[tdb7893]

What really puts all of this into perspective for me is I work in academia and one of my friends works for a defense contractor. He told me the maintenance cost per flight hour of F-35 was a bit more than $40k, which is significantly more than I make in a year as a grad student. It's crazy basic science is what's been the focus of so many cuts while it's so cheap.

[benzible]

I wouldn't assume that this is about cost cutting. If the goal were saving money, the cheapest option by far would be to leave the hardware in the water and just stop funding the monitoring. Instead the plan is an expensive operation to send ships out to extract 900+ instruments from under two miles of ocean.

It's clear that this is driven by performative climate denialism and a pro fossil fuel stance. The Trump administration made a billion dollar deal with an energy company to stop construction of offshore wind farms and redirect the investment into fossil fuel projects. Trump constantly talks about the "green new scam" and "climate alarmism". And on top of signaling to his base, Trump met with oil executives at Mar-a-Lago before the 2024 election and pitched them on rolling back climate regulation in exchange for $1B in campaign cash. Destroying the instruments that would document the consequences and might spark alarm and activism is one way to hold up his end of the deal.

[port11]

But… why? Climate change is very much real and even stubborn deep-right voters like my father now ‘believe’ in it. Ok, some people make some cash. But wouldn’t they anyway? I don’t understand this need to keep pandering to a minority and to destroy ecosystems.

[AdamN]

It's the very definition of a culture war and in addition sadly evidence of limited intelligence. Even the most red blooded oil man wouldn't do this because this data is also useful for petroleum drilling and logistics - it's a whole other kind of person driving this.

[tremon]

Science is antithetical to rule-by-decree or other forms of despotism, since it strives to disprove any and all claims. The powers that be simply don't like to be told "you're wrong", and that is the core of what science does. It's as simple as that.

[ciconia]

Reactionary politics, greed, stupidity. Pick any three.

[chimprich]

I don't think Trump or any of his appointed lieutenants think any of this through. It's the result of decisions made by emotion, not logic. "Vibe-governing" in other words.

Climate change, and science in general, is associated with nerds, boring reality, obstacles to immediate gratification, and effects on poor people.

Fossil fuels are associated with large wads of cash, action films, and sticking it to the libs.

Decisions might have terrible consequences. Who cares? Thinking things through is boring, and the people making the decisions are rich enough to be insulated from anything that might happen and old enough to not be around when it does.

[port11]

I doubt that people in government, along the entire chain of command, that get paid to analyse policy, that pay consultants to analyse policy, that produce reports on the many facets of the world… that all of that is put together to NOT think things through.

I’d honestly prefer the explanation to be that they’re just that evil, at least that aligns with my worldview.

[triceratops]

> even stubborn deep-right voters like my father now ‘believe’ in it

I don't believe that, sorry. I mean I believe you that your father says so. But I don't think that holds for most right voters.

[port11]

He sees the consequences, he’s a hobby farmer. He watches the news talk about how weather patterns got aggressive and disruptive, how crops now fail, etc. He fixes the roofs destroyed by giant hail. He gets it.

Now, you’re right in some ways. He doesn’t care for the science or the electric cars and so on; but after a lifetime of exposure to the situation, it’s hard to keep dismissing it. He grew up in a very different country, weather-wise, and made the connection between climate change and why his potato harvest failed.

I believe, without proof, that most people understand that the world’s climate is changing and creating Big Problems. They might not admit it or understand the science, but can see the consequences. And no, they don’t agree with how to solve this.

[ElevenLathe]

Your father believes it because, presumably, he is not paid to deny it, like the president and his lackeys are.

[qingcharles]

The government knows it's real, these are generally well-educated people who went to decent schools. But, I would challenge that most right-wing voters know whether it is real. Where I live in rural America the vast majority are pro-fossil fuel, anti-EV. EVs are seen as "gay" or "feminine" by the folks out here. So the choice to use fossil fuels might just be some performative machismo, allowing their pick-ups to output black smoke, make a loud noise and look "tough."

Those are the majority of the Republican voters at this stage. To make them happy you do things like spend millions to tear up infrastructure which challenges their worldview. This should result in increased votes for the current administration at the mid-terms. So even if climate change is a real and current threat, you need to say it isn't to get re-elected.

[taffydavid]

I don't believe they do any of this for votes. I think somebody within the administration has a personal grudge against science, especially anything related to climate change.

[RetroTechie]

Those 2 motives are not mutually exclusive! Both may apply at the same time.

[cout]

I think that attitude may change if there is ever an EV that could be competitive in a NASCAR event. For now, the closest we are likely to see is a hybrid, because EVs don't have enough range.

[froggit]

NASCAR has a tendency to fight changes to the drivetrain technology, so a hybrid might take a while still. The regulations banned fuel injection up until 2012, required transmissions to be 4 speed manuals until 2021 and will probably keep the 2 valve pushrod valvetrain and 90° V8 layout til the end of time. If they ever get around to implementing hybrid powertrains (they've been grumbling about the issue since 2024), they aren't going to be there to save gas. Racing hybrids are designed primarily to recover kinetic energy in deceleration, store it for short term and use it to boost acceleration. There are designs for race hybrids that don' t even use batteries or utilize electrical energy for the hybrid part; instead storing it mechanically in flywheels to avoid the inefficiency of converting from mechanical to chemical energy and back.

[roenxi]

> So the choice to use fossil fuels might just be some performative machismo, allowing their pick-ups to output black smoke, make a loud noise and look "tough."

Might be linked to petrol cars being cheaper to buy for the same amount of car? That seems like an easier explanation. There is a masculine element in that men want to be seen to own big things to show off, but I doubt it has anything to do with liking black smoke. If they wanted loud noises they'd go a motorbike or get an obnoxious horn.

[qingcharles]

I was in the gas station recently and heard a girl talking to her friend. She said she'd never date a guy who didn't drive a pick-up and would definitely never date a guy who paid with a [credit/debit] card. She said "cards are for girls."

There are still a ton of cash transactions out here in the sticks. When I ask why they say they don't want the government knowing their business. But I guess from that conversation it also helps you get a date?

[wookmaster]

No, it’s tribalism of sorts. For men they’ll often paint something they don’t understand with words like that. I grew up in a culture that did that and won’t go back. Many many humans lack basic curiosity about the world.

[georgemcbay]

Look up the phrase "rolling coal".

These people do exist, unfortunately.

[ethbr1]

For those who don't live adjacent to rednecks: https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=rolling+coal

[estearum]

If "petrol cars" wasn't a dead giveaway of not being American, the rest of the comment confirms it. No clue what you're talking about.

[vel0city]

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about if you don't know anything about rolling coal and you don't realize people like to drive loud cars.

I've had several friends tell me they just couldn't drive an EV because it just doesn't have a soul, meaning it doesn't have that roar for its performance. It being nearly silent as it accelerates hard is missing half the point. It's a common thing among car enthusiasts.

[throwaway173738]

I can attest that a lot of “car culture” and “motorcycle culture” people want the car or motorcycle to be as loud as possible. Where I live they’re frequently interrupting conversations and waking children up. It’s a major nuisance.

[foo-bar-bat]

You have no idea what you're talking about. Respectfully,

[lopsotronic]

It's the deep desire for a sort of restorative authoritarianism: someone who can reduce the complex state of the world into "the way it should be".

The resentment is not versus fate or calamity but against those people who study and give voice to complexity. If someone can just shut those people up and make them go away, we will be restored to a simpler and more moral world. Where tragedy can rightly live in the realms of Gods and Mystery.

I would gently remind those that prefer such simplicity that not all nations do. We are not alone in the world. The nation that better understands the complexities of the natural world will, all else being equal, utterly trounce the nation that persists in fictionalizing existence. Unless you want to re-write your national anthem in Mandarin, you will someday need to (re-?)grapple with the complexities of the universe.

[mxkopy]

It all makes sense when you realize QAnon basically runs the white house now. There’s a very insulated type of American who lives in their own world, that unfortunately lots of voters are apparently sympathetic to. It’s probably seen as a victory against the climate change hoax or something along those lines.

[expedition32]

That's how the Chinese empire collapsed. They had scientists and explorers until one day the emperor decided that knowledge upsets harmony.

[Ajakks]

You don't know anything about China.

[te_234304958686]

I have seen some chatter where 2nd-term Trumpism has been (very imperfectly) compared to Mao's Cultural Revolution.

Obviously there are many differences, no question. But it's actions like this where a bit of the comparison seems apt -- fervent, nonsensical anti-intellectualism / anti-science actions done purely in the name of ideology.

Why else would one actually go out of the way to dismantle a working ocean observation system, which provides a rich amount of data for multiple purposes?

The only action that seems to make sense is that: A) Some of that data can be used to observe climate change issues. B) In Trumpism, it is not enough anymore to propagandize that climate change is not happening. One must also actively suppress anything that could suggest climate change is happening, no matter how much the cost, no matter how much it hurts other non-related things.

[enoint]

It’s seen in Crusader terms. A bunch of things which are not Christian, for example controlling social order at all costs, are adornments on nationalism. The apocalyptic parts of QAnon slot into their belief system. So many other religious movements rely on salvation. Another commenter mentioned ancient China. Big political upheavals swept ancient China based on very slight new ideas about salvation.

[kelnos]

Many deep-right voters do not believe in climate change. They're a big part of Trump's base.

[conartist6]

You don't need a chart these days. I live in Boulder Colorado, and I can't imagine that we'll have more than 10 more ski seasons.

[cmxch]

Upside - Aspen loses it’s arrogant environmentalists and it starts mining silver again.

[estearum]

Wow yeah such a great upside!

Eradicating species, destroying economies, and eliminating entire ways to enjoy nature's bounty here on earth –– a small price to pay to hurr hur hurrr... own the libs ;)

The DSM needs to be updated soon for this type of sociopathic cynicism. It can't be kept with the rest of society.

[fennecbutt]

Tribalism.

[dozerly]

Which part of trump making billions of dollars from oil oligarchs is the confusing bit? His incentive structure is clear.

[BobaFloutist]

People are going to give you all sorts of answers that are based on strategy or negotiation or interests, but I think it basically all boils down to "to own the libs." We have to remember that before this all started, he was registered as a Democrat. He doesn't (or didn't) give a shit about any of this, but people that said no to him do, so he's going to do his level best to break it all. It's just spite, and glee at being able to make people bewildered, angry, and sad. That's all so much of this is.

[conartist6]

https://xkcd.com/3226/

[easyThrowaway]

Because once shit hits the fan, those responsible for destroying the ecosystem will take a one-way flight for a fully air-conditioned bunkerized apartment lot in Dubai with any Epstein island-level luxury you can think of and fuck the consequences for everyone else, that's why.

[estearum]

Because we have actual retards in office. People keep looking for a deeper explanation. There isn't one. They are actual stupid people. They do stupid things.

[gacgacgac]

I'd encourage you to express this sentiment without the slur. Disability advocates have been pressing hard to reduce its usage.

[UncleMeat]

The entire motivation of Trump and the MAGA movement is "fuck you, libs." The left likes green energy and scientific research performed on the environment so the right hates that stuff even if their actions also hurt themselves.

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

Remove the source of evidence and its easier to deny the claim.

[taffydavid]

I don't believe Trump himself makes any of these decisions, and as for deals I don't think he remembers what happened yesterday let alone a deal made on the campaign trail. Parties in his administration are actively trying to destroy science and cripple any kind of climate research or green energy development, even if it costs nothing. Whoever they are, they make these plans and then get him to sign while he's awake.

[benzible]

Of course. Trump isn't aware of "details" like this. But he's very much on board with the "own the libs" project, the project of helping fossil fuel, and he appointed the people who are making it happen.

Although with Trump, it's more specific than "owning the libs": a clear motivating force is undoing anything Obama did or that was around on his watch. Pulling out of the JPOA agreement Obama made with Iran, then launching a war at the price of tanking the global economy which best case will result in a pale imitation of the JPOA (along with a much stronger and richer Iran), is only the latest example.

[peterbecich]

That cheapest option may not be the cheapest option in the long-term when the next Democratic president would re-activate the devices.

Same reasoning as removal of many post office boxes in last days of Trump 1 term.

[throwaway173738]

The post boxes were more about crippling mail-in votes. In Washington Bill De Joy had at one point dismantled several of the sorting machines which dramatically slowed how fast mail gets dispatched. The result was that you could no longer mail your vote the day before election day and have it arrive on election day.

[leonidasrup]

Quid pro quo

Oil industry pays and Trump delivers.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/09/trump-asks-oil-exec...

[wyldfire]

The crazy thing is that the oil companies confessed to a misinformation campaign and at least publicly talked about change/reform (of course, they're still oil exploration/refinement companies so not abandoning that). But they did discuss responsible use of fossil fuels in transition towards renewables.

But Trump was fooled and is more committed than ever to the since-abandoned misinformation campaign. It took on a bigger life than Exxon ever could've imagined.

The snowflakiest of them all - they can't handle unbiased readings from instruments that survey our planet.

[Animats]

The Mauna Loa CO2 data is still up.[1] Trump tried to kill off the CO2 measuring, but that doesn't seem to have happened. The Mauna Loa data goes back to 1958, measured at the same point, far from any CO2 sources. 315ppm in 1958, 441ppm today, and almost a noise free curve with mild seasonal variations. Clearest trend in global warming.

[1] https://gml.noaa.gov/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2/co2_mm_mlo.txt

[2] https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/01/climate/trump-cuts-mauna-loa-...

[kelnos]

I don't think Trump was "fooled" by anything. His policy positions reflect what makes him and his cronies money, and what keeps him in power. That's it. He doesn't care about truth or correctness. Just money and power.

[Terr_]

I submit that the "is malice or incompetence" heuristic can be broken by pathological inputs which result in an indefinite runtime, and that we've encountered some of them in the last decade.

The correct response when that happens is to say "both" until/unless the perpetrators want to plead just one or the other.

[vasco]

To be honest this sounds more like an excuse and cover for having a bunch of ships and submarines in places they'd normally wouldn't be at.

[nerdyadventurer]

I think bombs they drop on innocents are much more more expensive than $40K. Some think glaciers melting is at point there will be no turning back, record time heat waves and El Niño gives clues about upcoming disasters.

[thrance]

> The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed. A Floating Fortress, for example, has locked up in it the labour that would build several hundred cargo-ships. Ultimately it is scrapped as obsolete, never having brought any material benefit to anybody, and with further enormous labours another Floating Fortress is built.

George Orwell, 1984.

The Republican project is one of making the population dumber while enriching military contractors and other private interests. This achieves it perfectly.

[zmgsabst]

I’m sure this has nothing to do with 3.1 million graduate students versus 500 F-35s.

For actual context, F-35 program receives $9B per year (amortized over lifetime), which is $3000 per year per graduate student. Erasing the F-35 program entirely would make something like a 10% difference in graduate wages, while destroying the US Air Force as a modern military.

So no — your request to fund graduate students is more expensive than the F-35 program and delivers at best marginal results.

When you math through per unit or per capita or per year, we already spend more on education and science than the military — and it’s unclear further science funding to the detriment of the military would improve things.

I understand why you want more money, though.

[elashri]

Where did you get that the number of federally funded graduate students is 3.1 million?

Note that many will have industry, international or self funded (for MS it is less common to have funding). The 9B figure for maintaining the F35 you just said is very close to the entire annual budget of the NSF. Which is the main funding source of most of non medical research.

Also we are not talking about military budget, just the F35 maintenance program here.

[zmgsabst]

The $9B figure is total amortized to yearly: research, development, production, and maintenance across the near century of lifetime (1990s-2080s).

I took the total number of graduate students, to spread the money across them. We could also look at the same number as, eg, funding an increase from 3.1M to 3.3M or 3.4M graduate students.

I stand by my original claim:

A 10% increase in graduate salary or number of students doesn’t justify dismantling our air force.

[throwworhtthrow]

$9B/yr is less than half of the Pentagon's more recent estimate of $2T through 2088 for the F-35 program (according to Wikipedia and its sources, which is all I have to go on).

And again, the F-35 is not synonymous with the entire air force.

[mrguyorama]

The F-35 is absolutely synonymous with our entire airforce through 2088.

The F-22 is still a viable Air Superiority Fighter but there's about 100 of them. It cannot hold back a peer air force. The primary point of the F-35 was a cheaper F-22 that we could build 3000 of.

4th gen fighters like the F-18 cannot compete in an air war with a large amount of stealth fighters using modern long range missiles, like China is fielding. They would be defeated before even seeing a blip on their radars.

Without the power of Air Superiority, all the rest of our air force is basically useless. B2s and B21s might still be usable, but they cannot maintain a strategic bombing campaign on their own. The money spent on 4th gen missile trucks is pointless.

Giving up the F-35 is equivalent to total abandonment of our "Best Air Force" doctrine and would require a significant shakeup of how we view the military, and billions poured into other parts of the military to make up for giving up the sky. It also means capitulating to China in advance. Though, if we are willing to do that, we could save like half the military budget every year.

Just have to abandon the entire pacific, Japan, and South Korea, and the Philippines, and Australia, and Vietnam, etc etc etc.

[tehjoker]

Ok, but the military is being used for bad things not good things in one of the most easily defended countries in the world, a pure waste.

[MrVandemar]

> military is being used for bad things

Seems that sending a bunch of people with guns/bombs/etc to another country is almost always bad.

The military doing good things like ... um ... helping out during natural disasters or genuine peacekeeping is entirely a rare thing.

[tehjoker]

Defense is a legitimate thing to worry about. For example, Vietnam defended itself against America. We do not defend, we attack and pillage resources from the global south. Real defense is honorable and to be celebrated. However, the US military is not an institution that does those things and they cloak themselves (well until recently) in rhetoric designed to confuse the public.

[dnnddidiej]

You are both comparing stuff that is nonsensical to compare $ amounts on. Would you give up science for more F-35s or vice versa? probably not or not by much.

[bryanrasmussen]

The poster said they work in academia, not the part that has to do with science, so it seems unfair to compare the F35 to all of academia when they were complaining about science being cut.

Later, after the math showing that graduate students as a whole are more expensive than the F35 program, you claim that the U.S already spends more on education and science than the military.

The claim is of course somewhat unclear, because what comprises science spending. Is Darpa science and not military. Does Nasa count as science in this claim? If Nasa does then it might be that you throw all the budgets of NOAA and the EPA and other similar organizations into the Science pile. I say it just because I am unsure how you are calculating one part of your budget. Actually the education part I am going to suggest that is just higher education.

Higher education is around 100 billion a year, without student loans which doubles that.

The U.S government spends also approximately a couple hundred billion for Science, if I am reading this correctly https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf26314 which does a lot of work putting government and business spending together which gives you a number essentially what the government spends on the military.

I can easily construct something that shows the U.S does pay more for science and education than it does for military, but only by being IMHO somewhat misleading, for example by throwing K-12 spending together with the higher education payments and mixing federal and state monies, so to clarify what I mean when I say the U.S in these kinds of conversations and what I think most people mean is "the federal government"

I suppose that the original poster also meant the federal government or it wouldn't make any sense to mention F-35s either.

Under this limitation I believe that the combined ratio of science and higher education is at best 0.8% of GDP and military is 2.8%.

Although it is not really possible to trust very much the data one receives from the American government any more so I am uncertain.

for example this document - I am just having a hard time to trust what data goes into these various parts as federal spending in that area.

https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...

At any rate the military 2.8% I am quoting based on looking around is historically low. I would expect, especially given Iran, that it would be more in line with the historical 4.1%.

pgpf on https://www.pgpf.org/article/the-united-states-spends-more-o...

[zmgsabst]

> I can easily construct something that shows the U.S does pay more for science and education than it does for military, but only by being IMHO somewhat misleading, for example by throwing K-12 spending together with the higher education payments and mixing federal and state monies, so to clarify what I mean when I say the U.S in these kinds of conversations and what I think most people mean is "the federal government"

I disagree: total tax burden and allocation is the relevant aspect, regardless of pointless semantics about which government unit disbursed the funds.

You admit the fact:

US governments spend more on education and science than the military, as measured by total funds allocated to purpose.

I think you’re the one being misleading by quibbling semantics about who dispersed the money: US taxpayers give more of their tax money to science and education than the military.

You focus on the federal government rather than totals is precisely to obscure that fact — which you know to be true, but find inconvenient for your politics. Hence the semantic quibbles.

[bryanrasmussen]

>You focus on the federal government rather than totals is precisely to obscure that fact — which you know to be true, but find inconvenient for your politics.

thank you for adhering so well to HN guidelines.

[bryanrasmussen]

other issues - Veterans Administration budget is always not calculated as part of defense spending, because they are separate agencies. So when people say military budget they may be keeping that separate, however putting them together of course increases the amount spent

I happen to believe this document on money more than others, because publication controlled by congress and not the executive.

Atlas of Military Compensation (Biden) https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59475

If we also ask congress for Scientific research funding https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48307 (also under Biden)

about 50% of the 0.6%-0.7% of GDP it reports is to the Department of Defense.

The military industrial complex is getting money from all sorts of things that we describe as separate, but are really part of it.

[KnuthIsGod]

How many million graduate students do you need to give the US the military hegemony and political influence over allies and adversaries that the F-35 program provides ?

Looked at from a policy maker's viewpoint, things look very different.

[erickhill]

Wouldn't take very many at all, we've now learned these past four years (and even the past 2 months). All you need are drones, that are pennies on the dollar cheaper than trillion-dollar militaries. Depending on the munition, a single bomb we drop on Iran could cost between $40,000 and a couple million dollars. Think of all the high-end drones you could buy instead.

Everything is changing. Including our influence.

[daemin]

In the Russian-Ukrainian war the GPS guided shells that the USA was sending to Ukraine cost about $40k a pop, where as you can get at least a dozen drones for that price.

Even the fanciest self propelled artillery is getting destroyed by these little cheap buggers.

[lII1lIlI11ll]

> Wouldn't take very many at all, we've now learned these past four years (and even the past 2 months). All you need are drones, that are pennies on the dollar cheaper than trillion-dollar militaries.

You make an incorrect conclusion which is unfortunately both quite popular and incorrect among westerners who read two and half editorials about Russo-Ukrainian war in some NYT/WAPO/whatever and think they now understand modern warfare. The reality of the situation is that drones are a very useful tool, but any side achieving actual air supremacy would result their fighters and bombers cruising over frontline and enemy towns on low altitudes taking out any high-value targets at whim. The situation would be similar to boots-on-the-ground phase of The Iraq War, resulting one of the sides to rapidly gaining ground and winning the war. Keep in mind that the cited "40k per-hour" price is quite cheap compared to per-hour operation cost of any kind of big ground force.

In fact, last thing US wants is to be in Russia's shoes unable to meaningfully advance into the territory of by all measures much weaker enemy.

[soco]

Unless the drones take out your air bases, and the AA rockets are biting at the low altitude flights. Sorry it's never that simple.

[hattmall]

That isn't really accurate, small drones are enough to antagonize regional neighbors. They are far from being able to project influence, stabilize international trade, or even remotely protect a territory from an enemy that isn't concerned with civilian casualties.

[nixon_why69]

> project influence, stabilize international trade, or even remotely protect a territory from an enemy that isn't concerned with civilian casualties.

We just failed to do all of those things quite visibly.

Iran made a choice not to escalate to destroying desalination capabilities and that's why a lot of Saudis and Emiratis are still alive. It's not because we protected them.

[kortilla]

Because they didn’t want the retribution that would follow. That’s what protection looks like. Assured destruction when it’s not mutual is pretty motivating.

[nixon_why69]

Sure, but we still couldn't have stopped them with our vaunted carrier-based power projection, or with our exhausted ABM capabilities.

US Naval doctrine has been a paper tiger ever since that Millenium Challenge exercise.

[fakedang]

Lol, classic American exceptionalism.

Iran didn't attack the desalination plants because that would amount to actual warcrimes - and they care about their public perception in the broader community of nations. Unlike, of course, Israel and the USA, who don't mind turning a few schools and hospitals to smithereens.

You might call this "assured non-mutual destruction", and of course it helps that the US is located away from Iran's immediate neighborhood, but destroying the lifelines of the GCC countries would assure an economic collapse globally that the world has never seen before. Imagine something on the lines of oil at $300 a barrel, zero fertilizer, zero semiconductors, zero plastics, the works. And Iran could just as easily turn Israel to glass, with a death by a thousand papercuts (or drones, whatever your flavor). Of course, all of this at a huge cost to itself.

[watwut]

It was more son that they have space to escalate. It was strategic decision. They did attacked those when their plants were attacked.

US does not have capability to destroy them. It can make lives of civilians hard, as it tried, but foreigners attacking civilians dont make regimes fall.

[t-3]

Protecting territory is pretty pointless for many countries, who would be facing neighbors they cannot remotely match in capability. Allowing civilians to be slaughtered is a cheaper and more effective method of warfare for these. Protecting civilians well is difficult even for very well armed countries with expensive defense systems, letting them die brings many martyrs and propaganda opportunities and breeds hatred for the enemy.

[vlovich123]

Something tells me a war with china isn’t going to be carriers duking it out but carriers filled to the brim with aviation and naval drones that seek and destroy enemy craft. As Iran has shown, you don’t need to attack the USA directly to destabilize its influence. The US market economical influence has been far more important for force projection and stabilizing trade than anything else and by all accounts Trump has pissed away allies on that front too. US force projection for trade stabilization is for minor things like protecting against pirates - you don’t need million dollar missiles for that.

[CamperBob2]

That isn't really accurate, small drones are enough to antagonize regional neighbors.

Such as a Russian strategic bomber base thousands of miles from the front?

[smcin]

If you mean Operation Spiderweb, the Ukrainian Osa drone only had a range of 5 miles/ 8km (one-way) and had to be launched from the roof of containers simultaneously transported unknowingly by Russian truckers and that was a covert operation that took 18 months to set up. So no that particular model couldn't attack even 10 miles away.

Ukraine has other long-range strike drones but haven't heard of more than a thousand miles range.

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

https://sofrep.com/news/deepstrike-campaign-drone-attacks-ag...

[CamperBob2]

Details, details. The drones got the job done, didn't they? Getting a truck to within a few miles of the target is still pretty cheap compared to traditional weapons-delivery methodologies.

Spiderweb was a modern-day Doolittle Raid. It didn't scale, at least not immediately, but it still changed the tenor of the war. It put the Russians on notice that they weren't safe. Not that the Russians care, but most countries would. Imagine if someone attacked an Air Force base in the US with similar tactics and a similar outcome...

[regularization]

> an enemy that isn't concerned with civilian casualties

You mean like when the Zionists openly stopped food from getting into Gaza, while the western governments were backing the Zuonists? Those people concerned with civilian casualties?

An enemy unconcerned with civilian casualties, give me a break.

[esikich]

How not? Precision kills with 0 warning. You can just bring one on a plane to whatever country and have the thing charge with solar/powerlines until your target is getting coffee outside on a nice day. Or whatever.

[hattmall]

Ok, I'm not even sure what to reply here, that makes no sense and doesn't accomplish any of the things I mentioned. It's also not even particularly feasible and just not at all how any sort of wartime operation is likely to work at scale.

But I am sure of who I wouldn't put in charge of critical military operations.

[jcranmer]

Drones are not a strategic weapon. When you talk to the Ukrainian military, with their actual expertise in drone warfare, the general consensus is that drones are an inferior replacement for artillery (note that ex-Soviet military systems are a lot heavier in artillery use than NATO military systems) that they use because they can't get the artillery shells that they need but they can get drones in sufficient quantities. It hasn't enabled any strategic breakthroughs in the Russo-Ukrainian War, it is merely served to lock in the grinding stalemate it's been in since October-ish 2022.

The US war on Iran also demonstrates the problems of drones too: the US is currently able to wage a war 6000 miles away from its shores, because of the use of an awful lot of weapons systems that aren't drones. Iran is unable to dislodge that military, or even meaningfully impact its ability to carry out said war, not 100 miles away from its shores, despite a heavy use of drones to attempt to do so.

The war also demonstrates another big issue... the continued delusion of many civilian and military leaders that strategic bombing alone is sufficient to win a war despite this failing literally every single time it's been attempted in the past 100 years.

[IsTom]

> that they use because they can't get the artillery shells that they need

That used to be true, but I don't think that the case anymore. UA is now striking logistics ~150KM behind the contact line with drones. Regular artillery can't do that. Guided rockets maybe could, but they'd be more expensive and come in smaller quantities.

> US is currently able to wage a war 6000 miles away from its shores

For a rather restricted use of "wage a war". They did not stop Iranians from doing their thing. Bombing alone does not have a history of winning wars.

[ElProlactin]

> How many million graduate students do you need to give the US the military hegemony and political influence over allies and adversaries that the F-35 program provides ?

Well, given that the Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed for months despite Iran's military supposedly being decimated, and the President of the United States is now threatening to bomb one of our closest Mideast allies (Oman), a reasonable person might ask where this military hegemony and political influence you're referring to is.

[kakacik]

After potus ordered massive degradation of F16 radars used by Ukraine on his emotional whim making them useless, which btw were gifted by other NATO countries (!!), nobody, absolutely nobody wants US jets anymore, F35 or not.

Every single European country that already ordered them had immediately afterwards long hard talks about completely cancelling those orders and most ended up at least loweing massively the ordered amount (I presume due to contractual requirements and some money already sent, nobody expected backstabbing crooks on the other side when they were signed).

At this point its trojan horse and much worse than having nothing - it gives illusion of certain (extremely expensive) capability, but only if you lick specific ass hard and frequently enough, peppered with a billion here and there flowing in the right hands. Even then, the other side may be licking harder and thats it. Its ridiculous, and intensively insulting to every decent human being.

[jazzypants]

If we have military hegemony, then why can't we open the strait of Hormuz?

[kortilla]

Because it would require a boots on the ground invasion to occupy the entire portion of Iran overlooking the Strait.

The strait is physically open but no insurance company will cover massive oil carriers because they are so easy to hit with small weaponry from the ridges of Iran.

[amunozo]

So effectively, there is no military hegemony, as the U.S. cannot afford the costs of using it.

[AnthonyMouse]

Why doesn't the US government just insure them itself then? A quarter of a billion dollars is a major risk to an insurance company with no internal capacity to mitigate the risk itself, but it's not even a rounding error in the federal budget and the US government would then be expressing confidence in the ability of its own military to ensure safe passage.

And even if they had to pay a claim, it would cost the population less than the higher gas prices, since increasing supply lowers the market price for all supply, not just the incremental units.

[throwaway173738]

That would require an act of Congress. So implicitly, the majority party in the House and Senate don’t want to do this. Ask yourself, who is in power right now?

[sofixa]

> Because it would require a boots on the ground invasion to occupy the entire portion of Iran overlooking the Strait.

Which even the morons who started this conflict know is suicidal because Iran has literally at least a million loyal fanatics (Basij, the same organisation doing unarmed meat waves against Iraq)!ready to die for the regime, and the terrain is in their favour.

So that's not military hegemony.

[jimbob45]

After all has been said about the ages of Biden and Trump, it’s ironic that having presidents with experience living through Vietnam and the Soviet-Afghan war has been so useful for their two terms.

[ZeroGravitas]

But the difference between Vietnam and Iran is that Trump had a plan to get out of Vietnam.

[mothballed]

The US could/can, they're just not willing to undergo the mass casualties it would take to put boots on the ground and put those boots up the ass of the people controlling Hormuz. Which absolutely cannot be achieved purely by air.

[helsinkiandrew]

> The US could/can, they're just not willing to undergo the mass casualties it would take to put boots on the ground

It doesn’t matter what the reason, if you can’t do something you can’t do it.

[mothballed]

I'm not interested in a lengthy semantic debate about what "can" means but I'd hope we could agree at least one possible interpretation includes things you're unwilling but able to do.

[runako]

Generously, what difference does it make to any person if you technically achieve some result but in practice are not able to realize that end state?

[kakacik]

US military ain't some unstoppable force in all possible scenarios, it was stopped and won over quite a few times, last time I recall by taliban sheepherders. In some cases like first Iraq war yes, but they don't wage those wars anymore. And all mental limits re casualties are very real limits just like other.

Its like saying russia could/can conquer whole Europe, if only X, Y and Z. That effectively means they can't, as we see playing out right now despite them trying desperately to achieve this very thing.

[dotancohen]

  > last time I recall by taliban sheepherders

Part of the reason that Americans prefer to lose that war is because the enemy is called "sheepherders", implying innocent civilians, when the military is winning. The blurring of when a militant is referred to as a civilian has proven to be a very effective tactic to reduce the American population's tolerance for war.

[anonymars]

I'm confused, are you insinuating that the Taliban essentially ran a PR campaign to portray themselves as sheepherders to garner sympathy from the US population to reduce its appetite for fighting them?

[amunozo]

If you cannot afford doing it, then you cannot do it. What's the purpose of having the capability to do something if you cannot afford the losses of doing it?

[_dark_matter_]

This is just a different way if saying that we can't.

[runako]

Curious -- from where do you think the basic research originated that allowed the F-35 program to exist at all?

We are certainly not naive enough to think that Lockheed Martin does basic research.

[lostlogin]

> How many million graduate students do you need to give the US the military hegemony and political influence over allies and adversaries that the F-35 program provides ?

All good questions 3 years ago. How many would rely on US weapons or their US relationship today?

And then there is the unimpressive show in the Middle East.

[mx7zysuj4xew]

If policymakers genuinely cared they wouldn't have let things get so bad that allies are considering to have orders cancelled for the Saab JAS 39 Gripen

[cco]

Not nearly as clear cut as you make it out.

We haven't been able to produce a complete F-35 since Feb 2026 because we lack the necessary rare earths to do create their electronics.

Why? Because we stopped doing that work (and science) in the 90s and now China produces over 90% of rare earths on the planet and said the US can't have any for military purposes (its being negotiated).

There are zero under and post graduate programs that specialize in rare earth extraction and refining outside of China. None. And China has barred their scientists from collaborating with any colleagues from the US on the topic.

Sooooo, you're right, the F-35 program offers a lot, but can it do so "by itself" and does it provide that value in an economically viable way? Much less clear cut of an answer.

[lopsotronic]

Block 4 is the only version they'd dare put up against a peer air defense, and Block 4 is delayed, delayed, delayed, and . . nowhere in sight, at the moment.

There has been two and a half decades of FUD billowing around the entire program, like the world's most expensive fart, so don't expect to know the truth until they fly the thing past Zamami Island in anger. But I personally will be mentally prepared for disappointment, with some bitter despair as digestif.

[wbl]

In the right case just one. The US invasion of Afghanistan required some extremely rare language knowledge to be successful.

[WillowWithAWand]

The frustrating thing for me, having worked as an avionics technician, is that the F-35 is actually a waste of all that money

[jimbokun]

Manned aircraft are largely a waste of money in the era of drone warfare.

[andrepd]

> the military hegemony and political influence over allies and adversaries that the F-35 program provides

Hilarious to say this, given the very public and very significant failures of US foreign policy these past couple decades, not least of all the current special military operation.

[whateverboat]

Without those people being trained at the level of grad school in workforce, you would not have enough people to even maintain a good checklist for F35. The program will go down within a year.

Grad schools do more than research, they train people for these industries, for the shop floor.

[estebarb]

The F35 program is essential! When the USA will finally conquer free healthcare?

[idiotsecant]

Does the F35 do that? Wasn't Iran shooting those down recently? If there's anything Iran has taught us it's that airpower doesn't win wars, allies do. The US will leave the middle east with their tail between their legs. This is the beginning of the end of the American Empire.

For the privilege of spending enormous sums of treasure flying around dropping bombs on brown people what did we get?

I would have rather seen that spent on giving lunch to every school age child or paying graduate students a wage above poverty level. At least something useful would have been accomplished

[T-A]

> Does the F35 do that? Wasn't Iran shooting those down recently?

No. One was damaged by ground fire and landed at a US base.

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/f-35a-lands-after-taking-f...

You may be thinking of the F-15s shot down by Kuwaiti "friendly fire".

[throwaway173738]

> I would have rather seen that spent on giving lunch to every school age child or paying graduate students a wage above poverty level. At least something useful would have been accomplished

Yeah I guess the only thing we’ll give away for free these days is $100,000 bombs.

[hattmall]

I'm sorry, but this is like the most ignorant take ever. The world is essentially one life supported regime away from having a level of stability in the middle east that has quite literally never been achieved. Iran and their regional proxies have been almost the only source of middle eastern discontent in the last two decades. The stability of the region is already vastly improved from any time in the past and the dismantling of the IRGC will create a wave of vastly improved living conditions for hundreds of millions of people.

Iraq has for the first time ever entered in the high category of HDI.

https://www.undp.org/arab-states/press-releases/iraqs-human-...

[fttx_]

Okay so Iran is responsible for the insurgency in Iraq, the Arab Spring, AQAP in Yemen, Islamic State, the ongoing situation in Syria, proxy wars between Saudi Arabia and the UAE and much more…

I think it’s extremely clear that the major contributor to instability in the Middle East over the past two decades has been the United States.

[fc417fc802]

> over the past two decades

1953 was somewhat more than two decades ago.

[bruce511]

I think it's fair to say that pretty much no-one is a fan of the Iranian Regime. (And we'll ignore for the moment that the regime is a a direct by-product of previous US intervention.)

The regime is all kinds of bad, but you cannot change govts from without. Stability comes from people changing govts from within. Every time the US has changed a govt to support themselves it has ended badly.

This latest war has not unseated the IRGC, indeed it has entrenched it further. This is not surprising; they are the largest organised structure in the country. There are no other structures of comparable size or influence in the country.

Unfortunately the US military does not just project power. To justify its existence (far beyond the realm of self defence) it actively creates and enjoys conflicts. And increasingly those conflicts are showing the real limitations of military power projection.

By contrast the soft influence projected by technological leadership, USAid etc are much more influential. It's not surprising that support for these alternatives are the first target of a govt susceptible to being influenced. A trillion $ industry will not go quietly into the night.

Yes, of course, the US could deploy troops into Iran. They could topple the IRGC if desired. But it would be very expensive politically. (And I don't mean to the Republicans, but that also) but to the Military Industry. Because the electorate clearly indicated that after Afghanistan the appetite for foreign wars is dwindling. Another debacle in Iran (even more than the debacle it is now) would be disastrous.

I have no love for the Iranian regime. But no military intervention from outside has the ability to improve it. And the Iranian people will not support a US puppet govt - that influence was burned in 1956.

Govts change when people inside rise up to change them. Recent examples in Afghanistan, South Africa, Romania and even Iran (1979) show this over and over again.

Interestingly the Soviet Union fell because the satellite states broke away. Because the people in Poland, Hungary etc rose up. Not because of outside intervention.

This latest war in Iran follows a long tradition of US and UK meddling in the region, all of which is designed to get oil, not create stability. Indeed this latest foray has created instability in the supply of oil, and that is an unforgivable sin to the US public.

[ta8903]

>The world is essentially one life supported regime away from having a level of stability in the middle east that has quite literally never been achieved.

Agreed, but I wouldn't call Israel a regime.

[idiotsecant]

If the US wants to stop seeing unstable, barbaric regimes in the middle east, maybe it should stop making unstable barbaric regimes in the middle east. We don't get to literally create the problem on Tuesday and then cry that it's an existential threat on Thursday.

[intended]

America had scientific hegemony and political influence over its allies.

All of tech traces its roots to American academia.

American tech enthralls more of humanity than American military has ever fought.

[holgerschurig]

Nah, I'd say that common "americans" (really: US citizens) are perhaps a bit on the dumber site. Not only confuse they constantly a continent (America) with a country (USA), they also have no idea about history. Or logics. You wrote "ALL of tech" ... no lets check.

Cars - Germany (Gottlieb Daimler, but he didn't patent it), Germany (Carl Benz which made the first patent).

Motorbikes - Germany (Gottlieb Daimler)

Train - invented in Germany

Radio transmission - UK (James Clark Maxwell described them theoretically), Germany (Heinrich Hertz created/used them first in experiments)

X-Ray - Germany (Gustav Röntgen)

Telephone - Germany (Philipp Reis, your Bell bought examples and reverse engineered them)

Bookpress with movable letters - Germany (Johannes Gensfleisch a.k.a. Gutenberg)

Lightbulb - Germany (Heinrich Göbel)

Periodic system of elements - Russia (Dimitri Mendelejew) and Germany (Justus Lothar Meyer)

Dynamo / Generator - Germany (Werner von Siemens)

Vaccination - UK (Edward Jenner)

Gliding plane - Germany (Otto Lilienthal)

Pain killer - Germany (Felix Hoffmann, Aspirin)

Relativity theory, Quantum theory - Albert Einstein, Planck,

TV - Germany (Manfred von Ardenne)

Cathod ray tube in TVs - Germany (Conrad Röntgen experimentally, Ferdinand Braun with horizontal and vertical directivity of the ray)

Computer - France (Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace) for mechanical ones and Germany (Konrad Zuse) for electric ones

Atomic fissure, used in plants and bombs - Germany (Otto Hahn)

Chip cards - Germany (Jürgen Dethloff, Helmut Gröttrup)

MP3 music compression - Germany (Fraunhofer Institut)

Electricity - actually already in ancient greek they used electrostatic charging of amber. And one century before Christ they had actual batteries in Bagdad! But then a plethorary of european scientists brought the work forward: UK (William Gilbert, Francis Hauksbee, Joseph Priestley, Henry Cavendish, Humphry Davy, Michael Faraday), Germany (Otto von Guericke, Ewald Jürgen Georg von Kleist, Georg Simon Ohm, Carl Friedrich Gauß), Italy (Luigi Galvani, Allesandro Volta), France (Charles du Fay, Charles Augustin de Coulomb, André-Marie Ampère), Netherlands (Pieter van Musschenbroek), Denmark (Hans Christian Ørsted).

I actually terminate this electricity list here. I could go on and on.

Also note that physical units named after their discoverer indicate some kind of importance of the relevant invention. So we have e.g. Volt, Ampere, Coulomb, Farad, Gauss, Watt, Ørsted, Tesla, Weber as units. None of them is based on USA's academia.

If we look at unit names outside of electricity we also find outdated ones like Röntgen or Curie. And still used ones like Plack constant, Newton, Pascal, Kelvin, Becquerel, Gray, Sievert. So where are the USA american ones if "all" of technology is supposed to stem from their academia?

IF we want to trace the roots, then perhaps we need to go back to antique greek philisophers. Because western academia itself traces itself there. But then again ... something like that existed also in ancient India and maybe China.

[mring33621]

A beautiful comment! Thank you!

[intended]

Eh, I didn’t write a lengthy comment with footnotes, Tech as in big tech.

Enthralls as in we are stuck to our phones, typically running iOS, Android, consuming media, or using services with HQs in America.

[orwin]

Yeah, 11 f35 lost to motor/software issues. Only modern war plane that have those issues.

Its minumum speed is worse than the f16, which make drone interception an issue (f16 are already a bit to fast for that according to Ukrainians), despite a pretty low takeoff speed. It should be capable of less, i'm pretty sure it's software limiters tbh, the wing design seems fine, even if the weight is a bit high (i mean, you don't need to be able to fly at 15 knot like a Rafale, but still).

It _still_ have cooling issues that brick it if you don't bring an external cooler after it landed (which is crazy to me, how did Lockeed not fix that? it's like half the reason why the availability rate is so low).

The availability rate is slow (as said earlier) but it is still more expensive than other jet yearly, despite 2/3rd of the flight hours.

F35 pilots now have less flight hours per year than recommended by NATO (a lot less) (which used to be below US standards btw), and while US f35 pilot still have more hours than their russian conterpart (~145 vs 120), it is very possible that smaller countries who made the mistake of buying them without an economy strong enough to bear the costs might fly their pilot less than 100 hours per year and complete the rest in sims (which, as demontrated by the russian, is a _very_ bad idea) (i'm afraid Greek pilots will suffer from this, which would be a shame)

On the "political influence", it's wrong. Selling the F35 cost the US influence in Norway (thank you wikileaks). In fact, each time the f35 lost a competition, political influence was expended to make the country still buy it. Imho, scientists and scientific conferences are a better way to get influence over allies and adversaries (Cas9 is probably the best example, without Doudna having an international recognition and the conference being hosted in the US, Charpentier might have gone to another RNA specialist)

[edit] to be clear, i think the f35 is a great plane for the US, and a good plane for rich countries who want to go on offensive wars, mainly due to its EW capacity that are second to none and its ability to penetrate enemy territory (which is second only to other US planes). I do also think that it still needs _massive_ improvements to be usable by regular, defensive armies, and the US expending political power to sell it to countries who don't want/need to attack their neighbors was a mistake. Also, not a good cold weather plane, which make it even worse for Norway and Canada.

Also i think its software impairs it, because the wing design seems almost perfect for its missions, and at least on paper, the reactor seems great too

[altcognito]

Except they've traded it all away with idiotic chest thumping. There was a bargain on the table for the US, and we've just chucked it in the trash.

The military isn't some limitless resource, and lead by incompetence, it is useless. There are no policy makers in this administration, they go on vibes and bad ones at that.

Even a guy named mad dog said that diplomacy was cheaper than bullets.

[asdff]

Well, US is actively pulling back from doing just that as well and leaving the job to NATO.

[isodev]

All it takes is one announcement that the US is cutting on efforts to understand future climate disasters for that “influence” to disappear.

You’re right that it’s all policy making and that’s why you’re supposed to elect competent politicians and administrators.

[hsbauauvhabzb]

None if catastrophic climate change kills everyone.

[Descon]

I hope Canada cancels our contract to buy these from USA. I don't care the cost, it's not worth it.

[evolighting]

Basic science is never cheap, but none of that money goes to the grad students.

Then again, military weapons are indeed insanely expensive.

[tdb7893]

Basic science is often cheap, I don't know where you're getting it's generally expensive. I've yet to meet someone whose equipment costs as much as any of the stuff my friends design for defense contractors. Even the head of the lab I'm in is making less than my friends are making as engineers and the lab equipment is pretty cheap compared to the stuff my friends are designing (we have a radar that cost maybe a couple hundred thousand but that's the majority of the equipment cost for the past decade).

Idk what your idea of budgets are for these sorts of labs but I think most engineers would be shocked at the shoestring budgets they run on (at least the ones I know are a fraction of the cost of a single engineering team).

[robotresearcher]

Some of that money goes to the grad students.

Source: I paid grad students the majority of my research funding for 16 years, and so did all my colleagues.

Unless you’re building a new facility at CERN, etc, the bulk of research cost is people.

[evolighting]

I don’t think this is really about salary.

The “whole thing” is never cheap. Running something like a university — providing the environment, infrastructure, administration, facilities, compliance systems, equipment, libraries, grants offices, laboratories, and institutional platform that allow professors and graduate students to do research — is itself extremely expensive.

After all, if you look at the fiscal budgets of major economies, public spending on education and research is often much larger than military spending.

[robotresearcher]

The grad students get facilities along with their salary and benefits, yes.

[bamboozled]

Someone has to pay for the kings mistakes and it might as well be you.

[lolive]

Kings don’t make mistakes. The people under them do.

[dgellow]

Because it’s an excuse, the trump admin is lying. All the time, you should never take them at their words. They have never been about cutting costs. Just look at Trump deficit. They are very openly going after science because it goes against the fake reality they are selling to their cult members

[mrtksn]

The cuts that don't make much economical sense are ideological, its because they need to give something to that part of the coalition. Somewhere someone is having an erection when hears about these cuts and say something like despite everything supporting Trump was worth it after all.

[MengerSponge]

It's cheap but it's prestigious. Ideologues and fascists hate that.

[b0rtb0rt]

whatever random factoid you and your PI are investigating in order to get funding is probably less useful than the F35s

[free_bip]

What an incredibly dismissive and nasty comment.