I predict a lot of comments that ignore the fact that the United States military provides free-as-in-beer global free trade to the entire planet, all while maintaining a readiness to fight a two-front war on any two fronts. (Yes, there's plenty of reasonable debate about the US's readiness.) Other militaries don't include that in their remit, so budget comparisons are largely fruitless for anything other than political purposes (one way or the other).
I'm as opposed to wasteful spending as anyone–and I think that we have plenty of it–but this idea that the US military budget is strictly and solely about shooting wars completely misses the point. It has held together the world's first peaceful, global free trade in exchange for cooperation in security policy since 1946. That isn't cheap.
Nor is it easy or even viable for anyone else. It's not that anyone else could do it if only they had the budget, there just isn't another piece of land on the planet that could do it, short of assuming some impossible alliances.
When comparing military budgets you need to compare what it is they're buying: no other country is providing global free trade with their budgets, so of course they're comparatively small. And of course running an insurgency against occupying forces is relatively inexpensive. Of course regional security is less expensive than global security. This isn't comparing player stats on Street Fighter to see how they'd match up in some kind of March Madness bracket.
Like it or not, most modern wars (at least the non-pointless ones that aren't mostly about pork and politics) aren't about winning or losing in classical terms, but about how they fit into the broader security and trade context.
There are multiple shipping corridors through areas with less than stable/friendly governments. Sure, there are the pirates off of Somalia, but there's also governments that could threaten blockades or charge steep fares to pass by. Check out this map and consider how many ships are passing by China, the Middle East, and Africa.
"there's also governments that could threaten blockades or charge steep fares to pass by. Check out this map and consider how many ships are passing by China, the Middle East, and Africa"
That's ironic considering that it's the US who has been harassing Chinese and Iranian ships [0], [1].
In fact, the US Navy is a major threat to China that heavily relies on the sea routes for its import and export.
"threaten blockades"
If you meant Iran threatening retaliation with blockade of Saudi's oil shipments, the US is the part of problem, not of the solution. Any other cases?
"or charge steep fares to pass by"
Any precedents? Especially considering that almost the whole world has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea[2]. The whole world except the US, I mean[3].
Think of it, the whole world lives by the law, which the US refuses to be a subject to, and you are talking with a straight face about the US deterring other countries from breaking it. The world is doing fine without American policing.
"The carrier fleet is more about"
And the carrier groups are responsible for the bulk of the US naval military expenditures.
Consider the annexation of Crimea. That's what happens in a power vacuum or a reduction in the belief that the US and the global community will retaliate against land grabs.
What happens when the US's eleven supercarriers are not in the Strait of Hormuz or floating around the Pacific. The threat is enough to guarantee countries think twice about annexing their neighbors provinces.
"Consider the annexation of Crimea. That's what happens in a power vacuum"
Yeah, let's consider it.
It's a direct response to the US-sponsored coup in the Ukraine and the threat of NATO expansion into Ukraine.
The Crimea was (arguably) illegally taken from Russia and assigned to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic in 1954 when they both were a part of the USSR, the Ukraine refused to give it back when it declared its independence and yet Russia did nothing about it for a quarter of century and paid huge rent for Russian naval base located in Crimea.
The prospect of American military bases appearing in the Ukraine was unacceptable for Russia and what happened next you've read in the news.
That's what happens when the US meddles around the world.
"The threat is enough to guarantee countries think twice about annexing their neighbors provinces"
But who would protect countries from the American threat?
The US with the support of its navy invaded Iraq in 2003, bombed Libya, protects its allies (Turkey, Saudi Arabia) when they sponsor terrorists in Syria. The Turkey has de-facto annexed part of Syria, the US are controlling oil fields in another part of Syria, over a million are dead in Iraq, Libya is in a state of civil war ever since American bombing.
Well, yeah. There's a good reason why those became uncommon. But it's hard to tell how each state actor would behave if they treated their nearby international waters as their own.
Oh, right, now I know the purpose of 11 supercarrier groups. Pirates.
"But it's hard to tell how each state actor would behave if they treated their nearby international waters as their own."
Why would they do that? They all voluntarily have got bound by The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea [0], the US being one of the few countries that refuses to ratify it [1].
I understand that sentiment - certainly there is quite a bit of waste in your system. But you should consider that in nearly all plausible cases where you would have a "war" with Russia, it will either occur near Russia (granting them advantage of operating near their base, and minimizing cost of projecting force), and/or in a situation/context specifically designed to minimize American advantages.
Russia gets to operate on the cheap since they have a much simpler and tractable goal - they don't need to be a global hyperpower, they just need regional dominance. They don't need to sustainable project conventional power to the other side of the globe - they only need to project power in their region, while having sufficient unconventional power projection (read nukes).
Russia also gets to operate on the cheap since they have just less commitments.
Finally, Russia also gets much looser constraints to operate in. Consider one of the more "realistic" fantasy war scenarios - Russia moves on the Baltic States. Russia is more likely to be able to absorb causalities politically than American forces. This plays into American force and war planning. There is an understanding that American forces require significant overmatch to create conditions where the current American way of war can be sustained long enough to achieve American goals without too much political/public backlash.
Unless we're going to say the war with Russia is fought with the same objectives (in this case have a US friendly government in power) I don't think we can compare against past wars.
That’s probably grossly inaccurate. Vietnam despite having a much smaller economy at time were still a major regional economic power even after consideration for internal conflict. Vietnam spent tremendous resources on the war. You also have to consider that the US participation in Vietnam was seen by the Vietnamese as foreign participants in a larger civil war. That conflict didn’t end just because Americans left, but rather when the communists took Saigon.
Twenty years ago, a bearded man in a cave ("Ali Baba") and his 19 "thieves" have managed to attack the superpower with a combined security budget (military and all intelligence agencies) of around 1.000 billions (1) on its soil, (2) using only box cutters!
The explanation offered to the world by the superpower was: Everyone failed. Yet, no one of those in high positions in the security aparatus of the superpower who has failed at doing his highly responsible job has resigned and no one was prosecuted.
What sounds like a (bad) fairytale really happened. Over 3.000 people died that day and many more thousands have died and are still dying as a consequence of what happened that day.
Attackers budget was probably 0.00...1% of the budget of the superpower.
I think this belies something that isn't really true: that tech rules all in war. If Russia (or China, with ~25% of our military budget) can beat us in a war this is more a statement on the design and execution of the military institution itself. What are we preparing for that Russia/China is not? What are we not preparing for that Russia/China is? Are they structuring themselves in a way that we are not? How? Why?
It goes without saying (as it has been said 1000 times over) that the Taliban was able to befuddle the largest and most technologically advanced military in history for 20 years. Tech and the MIC isn't the problem.
We could have won that one if politicians had listened to their military advisors. In James Mattis's recent book, he talks about how the Obama administration didn't listen to recommendations for a larger military presence because they were scoring too many political points by constantly "bringing the troops home".
The military always says they would have won if they had more. I dont think that is the case at all in Afghanistan or Iraq, in Iraq we essentially invented an enemy and lost to them.
What would a winning scenario look like to you? There is no winning when it comes to conflicts like that - just mission objectives, most of which were completed.
Us not babysitting two countries with our annual budget and servicemen and women because we are afraid to leave. If you dont have an exit strategy you probably shouldnt go start a fight you cant finish (Im obviously generalizing a complex situation but 20 years at war is beyond ridiculous), Colossal waste of money after killing bin Laden, Iraq was a made up war. No idea what the exit strategy was there beyond Bush wanting to kill Saddam.
Like many other things, there's probably a power law distribution in terms of the cost of reaching certain levels of military capability.
It might cost 10% as much as our budget to get to 75% of the capability, and 80% of our budget to get to 90% of the capability.
The military question is: is that high-end stuff war decisive or not? Or can you win a war with a better strategy or just more of the cheap stuff?
Bringing up terrorism is a red herring. Terrorism gets lots of attention but it doesn't win true wars. You'd need hundreds of 9/11 events to even dent the US's war capability. A war with a nation state is very different from "asymmetric warfare" against a diffuse enemy motivated by an ideology or a set of resentments rather than a true chain of command.
Well, the US military budget can only be understood as an aesthetic statement, there is basically no scenario were the US defense budget is not vastly oversized.
The obvious counter of getting stuck in Iraq or Afghanistan, there the problem is a political, not a military one. The US forces were easily able to archive military targets, the problem is that nobody bothered to formulate clear political goals that could be archived, and consequently the western forces are stuck in limbo.
You have to remember the US military is projecting power across the globe. What the paper is likely referring to is regional scenarios. Regions take time to reinforce, and other theatres may be active at the same time, while having their own requirements in terms of force projection/deterrent.
To say that military Y has a mere x% of our budget and therefore we should win is a gross oversimplification of the complexity.
I think it would be jumping to conclusions to say because the military has vulnerabilities that the entire military industrial complex is a fraud. Pieces of it certainly are sub-optimal and arguably fraudulent though such as DCGS (the "opportunity to improve" terminology used for it in DOD speak means failure)
Russia would be dominated in a conventional war with the United States. The problem is Russia isn't spending it's 10% on conventional assets so a conventional war is extremely unlikely.
I'm highly skeptical Russia would even seek a conventional war at all with the United States, but rather local reinforcement of their borders, national or ethnic, if a broader conflict broke out.
I'm as opposed to wasteful spending as anyone–and I think that we have plenty of it–but this idea that the US military budget is strictly and solely about shooting wars completely misses the point. It has held together the world's first peaceful, global free trade in exchange for cooperation in security policy since 1946. That isn't cheap.
Nor is it easy or even viable for anyone else. It's not that anyone else could do it if only they had the budget, there just isn't another piece of land on the planet that could do it, short of assuming some impossible alliances.
When comparing military budgets you need to compare what it is they're buying: no other country is providing global free trade with their budgets, so of course they're comparatively small. And of course running an insurgency against occupying forces is relatively inexpensive. Of course regional security is less expensive than global security. This isn't comparing player stats on Street Fighter to see how they'd match up in some kind of March Madness bracket.
Like it or not, most modern wars (at least the non-pointless ones that aren't mostly about pork and politics) aren't about winning or losing in classical terms, but about how they fit into the broader security and trade context.