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US Navy Admiral Questions Expensive Stealth Platforms
Trepidity writes "United States Navy Admiral and Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert stirred a controversy by questioning much of the thinking underlying current U.S. defense technology. He argues that stealth technology is unlikely to retain its usefulness much into the future, and so focus should switch towards standoff weapons. In addition, he criticizes the focus on expensive all-in-one platforms such as the F-35 fighter, arguing for a payload-centric, flexible approach he compares to trucks rather than luxury cars."
We spend entirely too much money on our military. We are so far ahead of the next country in terms of dollars spent it's not even close. We keep bases all around the world, protecting everybody, so that they don't have to spend their own money on a military and instead can spend it domestically. It needs to end. It's no longer 1955.
'interfere with the military industrial complex gravy train'.
How about trying to maintain a foreign policy that encourages peace and free trade? I'm sure that will keep us much safer and will cost us less. But instead we spend our billions on arms and look for conflicts to use them in...
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/f-22-germans/
"In mid-June, 150 German airmen and eight twin-engine, non-stealthy Typhoons arrived at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska for an American-led Red Flag exercise involving more than 100 aircraft from Germany, the U.S. Air Force and Army, NATO, Japan, Australia and Poland. Eight times during the two-week war game, individual German Typhoons flew against single F-22s in basic fighter maneuvers meant to simulate a close-range dogfight.
The results were a surprise to the Germans and presumably the Americans, too. “We were evenly matched,” Maj. Marc Gruene told Combat Aircraft’s Jamie Hunter. The key, Gruene said, is to get as close as possible to the F-22 and stay there. “They didn’t expect us to turn so aggressively.”"
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion
The Joint Chiefs will view this as an 'insurrection' by a Staff Member of 'questionable' loyalty.
To go public with this complaint means that his shelf-life is down to hours. He's out and maybe
subject to an Executive murder order, if it pleases the Executive.
This is how the 'Professional Military' operate.
Think about the source folks. I'm an ex-Navy man so it pains me to say, but to me it seems obvious what's going on here. Ask yourself, does it benefit the Navy or Marines if we standardize on a subset of airframes? Who do you think would be the major driver of those designs? It's going to be the Air Force, and the needs of the fleet are going to come second to theirs.
Next, the Admiral himself brings up aircraft carriers, a platform not known for its stealthiness. In fact, pretty much any Navy ship designed for stealth is going to be smaller and have a small crew as well. He's defending his turf and his budget, which in a sense is very much his job as CNO. Or at least that's my take.
Go Navy, Beat Army! ;-)
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
During WWII, they cranked planes out by the 1,000's if not 10's of 1,000's. Nowadays, the number of high performance jets is measured in the hundreds. If there were to be a conflict, due to the complexity of today's aircraft, there is no way to crank out new aircraft by the 1,000's or hundreds or even tens. There may certainly be a need for a much simpler aircraft that can be easily mass produced in significant quantities.
... is to change acquisition strategy every 8-10 years. Cancel lots of programs, start new ones, never finish anything and never hold any company accountable, but simply keep paying the tab. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Combat_Systems for one $340 BILLION debacle.
Another way to do it is to have programs that last 15 years, so the technology is obsolete when it comes out and a new program needs to be started to replace what was just produced. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Strike_Fighter_program for a program that is going to be completely obsolete because unmanned aircraft are going to be much simpler, cheaper and maneuverable. We sent a man to the moon and back in 8 years - these other programs are just white collar welfare.
And his logic is hard to fault. He pointed to the B-52 as an example of a flexible weapons platform that had a wide variety of uses that didn't require stealth technology compared to the limited usefulness of the F-117.
Solid, reliable and flexible is more important than stealth, which was designed for a war we're likely never going to fight.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
People have been arguing over the best value in military equipment for standing armies for the better part of 2 centuries, this isn't anything new.
And no one is right. General purpose versatile weapons that are useful against relatively weak powers if the next war you fight is against a relatively weak power, but you can't anticipate which one, where specialized equipment is useful against a specific target when you know who you're fighting.
If you could predict the future and know what enemy you'd have to fight next, and what weapons you'd want for that war then sure, you could reasonably guess what platforms you want, or what payloads you want. His view is that the US can innovate on those things separately fast enough to adapt to any new threat, he might be right of course, but probably for relatively low involvement conflicts he's wrong, and knowing the future mix is tough.
The specific criticism of stealth isn't anything new. By the time you ever have to fight anyone important they'll probably be able to see stealth aircraft so you're not getting much, on the other hand if you have to go into Syria by the end of the month stealth could payoff. Transferring research to longer range weapons (standoff weapons in his parlance) isn't an inherently bad idea, but of course the longer a munition has to travel the easier it is to disrupt or intercept so you could spend a lot of research dollars on something that will just fail to deliver. Electromagnetically launched weapons probably have a place, but that's only one piece of a large puzzle.
Maintaining a large military does not help the country. Why do you think 9/11 happened? It was because the US interfered in the Middle East. Its no accident that terrorist attacks haven't happened in neutral Switzerland. Peace is never won through bombs, it isn't won by propping up dictators, its won through diplomacy, its won through free trade and honesty. War breeds war.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
...who want to shove this stuff down the armed forces' throats. The generals and admirals themselves say they don't want the kit, but the lobbyists and aerospace companies insist on making their billions or even trillions of dollars; and the members of Congress want their kickbacks and 'campaign contributions'.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
I caught a piece (didn't save the link) that mentioned that personnel costs, for both serving members and retired/disabled veterans, will consume the entire defense budget in the future, let alone paying for new procurement and operational expenses. The Navy literally spent millions on my ass, pilots are just as expensive, so losing a bunch in cheaper planes doesn't necessarily make sense. Lose a carrier, well you are immediately out billions before accounting for replacement costs for just the hardware. Everything in warfare involves trade-offs since it's generally a come-as-you-are affair. This requires some serious skill sweat so I think I'll wait to hear what the Naval War College (who may be the generator of this testimony for all I know) says.
"[I]t is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge or skill, and that pretending either causes harm." --Terry Go
Ike Eisenhower is spinning in his grave. He warned us about the Military/Industrial Complex - of course he waited until he was leaving office to do so. But he did warn us. And what did we do, nothing. Of course it is in the interests of the arms industry to keep one upping, that guarantees a continual profit scheme for shareholders.
I'm not sure why this big push towards "the One True Airframe" exists in current aircraft design philosophy.
I'm a big fan of cheap, specialized airframes which are given one specific goal and then features are "added on". For example, take one of my favourite aircraft, the A-10 Warthog.
It's one-sentence goal is: "Easily destroy any armoured vehicle that the US could conceivably encounter within the next 50 years."
Which it does. Additional features it has:
- Extremely tough and rugged.
- Very long duration, able to loiter and provide cover for extended durations.
- Cheap in construction and simple to maintain.
- Minimally capable in missile-based air-air combat (it's not a dogfighter but it's not helpless either, like an AC-130 is).
- The A-10's cannon is effective against infantry (duh), buildings, helicopters and small naval assets.
- Able to deliver complex munitions (cluster bombs, air dropped mines, dumb bombs, smart missiles, etc).
- Able to function in electronic warfare/forward command roles.
- Fast enough to get to combat locations fairly quickly (subsonic, but still jet powered and fast compared to things like the AC-130 Spectre).
All of which is good, but are all of these things are secondary to its primary goal; blow the absolute piss and shit out of anything with treads or wheels. If it can't do that, the rest is fairly much window dressing.
The A-10's a perfect example how we should build combat aircraft. An air-supremacy fighter should be built with the goal of "Destroy any fighter aircraft the US could encounter within X years" and all other considerations secondary. A bomber's mission should be "Carry the maximum amount of ordnance to any location the US could want to bomb within X years", a spy plane's (mostly replaced by sats these days) should be "Take photographs of any location in the entire world without being detected or destroyed", etc.
Another way to look at it is: "A soldier should carry a knife for eating, a sword for dueling, a dagger for murdering, a claymore for horses, a razor for shaving, a bowie for skinning, a throwing knife for throwing."
Why are we trying to make The One True Edged Weapon, which if such a thing were built would be too sharp for eating, too short for dueling, too long for murdering, too short for horses, too dangerous for shaving, too awkward for skinning and too heavy to throw? (and cost $27,000,000...)
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
It seems that in air-to-air combat, as in a knife fight, 'the bad guys' don't always play by the rules.
Actually if you bother to read the article where the German pilots were surprised to find themselves on an equal footing in a dog fight you will find that they also said that at long range they did everything they could and basically had little chance against the F22.
Don't quote me but I think an F-22 can carry a maximum of six medium range missiles and two short range missiles. Assuming a 100% hit rate in a fight against multiple non-stealthy bogies the pilot will have his work cut out for him.
Not really. The Germans were flying the $110M (Euro 90M) Eurofigher against the $150M F-22. The Eurofighter is a contemporary of the F-22, only a couple of years older, not something from a previous design generation. The other guy is not going to have some huge numerical advantage.
That said, we should have a more balanced force. We have had long range over the horizon capable jets going back to Vietnam but they are rarely every allowed to engage at such distances. They are almost always required to get visual IDs on the other aircraft. I'm sure there will be specialized missions where the F-22s are the way to go and we should have some. But we should also have modern incarnations of a dedicated fighter and a dedicated close air support aircraft, as we did in the past with the F-16s and A-10s. For those unfamiliar with the origin of these legendary aircraft, the Air Force did not want either one. They were both designed by rouge design teams that did not believe in the concept of multi-mission aircraft, and after demonstrating amazing performance in their respective roles, they were forced upon the Air Force by a cost conscious Congress.
What sort of moron wants a fair fight if they can have an advantage?
We need diplomacy, not bombs.
In an ideal world, diplomacy should lead the way
Unfortunately we do not live in an ideal world
In this world we live in, talking softly while carrying a big stick is still the most practical way of doing things
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Wars are intertwined with cowardice! Terrorize the losers enough and they give up; blitzkrieg is all about the shock of the first blows and how they are a force multiplier and is AKA shock and awe. If your goal is to exterminate, then terrorism is not required. If your goal is to force submission by threat of violence... then the use of terrorism is required. Sure some people are not cowards and will surrender to terrorism on practical grounds but I think most due it out of fear. Now we've summarized the losing side's cowardice, lets talk about winners:
Winners are usually cowards as well. You don't fight fair in a war, it is not about honor, ethics, or civil behavior it is the lowest levels that mankind sinks down to. People just like to fool themselves into thinking they are not acting barbaric or evil by imposing limits of their depravity which creates a false reference point -- since the brain works on relative reasoning this whole behavior is quite organic but it is also heavily exploited and well understood these days. When the enemy does something horrible, you feel like you can do it too but just be 1 hair less evil than them and you are justified; there are hundreds of ways you can rationalize stooping down to their level while feeling you are better or even while feeling you are not degrading yourself !!
There is no justifiable war and when you play the game of justification you have just begun losing to your human flaws and become highly susceptible to false reasoning. This is why some philosophies like Jesus are flatly against even starting such risky reasoning at all with an absolute ban on it -- and just look how easily that is completely lost once people just ignore his teachings with a tiny excuse it turns into horrible acts in his name. Buddhists have similar positions from another angle; more realistic in that you'll pay for it later - you can rationalize there as well; the thing is not the philosophies but the warped reasoning people will employ and easily hijack things especially the organized religions which are highly susceptible to other human flaws.
Cowards bring guns to a knife fight. Totally correct!
The purpose of the fight is not to fight fairly or by any code or rules -- in fact, we view old traditions such as trial by combat to be midevil stupidity when it really is not any worse than how we act today. we have not evolved; do not fool yourself. "Fair" barbaric fights for justice is contradictory which is why trial by combat is gone (replaced by trial by legal mercenaries.) We've become realistic enough to skip the other values because all that matters is who WINS the fight... business thinks along similar metaphors as well...(simply by using war metaphors in language you create a subconscious change in behavior people are not aware of.) The ones who place values above winning end up losing but may get some respect in how they lost for an ideal despite the contradiction; the winner is generally allowed the spoils anyhow because we collectively validate the winner's values even if we like to say otherwise. This promotes those who do not have such values to positions of power, possibly also promoting the lack of those values as a value.
People are overwhelmingly good and want to be. that is the reality. To maintain this self image and goal people invent a whole lot to protect their fragile ego and maintain this.
Ever since Vietnam, we've only chosen the wars we thought we could easily win.
The consequence is that if you don't have the military hardware to fight a war, then you can't use the threat of war against whatever opponent you're not willing to choose a war against.
Put another way, there's a reason we'll regime change Libya but have no balls when it comes to Iran's nukes.
paintball
than the combined total of the seventeen nations next in defense spending. I can recommend David Wessel's book Red Ink as an excellent, informative read on US budgetary matters. The stat I led this post with comes from his book. Also, I suggest listening to Teri Gross's interview with Wessel today. You can find it here: http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&prgDate=07-31-2012
He points out that new technologies, such as low frequency radar, will eventually overcome the stealth technology of any existing flyer. How much can such a system cost? A few dishes, and a new computer - far less than a new airframe.
Then I had a vision of people scattered all over Iran, with radios and binoculars. As far as I know the so-called "stealth" planes are still visible in the visual spectrum. "What's that? It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a hundred million dollar U.S. Navy Stealth Bomber! Phone home Ahmed!"
Wise people prefer to win battles without fighting.
Very often that involves:
1) bringing guns or MOABs to knife fights
2) giving the loser hope of survival if they surrender[1], typically with some way of saving face.
[1] If you are known to never take prisoners or known to treat prisoners badly, more of your enemies will fight to the bitter end.
Where have I heard all this before? Oh right, 30-35 years ago when pretty much everyone was saying the exact same thing about the F-14. Everyone except the taxpayers, that is. We all know it's dumb to buy this stuff, but when they ask us to pay for it, we can't vote for the people who open our wallets, fast enough. Spend more money please, and I'll vote for you.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Will Hussein listen to his OWN generals? Hell no.
What *actually* happens, as you would know if you've been following the current case of the M-1 and a hundred like it before, is that the Pentagon decides that they don't want to spend their money on something that they don't think will help them accomplish their mission, and the the defense contractors who will lose funding run screaming to their congresscritter, who the goes screaming to the public that the {commies,terrorists,aliens} will win if the Pentagon is not allowed to spend all those billions of dollars in their district, so Congress puts in the defense budget even though the Pentagon doesn't want it.
'Cause we got to keep that pork flowing.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Stealth technology certainly did something advantageous in that instance... we effectively landed at least two helicopters right next to a major military installation in the middle of Pakistan without anyone but Osama and his immediate neighbors realizing it until it was all over. I know I wasn't the only one quite impressed with that implementation of stealth technology. Honestly, I'm still having trouble believing it's possible... but it happened.
The Admin and the Engineer
Go Romney! The candidate with the shorter last name deserves to win!
Actually the candidate with the biggest dick deserves to win. (Though I'm not offering to check.)
Of course, politicians don't listen carefully, so they think the rule is that the one who *is* the biggest dick deserves to win.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
And this is why Marxists are specifically against a category of private property, private owned means of production, as it enables control over other people's labor and gives the owner an unjustified ownership of all products made by those people under such control -- what is, indeed, institutionalized theft. This is something that your friendly anti-Communist propaganda is tirelessly trying to conceal, and conflate with all other kinds of property.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Neither have a clue about reforming DoD, NOR DOES DoD, within which live many competing cliques.
Kill yourself for making such a stupid post.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
We regards to stimulus to help the economy, you are right about that, but it should be noted that military spending is one of the least efficient ways to accomplish that goal. It works, but if that's the goal, there are far better options. Alas, not options immune to the deficit hawks, as you note...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
In addition, basically all of these "stealth" tech has failed to deliver.
Yeah, you are totally dead on correct and not at all making shit up, as stealth tech has barely over an 80% mission success rate by some estimates. Unless stealth provides a way for a zero casualty rate for the US, a mission success rate in the nines, and simultaneously produces bagged potato chips and an espresso for every man, woman and child on domestic soil, it's really a garbage technology that doesn't ever work right.
Since when is the goal of war "sportsmanship"?
Grow up.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Stealth is a force multiplier and that's the core reason for using it.
If you can attack a target with PGMs using fewer stealth aircraft you don't have to fly large conventional strike packages preceded by SEAD aircraft. Sorties are expensive and consume valuable resources.
The vast majority of Gulf War sorties were flown by conventional airframes, but stealth was useful to disable enemy C4I assets. Meat is cheap. Sorties are NOT cheap, and when you add MULTIPLE tanker support etc for a strike package they are incredibly resource-intensive.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Dogmatic, stubborn (or psychotic) assholes breed war.
Why is the owner of the means of production unjustified in having ownership of those produced? He put his capital at risk to start it up, and he fairly compensates people for their labor. They are neither forced into working for him, nor prevented from leaving at their leisure (in the US, at least) if they do not feel that they are fairly compensated. They also have the ability to come up with a new product or improved process to become the next owner themselves.
Marxism is the greatest bastion of those too lazy to innovate and care for themselves. It may look nice in paper, but it failed in the USSR, it failed in Cuba, and it's failing the Chinese as we speak, despite the claims of such exalted "intellectuals" as Elizabeth "I'm a Cherokee!" Warren. IIRC, marxism (lower case 'm' intended in a derogatory manner) calls for 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need'...how many college marxists actually believe that? How many would be willing to apply that to their grading system? Probably only those failing.
And just because I can't resist violating Godwin's Law when answering a commie...who has killed more people, Hitler's Nazis or Marx's ideologues? The Cambodian killing fields, Stalin's purges, Chairman Mao's purges. There is more blood, hate, intolerance and exploitation under the Marxist ideology than anything else. The Robespierre period of the French Revolution is on a much smaller scale, as is wahhabi-ism...those are the two closest competitors I can think of.
All that being said, if you are a US citizen, the first amendment does guarantee your right to have and espouse completely stupid opinion, as it guarantees my right to ridicule you mercilessly for having said opinion. Regardless, please keep your marxism to yourself and stop trying to spread its hatred, thanks...the tens of millions of people who have died under its thumb will thank you.
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis hebes
He put his capital at risk to start it up
Risk does not inherently deserve a reward. Certainly not a reward that involves control of other people and fruits of their labor.
All that being said, if you are a US citizen,
Not only I am not an US citizen, I also happened to live half of my life in USSR and half in US, what makes me more qualified to comments on matters of Communists, Socialism and Capitalism than most of US population including all US politicians, all US journalists, all US "historians" and, of course, you.
the first amendment does guarantee your right to have and espouse completely stupid opinion
It's nice that you have mentioned that. First Amendment is basically the right to lie to the public with impunity, as your favorite propaganda outlet, Fox News, demonstrated multiple times. If anything, your response demonstrates that those lies were extremely efficient.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Your point #4 is spot on. I cant find a cite for it but I swear I remember seeing something where some high-up navy people said "Top Gun is the best navy recruitment ad we have ever had" (or something similar)
Yeah, jobs are nice. But if we're going to pay taxes to fund things, I say we:
I know, crazy, right? Peaceful spending? To increase the value of our country's infrastructure and manufacturing power??? Cr-----A-zy!
Go Romney! The candidate with the shorter last name deserves to win!
I look forward to president O.
Since when is the goal of war "sportsmanship"?
Grow up.
I don't know... at the very least since the Hague Conventions.
The idea that war can be lead in a civilized and restricted way is a prerequisite of public acceptance (and of finding people willing to sign up for your military).
Rules like "no B/C weapons", "no anti-person landmines", "no cluster bombs", "medical assistance strictly based on severity of injury not on nationality", ... are efforts (which at least the civilized countries take very seriously) to fight wars in a contained and sportsman-like way.
That attitude is what caused the Navy and the Air Force to purchase the F-4 Phantom: The first fighter that only had stand-off weapon (missiles).
After MIGs started shooting them (using their on-board guns) out of the skies like so many pigeons, the error of the brass's stupid fucking idea sunk in and started the mad rush to produce gun pods for the Phantoms.
A fighter that's out of missiles is also defenseless.
The F-4 was the reason that the F-8 Crusader is also known as, "Mig Master" and "The Last of the Gunfighters." The F-8 Crusader had the best kill ratio of the Viet Nam War.
Okay. Class is over.
Man, I absolutely love A-10's. The best damned purpose-built aircraft I've ever seen.
Do you remember the shit storm when it was time to let another contract to build more? The press called it an expensive pork barrel project. Idiots.
Iraq was armed with European and Russian aircraft. Libya ... Russian.
North Vietnam ... Russian
North Korea ... Russian
You forgot to mention that those are 2-3 generations behind. NK still mostly flies MiG-15/17/19 (and Chinese clones) in large numbers, for Christ sake. Vietnam mostly uses MiG-21. Libyans had the bulk of their force consist of MiG-23 and Yugoslavian Galebs. Even an F-16 or an F-18 would tear those apart easily.
Apologies for not being clear. I was not referring to those countries in their current state. I was referring to them in the state they were during their respective wars/conflicts with the US. 1950s for NK, 60s for NV, 80s for Libya, 90s for Iraq. They all had comparable aircraft back in their days. Mig-17 v F-86 in NK, Mig-21 v F-4 in NV, etc. Arguably the enemy sometimes had a better aircraft. What made the difference was really pilot training.
The point being that the US has often faced state-of-the art aircraft in the last 60 years, even when going against small nations.
Really? What has diplomacy EVER solved?
Every ceasefire was an act of diplomacy.
Every reunification of a nation was an act of diplomacy.
Every treaty signed by two nations, mutually agreeing to stop fighting, was an act of diplomacy.
If you want an example, then I suggest that you study European history. England versus France, for example. Kings forcing their children into marriage to establish bloodlines to prevent war. The Treaty of Paris that ended the Seven Years War. England and France both had resources to continue fighting the war indefinitely, but at some point both realized that diplomacy and mutual consent was a better approach to managing their differences. And so it is for every group of people that have ever fought and made peace.
Surrender and the subsequent establishment of a legal state of peace is also an act of diplomacy: Treaty of San Francisco. Surrender is usually not one side giving in unconditionally, but instead a delicate balancing act where one side admits it is losing, and is willing to make major concessions to establish peace. That is diplomacy. The alternative would be war without end until one side is completely exterminated.
until we regulated industry out of the US
And it all went to a country that believes in the principle of small government: China.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Will Hussein listen to his OWN generals? Hell no.
What *actually* happens, as you would know if you've been following the current case of the M-1 and a hundred like it before, is that the Pentagon decides that they don't want to spend their money on something that they don't think will help them accomplish their mission, and the the defense contractors who will lose funding run screaming to their congresscritter, who the goes screaming to the public that the {commies,terrorists,aliens} will win if the Pentagon is not allowed to spend all those billions of dollars in their district, so Congress puts in the defense budget even though the Pentagon doesn't want it.
'Cause we got to keep that pork flowing.
Correct. In short, the President has little to do with these decisions. It's almost all Congress (including the Senate). It has been this way for decades.
Actually, most of these defense systems are built in neo-con territory. Purposely. They will put their's and their party's needs ahead of the nations. 2 case in points would be the NAT GAS act as well as the Space Launch System. The NAT GAS act would allow us to become energy independent, and clean up our air. Yet, they want to continue to import oil. Likewise, the neo-cons continue to fight against private space, esp. new private space. Even now, they would rather see us dependant on Russia, OR that the 2.5 contracts go to established companies and not to the new comers. In addition, they are denying any funding for Bigelow aerospace, so that they can control the launches and the numbers.
Basically, we have a republican party that has more in common with mao and stalin, then they do with Lincoln. The republican members need to get rid of the neo-cons and tea* and return to social moderates with strong fiscal conservative background. I still remember the day that the republican party consider John McCain to be a conservative.
Windbourne.
The Economist showed up in my mailbox on Saturday, but this article is on page 52 of the magazine, so I didn't read it until today -- a few minutes before I saw it here on Slashdot. I guess I read at about the same pace as Soulskill.
You'll be signing a different tune when we are invaded by Aliens or humans from an alternate dimension. Just because we are faster then every competitor in today's race doesn't preclude a newcomer from cleaning our clock.
Cheap storage VM.
I've worked at one of those jobs, at the rate the US spends on Defense, you could afford to pay an average salary to thousands of people sitting on their arses for years....
End of Line.
Nope. But see how many factories and businesses are going to start when there's no reward for doing so.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
If the US is actually threatened, use nuclear weapons.
It is unclear we the US has achieved much in terms of actually protecting the country since 1945 using any other weapon.
But in (our Western version of) Capitalism, those with capital lay (a bogus) claim to ALL the surplus value created, and this is what's wrong with it in my mind. Surplus value: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_value
In terms of risk, I think it's notable that in a great many occupations, the laborer (ditch digger, data-entry person, letter carrier ..) takes some, if not substantial risk to his or her health, up to and including death, in the course of producing the aforementioned surplus value. It seems to me that they deserve every bit as much compensation for personal health and life risks arising from the production of surplus value as the capital-owners do for risking money. Perhaps more - you can always get more money but you can't get more life.
The man who dies rich dies disgraced. -- Andrew Carnegie
Former Tomcat pilot here. The Tomcat had a lot of problems, maneuverability was not one of them. The basic aerodynamics were great and it could hang with the best of them (with the F-110 engines). In the "D" model, the avionics were at least up to 1990 standards (better than the Hornets of the same era). The real problem from a maintenance standpoint is it had too many darn moving parts, and so many of them were controlled with analog electronics (potentiometers, relays and limit switches) and clockwork mechanisms. Think about those swing wings and full span flaps and slats and all the mechanisms that are needed to keep from driving the flaps into the fuselage. Note the lack of any flap actuator fairings for full length fowler flaps. Yea, it was expensive to maintain.
You'll be signing a different tune when we are invaded by Aliens or humans from an alternate dimension.
That's what we keep the Avengers around for.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Risk does not inherently deserve a reward.
Neither does effort.
as it enables control over other people's labor and gives the owner an unjustified ownership of all products made by those people under such control
Oen of the more annoying things about Marxism is that it pretends a nonsensical mystical notion of ownership is created just because someone did a little work on something. If someone doesn't want their labor to be "controlled", then just never work for anyone else. It's pretty simple. Most people waive their rights to ownership of their labor, because it works out much better for them. The owner of capital gets the widget and the worker gets the wealth to pursue their dreams (which generally is not owning the widget).
Effort has nothing to do with this. "Labor" in Marxism means any human activity that produces something valuable.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
mystical notion of ownership is created just because someone did a little work on something.
If you knew anything about Marxism, you would not spout such idiocy. When the labor is public (that is, always with few exceptions), private ownership of the product is only "justified" because capitalists say so, and they can get away with it, because they control the means of production.
If someone doesn't want their labor to be "controlled", then just never work for anyone else.
This is the whole point of ownership of the means of production -- to prevent people from doing most kinds of work without working for capitalists who gobbled up all those means of production, and make sure that no other means of production can be produced. It's true that you can suck someone's cock without a need to own a factory, railroad, or oil field, however this does not mean that cocksucking is a viable alternative to the wage slavery on the scale of the society.
Most people waive their rights to ownership of their labor, because it works out much better for them.
Most people also waive their rights to own their wallet when faced with an armed robber, too, however this does not mean that robbery is justified, or that robbers should not be punished.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Oh, you can even get to the moon if you just throw enough cash at it and long-term pay-offs are not in the picture, i.e. if you are looking for a worthless stunt. But stealth tech is a case of winning the battle and losing the war. It is far, far to expensive for what it delivers. Incidentally, keeping soldiers alive is not a rational consideration in military operations. That just crept up because the US population (and the US press) does not understand war. Also note that asymmetric warfare (of which stealth tech is a major staple) is extremely expensive in follow-up cost and basically something only amateurs do.
So yes, while stealth tech satisfies the primitive cowboy reflexes the US population has to be distracted from its own misery, it is the road to long-term defeat.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Me, looking at picture on the wall: "Oh, what part of your navy is that?" "That IS our navy."
I worked with DRDC when I was at the USAF Research Lab, which fought for funding with the Army and Navy labs, despite years of trying to force cooperation.
Old joke: "How many people work here?" "About half of 'em."