[jonplackett]

What is weird is that all these current super expensive high tech weapons like aircraft carriers, f22s are basically like cavalry in the tank era.

Drones (and cheap-ish ballistic missiles) have turned it all on its head.

In the war with Iran you have the USA shooting down 50k drones with multiple multi-million dollar missiles. Some of the THAAD missiles are over 10 million each - and you have to launch 2 to get an interception.

Meanwhile they have to keep the aircraft carriers hundreds of miles off shore or they’ll be sunk with hypersonic missiles.

The economics are crazy but even if you’re willing to pay, the capacity to build enough isn’t there either.

[canucker2016]

In the book "Skunk Works" by Ben Rich (former head of Lockheed's Skunk Works), the authour talks about the behaviour of the military officers. Spy planes weren't seen as valuable/important to the typical officer who was looking to get promoted to higher levels versus the typical sexy fighter jets or bombers.

Just as in any group, there are certain positions that are more prestigious/desired than other positions. Typically the prestige increased the more people that they supervised or valuable pieces of equipment (expensive tanks / fighter jets) in their group.

Then there are other positions with lower prestige / desirability - think support/logistics (unless your org's main revenue stream is support/logistics).

This has little correlation to the effectiveness/impact of the group.

Those who worked well with the current strategies / standard operating procedures, can't see/don't want to see how new technology can be used to operate more effectively.

Imagine how army officers treated those who wanted to use airplanes in the period from World War I to World War II.

[b3ing]

I'm sure the defense contractors wanted to sell the expensive planes that require more maintenance rather than drones

[red-iron-pine]

jet planes require fancy R&D groups and custom builds

drones are commodity manufacturing

[JumpCrisscross]

> they have to keep the aircraft carriers hundreds of miles off shore

Drones + cheap antidrones + aircraft carriers + stealth aircraft looks like a solid high/low optimum. Anyone pitching an only-high or only-low strategy is leaving chips on the table.

[ohnei]

I'm not familiar with a stealth meant for even when you have to park it sometimes. If anyone has a great drone dominance then all your anti drone should go into drone related infrastructure. If someone has the corresponding high dominance then you can wait until nature runs out of resources for maintaining the absurd.

The US is a strategy of failure since Vietnam because it is profitable to war hawk supporters to lose every war in the economics and funnel the money back into more strategic losers.

[JumpCrisscross]

> If anyone has a great drone dominance then all your anti drone should go into drone related infrastructure

If your opponent has drone dominance, you neutralize that advantage with anti-drone kit and then build your own advantage. Part of that will be drones. But part will be heavier, more sophisticated platforms. (Which will eventually pilot themselves, but aren’t drones since they aren’t cheap.) You can’t win a war only playing defense.

> someone has the corresponding high dominance then you can wait until nature runs out of resources for maintaining the absurd

Their high technology destroys your industry while you wait. This is strategy as old as the Bronze Age.

[throw0101a]

> If someone has the corresponding high dominance then you can wait until nature runs out of resources for maintaining the absurd.

If someone has high dominance, they can probably afford to take 20% of that capability and divert the funding to low dominance as well. The reverse will not necessarily be true: if you have low dominance does not mean you have the capability to go high.

> The US is a strategy of failure since Vietnam because it is profitable to war hawk supporters to lose every war in the economics and funnel the money back into more strategic losers.

The US generally does not lose militarily: it has 'lost' because they didn't have a strategic goal, or decided that their goal was no longer important.

The US could have stuck with South Vietnam just like it stuck with South Korea (to this day, in 2026), but decided to stop. There's no reason why they couldn't kept with it, and we have a North/South Vietnam like we have a North/South Korea.

That is the present situation with Iran: the US has/is trounced Iran military, but the problem is that the Administration cannot answer the question "What is the purpose of this war?". Hegseth is dunking on "elite" colleges and wanting a "warrior army", but one thing colleges do is things like teach von Clausewitz. You know, "War is the continuation of politics by other means."

The US managed to stick with Iraq a little longer, through the insurgency and then against ISIS/ISIL/Daesh, and now Iraq has elections:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Iraqi_parliamentary_elect...

There was enough of a civil culture in Iraq that wanted a system of government to keep it going. There seems to not have been enough a civic culture in Afghanistan to sustain a similar government and to fight against the Taliban. Militarily the US was doing just fine against the Taliban.

[Leonard_of_Q]

> like cavalry in the tank era

Ehhh, tanks are the cavalry of the tank era. Cavalry did not go away, it changed from its namesake horses to armoured battle vehicles but its task remains more or less the same. Drones and 'cheap-ish' ballistic missiles can make life harder for the mentioned expensive high-tech weaponry until cost-effective counter-measures are widely available. For drones that'll probably end up being directed energy weapons - lasers and the likes - while ballistic weaponry can (for now) be countered by moving out of their (ballistic) path. Eventually aircraft carriers will probably be replaced by multiple drone carriers, that may happen sooner or later depending on how the current fleets end up performing in coming conflicts.