French military (catch all)

[William F. Owen]

Actually, military equipment SHOULD be getting cheaper, and so should armies.

The IT and solid state electronics evolution and all it's spin-offs should have created considerable savings, and actually has, in terms of procurement and ownership. Civilian cell phones are far more complex than a lot of military radios, yet cost nothing.

If you want to see true corruption, look at the companies that build Sniper Rifles!! Gold Plated Wheel Chairs!! UAVs cost vastly more than they should, and the list is almost endless.

The problem is how the equipment is procured and how the money is spent.

One day this will all bite us in the ass as folks like Hezbollah and Venezuela can go out and just pay for military capability, and not worry about the budget shell games of the DoD and MoD.

[Ken White]

Actually, military equipment SHOULD be getting cheaper, and so should armies.

If you want to see true corruption, look at the companies that build Sniper Rifles!!...

The Sako TRG 22/42 are more than good enough for virtually all purposes and are the cheapest in their respective calibers out there by far.

Hardware procurement has really gotten to be a con game. Reminds me of Ernie King during WW II -- FDR told him to buy what he needed and he took that as a license to steal and bought more ships and stuff for the USN than we could have ever manned. Thus setting the USN on course to keep buying more and more...

(NOTE to Squids; no attack, the first part is historical fact, the second is the way the game is played today. Not the Navy's fault)

[AdamG]

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/2008060...h-c1b2fc3.html

AFP - Tuesday, June 10 <- AFP. Qu'elle surprise

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - - World military spending grew 45 percent in the past decade, with the United States accounting for nearly half of all expenditure, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said Monday.
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Military spending grew six percent last year alone, according to SIPRI's annual report.

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The United States spends by far the most towards military aims, dishing out 547 billion dollars last year, or 45 percent of global expenditure.

Britain, China, France and Japan, the next in line of big spenders, lag far behind, accounting for just four to five percent of world military costs each.

[Fuchs]

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/0...es-w.html#more

... I believe the services have to be able to do everything — across the entire spectrum of conflict. We have got to be able to fight a counterinsurgency, an irregular war scenario, all the way up to the high-end theater. And we have to be able to do that 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

You don’t get to pick when and where you do this. You have to be able to do it on a global scale. . ...

That's what I call cost-riving ambitions.
He had the ambition to be able to do everything, decade after decade, everywhere. That's madness!

Such an attitude - if funded - ruins any state in the long run.

[Ken White]

...He had the ambition to be able to do everything, decade after decade, everywhere. That's madness!

We've had that requirement effectively since the 50s; we've done it well on occasion but got over-focused in one direction in the 80s. It's neither that hard nor need it be that expensive.

Such an attitude - if funded - ruins any state in the long run.

Possibly true but certainly arguable with definition or length of "long run" being key. In any event, no democracy including us is likely to fund it fully. Nor, in this day and age will a large force be able to attract enough recruits to do it on a total force basis.

The key is to tailor the force with some elements specialized for the various spectrums of combat and all able with some retraining to adapt to another spectrum. That is not that difficult and I'd argue that the bulk of the US Army and the USMC really did that pretty well from the late 50s until the mid 60s (Viet Nam was a distraction). After Viet Nam, the Army set out to try to produce a 'doctrine' that would focus on one type of war and convinced themselves to hew to that as a means to affect national policy. That didn't work too well...

Problem with that solution is the opposition will aim for your weak spot. As we have seen.

Solution is to have a force that is affordable, able to recruit in adequate numbers and that has elements that specialize in each potential spectrum in order to provide an instant initial deployment to the contingency capability followed by rapid trainup of those folks that were focused elsewhere later deploy to the current contingency.

As I said, it's been done before -- and we're supposed to be smarter and better educated now than we were then. I firmly believe most units I've seen in many nations armies are capable of doing a lot more than the systems expect them to do.

[Fuchs]

An aggressor can prepare for war in few years and be ready for just a short period - this is much more efficient and affordable than to be ready all the time.

I prefer another approach to keep such aggressors at bay.
I'd prefer if we kept the know-how, developed equipment that can quickly be produced in great quantity, were alert with a moderate force and budget and ready to expand quickly.
Meanwhile, arms control treaties can keep costs down for everyone at conventional war crisis hot spots and alliance frontiers.
This is to some degree what some European countries do, albeit they fail at preparing seriously for the expansion phase.

The typical response to such a strategy proposal is the assertion that the world would run amok without the almighty U.S. military as policeman in the background.

Well, that's a very questionable assumption. We've seen most ground combat power of the U.S. committed to a war and its other ground forces being quite occupied with other than conventional war preparations.
I don't remember any country being invaded in the meantime (except Somalia by Ethiopia - which was obviously ENCOURAGED by the supposed policeman).

This suggests that almost the entire ground forces of the U.S. were not necessary to deter any aggressions at the very least during the past years.
Instead, they were used for the only major aggression in the past years.


I guess this should be debated somewhere else, as the French don't really seem to follow such a "prepared for everything" approach as their ground forces are not well-prepared for a major conventional war.

Has anybody statistics about the French 'defence' budget? Shares of personnel, equipment, operations and other costs?
Their insistence to develop many systems indigenously from usually just one company without competition might have contributed some inefficiencies.

[Ken White]

An aggressor can prepare for war in few years and be ready for just a short period - this is much more efficient and affordable than to be ready all the time.

Depends on how well you want your people trained. Your solution may be more efficient but is highly unlikely to provide a particularly effective force.

I prefer another approach to keep such aggressors at bay. I'd prefer if we kept the know-how, developed equipment that can quickly be produced in great quantity, were alert with a moderate force and budget and ready to expand quickly. Meanwhile, arms control treaties can keep costs down for everyone at conventional war crisis hot spots and alliance frontiers.This is to some degree what some European countries do, albeit they fail at preparing seriously for the expansion phase.

Among other things...

How's that keeping frontiers calm working out in the Balkans...

The typical response to such a strategy proposal is the assertion that the world would run amok without the almighty U.S. military as policeman in the background.

Typical response from whom? Not likely to be the response of anyone on this board and certainly not from me. Need to watch those standing broad jumps at erroneous conclusions, they can lead to sprains. I would, however, note that my favorite cartoon from The Economist was the one about ten or so years ago where the little European was standing outside his house obviously on his way to work and talking to his wife as the house next door labeled Bosnia was burning and filled with carnage. He said to his wife "Ask the Americans what they intend doing about this."

Well, that's a very questionable assumption.

I agree, yours was a questionable assumption.

We've seen most ground combat power of the U.S. committed to a war and its other ground forces being quite occupied with other than conventional war preparations. I don't remember any country being invaded in the meantime (except Somalia by Ethiopia - which was obviously ENCOURAGED by the supposed policeman).

Okay, I agree -- what's your point?

This suggests that almost the entire ground forces of the U.S. were not necessary to deter any aggressions at the very least during the past years.

Or it could suggest the the total Armed forces of the US were highly successful in deterring aggression worldwide. Other than in Africa; we tend to leave Africa to all you former colony owners. How you folks doing down there?

Instead, they were used for the only major aggression in the past years.

Yep. Two 'aggressions,' Afghanistan in response to an attack on US soil and Iraq in response to many provocations over the years from the ME. Iraq wasn't totally innocent but they really just happened to be geographically central in the ME. That in response to 22 years of probes and attacks on US interests around the world from various state and non-state actors in the ME; we virtually ignored most of those to little avail, they just kept coming -- so our aggression was simply notification that we would accept no more and a belated response to extended provocations. I blame four previous Presidents for not properly responding but they did that in an effort to be nice guys. Futile effort. Little we do will ever satisfy most in the world. So yes, we got aggressive -- probably would not have had some student pilots not failed in getting to near stalls and run into buildings with their aluminum birds...

Nope, little we do will ever satisfy a good many in the world. Until they want something...

I guess this should be debated somewhere else

True. Nothing really to debate. We can differ.

as the French don't really seem to follow such a "prepared for everything" approach as their ground forces are not well-prepared for a major conventional war.

Not just the French, that's essentially true of all nations -- because that is the hardest and most expensive thing to prepare for ergo, it gets lip service or the minimum necessary to maintain the capacity to expand -- which is essentially what I suggested before you got all political. It's also what you suggested but you don't want to do anything else. Not sure you'll have that luxury. Apparently, the Bundeswehr isn't at all sure on that score either...