[torstenvl]

> It's gone way, way up in dollar terms over that time frame, in a low-inflation economy. Abrams tanks aren't billed by '% of GDP'.

Something costing a constant or decreasing percentage of GDP, but going up in dollar terms, is indicative of inflation.

    Year   Budg $bn   Budg/GDP   YOY Infl   Budg $bn ('21)
    ----   --------   --------   --------   --------------
    2009     705.9      4.89%      --           865.4
    2010     738.0      4.92%      1.6%         890.2
    2011     752.3      4.84%      3.2%         879.6
    2012     725.2      4.48%      2.1%         830.8
    2013     679.2      4.05%      1.5%         766.8
    2014     647.8      3.70%      1.6%         719.7
    2015     633.8      3.48%      0.1%         703.3
    2016     639.9      3.42%      1.3%         701.2
    2017     646.8      3.31%      2.1%         694.0
    2018     682.5      3.32%      2.4%         714.9
    2019     731.8      3.41%      1.8%         752.9

Within a decade, the budget varied so greatly that there was a 22% difference between the high and the low in real terms. When you have drastic budget cuts, you have to cut projects. Those projects can't just be picked up again where you left off when you get more money - contractors will have moved on, and in most cases the new contracts need to be re-competed.

These are structural disadvantages we as Americans place on our own military, and from which the PLA does not suffer.

Data from:

- https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/mili...

- https://www.statista.com/statistics/191077/inflation-rate-in...

- https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

[refenestrator]

I appreciate the data, especially the real $ pulled forward from 2009.

My impression was the drop-off from 2009-2013 was all about reducing investment in Iraq and Afghanistan rather than cancelling super promising projects. Do you have an example of a great project that was cancelled? I know we reduced our order of F-22s but that was concurrent with a way bigger, splashier investment in F-35s so I'd call that 'bad priorities' rather than 'lack of resources'.

I'd say that the PLA's big advantage was not invading Iraq. I almost added something about a lot of our defense spending being glorified jobs programs but I'm pretty sure that's also true over there too, just with a differently-shaped politics driving it.

[torstenvl]

The EFV was supposed to replace the AAV but ended up canceled in the 2011-2013 crunch. $3bn reset. However, this can't be blamed entirely on the budget crunch - there were reliability issues with the platform, which, given the budget crunch, the Marine Corps did not feel it could adequately address. The threshold for when you stop throwing good money after bad depends in part on how much margin of error you have in your budget of good money.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a21729889/marines-...

Things like building aircraft carriers and training 100s of thousands of people in a non-flat leadership structure aren't processes that can turn on a dime. The joint chiefs testimony on the effects of budget predictability on readiness is certain to be more articulate than anything I can say. Brief overview here: https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/945964/...

[refenestrator]

I see that you're a Marine on your bio, so I guess we are just not going to see eye to eye on how important/relevant amphibious landing capabilities are :) I actually remember hearing about that EFV and thinking 'what a waste of money' at the time.

Respect for acknowledging the reliability issues.

I think another elephant in the room is the bifurcated (or trifurcated) nature of things the armed forces are expected to do. Occupying countries with large goat-herding sectors is totally different from sci-fi peer military conflict planning.

Meanwhile, most of the brass just wants to re-enact WWII, which serves neither mission. Everyone loves the idea of carriers or a d-day landing, when "large # of cheap, expendable drones and missiles" completely obliterates both of those strategies.

Did you ever read about Millenium Challenge 2002? Marine general plays red team, sinks entire US fleet with the realization that if you launch a lot of missiles at once at a carrier group, the anti-missile batteries can't stop them all. They decide on a do-over with a new rule that he can't do that anymore, and run the exercise to the predetermined conclusion that validates their doctrine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002