Superficially, it feels like the crux of the problem is that "supporting the troops" has been subverted to mean not questioning civilian-driven military policy. This has given them carte-blanche lest anyone be accused of not supporting our boys.
(It's possible to be against a war (and the policies and politicians that set that course) while still honoring/supporting soldiers and their family.)
But you're right and I was wrong. The problem isn't only that politicians / civilians have usurped "supporting the troops" as a shield (as I said), but really any decisions (whether it be made by the military or civilians) cannot be criticized / questioned without a high risk of being labeled unpatriotic.
Except when a congressman from Ohio decides that they need more tanks so that he can keep his voters employed [1], despite the army saying they have plenty and don't know what to do with them. They have literally thousands of tanks sitting in storage in the desert, and they're rolling tanks straight off the production line into storage.
The army did not convince Congress that it did not need more tanks in 2011, so in 2013, Congress funded an additional tanks to be built at a cost of ~$270M.
Usually, the military provides requirement and the civilian administration provides the funds. How can the Congress order the Army to make more tanks when they don't need it? I am not an American, so probably I am missing the entire context here.
This at least sometimes happens in Europe too... defense procurement is big business and very political, and sometimes European militaries end up in programs (esp. multinational ones) they aren't that enthusiastic about. Another example is conscription. The Swedish military wanted conscription to be abolished for years before it actually happened, but until the civilian government decided to do so, in the meantime the military had to keep taking in and training conscripts they didn't actually want.
They're literally making tanks and driving them straight into storage because the army doesn't have anything to use them for or anybody to drive them.
1. demand is generated by the military
2. bid out contract
3. selected a bidder (bidders are defense contractors)
4. deliver contracted goods and also maintain inventory parts and tooling for sometimes up to 25 years
5. local economy becomes dependent on this manufacturing income, bidder lobbies their local congressperson directly or indirectly
6. congressperson does these wacky ass requisition appropriations
7. the factory keeps production at the same level and with same employment
8. military gets delivery for goods they never wanted so they go into storage, because what else are you supposed to do with these things? You can't resell them because it contains military secrets, you can't scrap them from both an optics level and the general military logic that having a spare is generally fine.
This happens even moreso when it is navy vessels that are much larger cost investments (submarines and destroyers) as just making one will take years potentially and there are legitimate concerns for stopping the means of production but it really just turns into a jobs/national pride story.
As an example, the HMS Queen Elizabeth, the Royal Navy's new carrier, was ordered in 20089 and laid down in 2014, it was commissioned only last year, and is still undergoing sea trials and isn't operational (they also have no planes to fly off it). It's planned to be in service in 2020, 6 years after being laid down and 12 years after it was ordered.
I'm also not sure in the comparison between foreign governments and US defense contractors but US defense contractors generally only sell to the military markets (domestic or international) so it's not like their facilities are designed to be able to build ordinary commercial goods side by side with the military spec hardware.
You see, the army is controlled by the president. The president may be from a different political party or even be following his own personal agenda. The army must strictly obey orders according to the chain of command, and the president is at the top.
If the president dislikes tanks, he can order the army to place tanks into storage and claim that the tanks are not wanted. Congress is left wondering if the people in the army are stating their true expert opinions or just following orders.
Here is a real case that leaked out:
https://www.military.com/dodbuzz/2015/01/16/general-praising... https://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/01/26/generals-a10-...
So yes, the military being ordered to lie to congress is a real thing.
The A10 is an example of Congress imposing civilian priorities on the military. Despite its declining military utility, it's a popular plane, so Congress won't let the military sunset it. It has nothing to do with the president ordering the military to lie to Congress.
You're not even legally correct... while the president is the commander in chief, Congress has oversight of military spending under Article I, Section 8. An order to lie to Congress about spending would be an illegal order, and military personnel are not compelled to follow illegal orders.
The F22 looks to be a similar case. Here we don't have a crude effort getting leaked, but that doesn't mean the situation was any more legitimate. It very much seems that Obama was pushing to kill the F22 and the military marched to his orders.
Good luck prying those out of the Navy's cold, dead hands. Just look how long it took to finally get rid of battleships.
You'd think that after the complete shitshow that was mc02 they would have started to see the light. But I think instead they're just burying their heads in the sand a bit farther.
The last time the US Navy built a battleship was in 1941. It was decommissioned in 1958 - the last of its kind. If you take World War II as the proof that carriers had eclipsed battleships, that doesn't seem like long at all.
The battleships were recomissioned in the '80s by Reagan as a bizarre act of cold war willy-waving. And once you've paid the money to get them working and put some missiles on them, you might as well keep using them until they fall apart.
WW2 was definitely un-ignorable proof that battleships were done. Imo though, given the essentially complete lack of actual success wrought by battleships in ww1, someone should have seen the light in the interwar period.
I guess I shouldn't be too harsh, at least we aren't building much else new that's bigger than a destroyer (except carriers).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention_Regarding_...
And the Royal Navy had "through-deck cruisers" that were actually (tiny) aircraft carriers, so that they could get them built under a government which wanted to keep defence spending under control:
http://www.godfreydykes.info/THE%20PROMISED%20TWO%20NEW%20AI...
There's no surer way to get a tinpot dictatorship to start dancing to your fiddle than to park a carrier battle group outside their territorial waters.
As Bill Clinton said:
> When word of a crisis breaks out in Washington, it's no accident that the first question that comes to everyone's lips is 'Where's the nearest carrier?'
Most of the time, a submarine or destroyer with Tomahawk cruise missiles will get the job done. But parking a nuclear submarine off the coast doesn't have the same diplomatic effect.
Yes and no. The Atlantic Conveyor, a makeshift helicopter carrier, was sunk, taking the UK’s Chinooks with it, leading to the famous “yomp” across the island. But you are right that both of the Harrier carriers were OK.
The Argentinians deployed two submarines. The Royal Navy caught the WWII surplus Santa Fe. The more up to date San Luis evaded the RN and it's attacks were only foiled by poor maintenance of it's weapon systems.
The British submarines drove the Argentinian surface ships (including their carrier) into port.
The RN of the time was as good as any at anti-submarine warfare and had quite modern air defences. I think the Falklands war showed how effective air-launched missiles and submarines were (are).
https://warisboring.com/the-u-s-navy-s-big-mistake-building-...
See, for example, MC02.
I’m not saying you’re wrong - to the contrary, since you are a former pilot I’m actually quite interested in your opinion.
Unmanned missile trucks are drones that carry missiles that can be guided by other platforms. After the drone launches its missiles, who cares if it blows up. Trying to make drones defensible like expensive fighters is just as stupid as the JSF. Some stealth and defense is good, but expendable and cheap is more important.
Carriers are too vulnerable to missiles. Missiles are the future. You can’t defeat something going mach 6 that pulls 25 g’s in the end game. 'The Future of War' does a great job describing the evolution of weapons platforms and how aging ones are depicted by ever increasing costs on defensive measures which are then defeated by new, cheaper weapons. [4] Carriers and fighter jets are becoming the modern battleships which is a bit ironic.
1. https://www.military-quotes.com/forum/logistics-quotes-t511....
2. https://news.usni.org/2017/03/23/f-35c-tests-offer-proposed-...
3. https://theaviationist.com/2012/01/09/f-35c-hook-problems/
4. https://www.amazon.com/Future-War-History-Lawrence-Freedman/...
And if so, are we there yet, technologically speaking? I.e., not just peacetime autonomy but actually dealing with a combat situation -- possibly with friendlies in the skies -- completely autonomously? My impression the last time I talked with a uniform about this was that the answer is still no.
Not to mention that for UK and Europe, pork-barrel politics means those engines can only be serviced by one country that is increasingly distancing itself from the rest of NATO. All F35s can be trivially rendered useless by denying them access to the single maintenance facility for their engine.
You can "defeat something going mach 6 that pulls 25 g’s in the end game", not that this exists. The easy answer is directed energy, such as lasers. Also, simply forcing it to maneuver at 25 g will quickly put an end to flying at mach 6. Each turn costs energy, and bypassing the laws of physics is not an option.
The autocorrect feature (on your mobile phone, I presume) made my day: I love the idea of an unmanned mussel truck.
We have 2 problems which I think are compounding each other:
1. The classic problem of defense: Fighting the Last War 2. An extremely strong defense industry lobby.
It's a situation that could have been far more easily handled in the late 90's, but is now being "handled" by attempting to reduce the training latency (not viable and quite unwise, IMO, but happening regardless) and by reducing the staff billets demanding fighter pilot backgrounds.
Technology will indeed replace (and has been) much of the need to put a highly trained human on the bleeding edge. That doesn't obviate the current significant under-staffing.
"Tomcat v2" and "unmanned missile trucks" are mutually compatible assertions, considering that standoff use of AN/AWG-9 + Phoenix to cover the outer air defense zone is what the F-14 was all about. A networked mix of active & passive sensor platforms and missile carriers is Tomcat v2 !