about a subject but is convinced that he knows all he needs to know.

I don't know all I need to know about the military.
The one thing I'm sure of is that other countries enter into a war knowing they need to knock them out at all costs or be knocked out.  The U.S. goes into a war hoping our face isn't puffy after the fight. 
.
The rest, I have a lot to learn.

[Cincydawg]

The one thing I'm sure of is that other countries enter into a war knowing they need to knock them out at all costs or be knocked out. 

This is not my understanding of history.  I don't even understand what is meant by this.

China invades Vietnam.
Hitler invades Russia.
North Korea invades South Korea.
Iran and Iraq fight a protracted war.
France fights various colonial wars.
German invades France 1914.
Russia invades Germany 1914.

I imagine every country that "goes to war" hopes for and expects a quick easy victory, which is very rare in history.

[CWSooner]

I recall somewhere that the USAF has a LOT of F-16s and not nearly as many multiengined aircraft.  It was an article about how most commercial pilots were naval aviators.

This is somewhat correct as they have more F-16s than anything else, but they do as you note have quite a few multiengine jets and turboprops.  It looks like about half their inventory is F-16 types plus about 200 F-35s.

Yeah, if you're talking about just single-engine fighters, the Navy has none (until they get F-35s) and the Air Force has a bunch of 'em.
I forgot last night about the KC-135 and the new KC-46 that Boeing can't seem to deliver without trash, tools, inspection ladders and the like left in the fuel tanks.  Something had gone badly amiss at Boeing.  The KC-46s seem to be targets of deliberate assembly-line sabotage.  I don't think sheer incompetence explains it.
I wonder if more Navy guys end up flying commercial because they haven't liked sea duty, while Air Force guys like (or don't hate so much) their combination of family and friends at the home base with periodic deployments to airfields around the world.

[CWSooner]

I don't know all I need to know about the military.
The one thing I'm sure of is that other countries enter into a war knowing they need to knock them out at all costs or be knocked out.  The U.S. goes into a war hoping our face isn't puffy after the fight. 
.
The rest, I have a lot to learn.

The vast majority of wars going way back in history were not fought to annihilate the enemy.  They were to gain an advantage.

Just in American colonial history:

American War	Dates	European War	Dates	Opposing Sides	Results
1st Anglo-Powhatan War	1610-1614	N/A	N/A	Virginia Colony vs. Powhatan Confederacy	"Peace of Pocahontas," with first inter-racial marriage in Virginia between Pocahontas and John Rolfe.  "Golden age of English-Powhatan relations" followed.
2nd Anglo-Powhatan War	1622-1632	N/A	N/A	Virginia Colony vs. Powhatan Confederacy	English were able to expand settlements.
3rd Anglo-Powhatan War	1644-1646	N/A	N/A	Virginia Colony vs. Powhatan Confederacy	Peace treaty of Oct. 1646 established Powhatan as formal tributaries to King of England, established racial frontier with border forts preventing both sides from crossing.
Pequot War	1636-1638	N/A	N/A	New England colonies, Narragansett and Mohegan Indians vs. Pequot Indians	Power of Pequot tribe virtually destroyed.
Susquehannock War	1675-1675	N/A	N/A	Virginia settlers vs. Susquehannock Indians	Triggered Bacon’s Rebellion.
King Philip's War	1675-1678	N/A	N/A	New England Confederation, Mohegan and Pequot Indians vs. Wampanoag, Nipmuck, Podunk, Narragansett, and Nashaway Indians	Colonial victory.  Bloodiest Indian war (in terms of percentage of white losses) of British colonial history.

King William’s War	1689-1697	War of the Grand Alliance or War of the League of Augsburg	1688-1697	NA: England, English Colonies, and Iroquois Confederacy vs. France, New France, and Indian Allies   EU: Holy Roman Empire (HRE), Dutch Republic, England, Spain, Savoy, Portugal, and Sweden vs. France and Irish Jacobites	NA: Ended by Treaty of Ryswick, 1697.  Status quo ante bellum.   EU: Ended by Treaty of Ryswick, 1697.  France surrendered minor territories in Europe to Holy Roman Empire, acquired or reacquired territories in West Indies and Nova Scotia.
Queen Anne’s War	1702-1713	War of the Spanish Succession	1701-1714	NA: England, Great Britain, British America, and Iroquois Confederacy vs. France, New France, Spain, and Indian Allies   EU: HRE, Austria, Prussia, Great Britain, Dutch Republic, Savoy, and Portugal vs. France, Spain, Bavaria, and Hungarians	NA:  British victory, ended by Treaty of Utrecht.  France ceded Acadia, Newfoundland, Hudson Bay, and St. Kitts to Britain.   EU: Ended by Treaty of Utrecht, 1713, and Treaty of Rastatt.  Resolved competing claims by French royal family to Spanish throne and Spanish royal family to French throne, precluding unification of French and Spanish crowns.  Spain’s European empire divided between Savoy, Britain, Portugal, and Holy Roman Empire.

Tuscarora War	1711-1715	N/A	N/A	Colonial militia of S. Carolina and N. Carolina, and Yamasee, Northern Tuscarora, Apalachee, Catawba and Cherokee Indians vs. Southern Tuscarora, Pamlico, Cothechney, Coree, Mattamuskeet, and Matchepungo Indians	Colonial victory.  Power of Tuscaroras was broken; Tuscaroras retreated from the coast; Southern Tuscaroras migrated to New York.
Yamasee War	1715-1717	N/A	N/A	Colonial militia of S. Carolina, N. Carolina, and Virginia, and Catawba and Cherokee Indians vs. Yamasee, Ochese Creek, Catawba, Cherokee, and Santee Indians	Colonial victory.  Power of the Yamasee was broken; South Carolina colonists established uncontested control of the coast; Catawba became dominant tribe in the interior.
Dummer’s War	1721-1725	N/A	N/A	New England colonial militia and Mohawk Indians vs. Wabanaki Confederacy, Abenaki, Pequawket, Mi'kmaq, and Maliseet Indians, all allies of New France	Ended by Dummer's Treaty of December 15, 1725.  Contested territory in Maine fell under British control.

 

King George’s War	1744-1748	War of Jenkins' Ear   War of the Austrian Succession	1739-1742   1740-1748	NA: Great Britain vs. Spain   NA: Great Britain, British America, and Iroquois Confederacy vs. France, New France, and Indian Allies   EU: HRE, Great Britain, Hanover, Dutch Republic, Saxony (1743-45), Sardinia, and Russia vs. France, Prussia, Spain, Bavaria, Saxony (1741-42), Naples and Sicily, Genoa, and Sweden	NA: Ended by Treaty of Aix-la-Chappelle, 1748, Status quo ante bellum.  American gain of French Fortress of Louisbourg returned to France in exchange for Madras, India.   EU: Ended by Treaty of Aix-la-Chappelle, 1748, confirming Prussian control of Silesia.  Otherwise, status quo ante bellum restored. France recognized Hanoverian succession to British throne, expelled Jacobites (Stuart pretenders).
French and Indian War	1754-1763	Seven Years' War	1756-1763	NA: Great Britain, British America, Iroquois Confederacy, and other Indian Allies vs. France, New France, and Indian Allies   EU: Prussia, Great Britain, Hanover, Portugal, Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, and Hesse-Kassel vs. France, HRE, Russia, Sweden, Spain, Saxony, and Sardinia	NA: Ended by Treaty of Paris, 1763. France ceded New France east of the Mississippi River (i.e., Canada) to Great Britain and ceded Louisiana to Spain.  Spain ceded Florida to Britain.  Minor adjustments in Caribbean.   EU: Ended by Treaty of Hubertusburg, 1763.    Restoration of pre-war boundaries and conditions in Europe.  French lost claims to India, but retained trading posts.

All of those were limited wars.  Even the biggest of them, the French and Indian/Seven Years War--which Winston Churchill would later call the "first world war" because it took place from North America to Europe to Asia and all the surrounding waters--was a limited war.  France lost her North American and South Asian colonial possessions, but France itself was not invaded, much less conquered.

World Wars I and II are the only wars we've fought in that meet what I take to be your definition of war.

So the one thing that you are sure of is not correct.

[Cincydawg]

Most conflicts in history have ended up with some sort of compromise position.  A few have ended up with a total win for one side.  Our War of 1812 is more typical than WW One and Two and the US Civil War.  One problem with WW One is that Germans didn't have a sense they had lost, or understand why.

The Japanese on the other hand got a good look at the fleets in Tokyo Bay in September 1945.

That doesn't show all of them by any stretch.

[FearlessF]

you need to stretch it more