Mr. President, we have a submarine gap, a missile gap, and even an icebreaker gap.
Icebreaker Gap
The Wall Street Journal says America’s Military Trails Russia and China in Race for the Melting Arctic
In recent months, Russian bombers have increased their patrols over the Arctic and have probed further south. Norway’s intelligence service said that with Russia’s conventional forces weakened by the war in Ukraine, its strategic weapons are taking on greater importance, among them the nuclear-armed submarines of Russia’s Northern Fleet. More Russian-flagged commercial and government vessels are active in Arctic waters.
In response, the U.S. is beefing up its presence in the Arctic by adding to its polar icebreakers—the ships vital to a consistent presence in the icy seas. The U.S. has just one icebreaker in the region for only part of the year, compared with three dozen owned by Russia.
Submarine Gap
The Wall Street Journal also says The U.S. Submarine Fleet Is Underwater
Here’s an ominous illustration of America’s growing security problems: U.S. Navy attack submarines are excellent weapons for devastating America’s enemies, but the fleet doesn’t have enough boats and is in serious disrepair. Republicans in Congress are right to ask President Biden to address this crisis as part of a deal to sell subs to the Aussies.
China Gap
PBS is in on the warnings too.
The US Military warns it will take higher defense spending to head off a conflict with China.
The Pentagon budget request totals more than $840 billion. That includes $9 billion for the Pacific, up 40 percent from last year. At a hearing, General Mark Milley said the budget prepares the nation to meet Chin’s challenge and to deter it.
Groundbreaking initiatives in Guam, Mariana Islands, the Philippines, Japan, and Australia
The Department of Defense Releases the President’s Fiscal Year 2024 Defense Budget
As the PRC races to modernize its military, this budget will sharpen our edge by making critical investments across all timeframes, theaters, and domains. Among numerous important actions that bolster our combat credibility in the short term, this budget makes the Department’s largest-ever investments in readiness and procurement – and our largest investment in research and development.
To sustain our military advantage over China, it makes major investments in integrated air and missile defenses and operational energy efficiency, as well as in our air dominance, our maritime dominance, and in munitions, including hypersonics. This budget includes the largest ever request for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, which we are using to invest in advanced capabilities, new operational concepts, and more resilient force posture in the Indo-Pacific region. It also enables groundbreaking posture initiatives in Guam, Mariana Islands, the Philippines, Japan, and Australia.
The FY 2024 President’s Budget allows the DoD to invest in capabilities that will ensure we maintain a ready, lethal, and combat-credible joint force with a laser focus on China as the Department’s pacing challenge and addressing the acute threat posed by Russia. The budget makes critical investments to revitalize the defense industrial base, drive innovation, and take care of our people. The FY 2024 budget request once again includes a record investment in research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) of $145 billion. This budget also funds $170 billion for procurement, the largest in history. Combined, these investments will ensure combat-credible forces across all domains.
Key Items
- $61.1 billion for air power to continue developing, modernizing, and procuring lethal air forces, including a focus on fighters, including F-22, F-35, F-15EX; the B-21 bomber, mobility aircraft, including KC-46A; specialized support aircraft; and unmanned aircraft systems.
- $48.1 billion for sea power including new construction of nine battle force fleet ships and continued funding for the incremental construction of Ford class nuclear powered aircraft carriers and Columbia ballistic missile submarines.
- $13.9 billion for land power supporting modernization of Army and Marine Corps combat equipment: Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle, Amphibious Combat Vehicle, and Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle.
- $37.7 billion for Nuclear Enterprise Modernization
- $29.8 billion to enhance Missile Defeat and Defense
- Defense of Guam against the missile threat from China – $1.5 billion
- $11.0 billion to deliver a mix of highly lethal precision weapons. Investments include Continued development, testing, and procurement of hypersonic missiles and other long-range fires. Extensive hypersonic prototyping efforts. Procurement of 24 hypersonic missiles.
- $33.3 billion in vital space capabilities, resilient architectures, and enhanced space command and control
Space Gap
The last bullet point above suggests we have a huge Space Gap to address.
What About Europe?
- European Deterrence Initiative – $3.6 billion.
- NATO Military Contribution – $601.0 million.
- NATO Security Investment Program – $293.0 million.
- Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative – $300.0 million.
Since Europe will not take care of its needs, the US will do it.
Artificial Intelligence Gap
- Science and Technology – $17.8 billion.
- Artificial Intelligence – $1.8 billion.
- Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve – $687.0 million.
- Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) – $1.4 billion to transform warfighting capability by delivering information advantage at the speed of relevance across all domains and partners.
- Office of Strategic Capital, established to enable the Department to attract and scale private capital in our most critical technologies – $115.0 million.
Deficit Hypocrisy
Deficit? Did you say deficit?
Please note Republicans Push for More Military Spending in Debt Deal as They Decry Deficit
Republican lawmakers who oppose the debt-ceiling bill argue it doesn’t do enough to cut spending or reduce the deficit. Yet when defense is concerned, many argue the government ought to be spending more, not less.
Under the deal passed by the House on Wednesday evening and sent to the Senate, defense spending would get the 3.3% increase the president proposed for the coming year — even as other programs are cut. Defense hawks are pushing for an even bigger boost, and Senator Lindsey Graham has proposed an amendment to the bill that would increase defense spending to keep up with inflation.
“When I hear Republican leaders say this budget deal fully funds defense, I laugh,” the South Carolina Republican told reporters Wednesday.
The administration’s $886.3 billion national security budget request for fiscal 2024 provides the biggest-ever defense spending increase and also one of the largest peacetime budgets when adjusted for inflation. The US would be spending more on defense than the next 10 nations combined.
More Than the Next 10 Nations Combined
The Peter G. Peterson foundation puts a spotlight on the preceding paragraph in US Spends More on Defense Than the Next 10 Nations Combined
Defense spending accounts for a sizable portion of the federal budget and the United States vastly outspends other nations. In determining the appropriate level of such spending in the future, it will be important to evaluate whether it is being used effectively and how it fits in with other national priorities.
The Gaps
- Icebreakers
- Submarines
- Artificial Intelligence
- Rapid Defense Experimemtation
- Science and Technology
- Nuclear Submarines
- Europe
- NATO
- China
- Missiles
- Space
Is anything missing? Yes, of course. What about the mineshaft gap?
Mineshaft Gap
How Much Have We Given Ukraine?
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, $76.8 billion as of May 31, 2023.
Please note the chart only shows direct aid to Ukraine, not all spending related to the war.
Given Ukraine is on Europe’s doorstep shouldn’t the the EU be doing more?
US GDP and Bezzle
That $76.8 billion to Ukraine allegedly added to US GDP.
What was actually produced other than free money and bombs that have already been used up. GDP does not factor in bezzle.
Why the Bezzle Matters to the Economy
Michael Pettis at China Financial Markets explains Why the Bezzle Matters to the Economy
The bezzle, a word coined in the 1950s by a Canadian-American economist, is the temporary gap between the perceived value of a portfolio of assets and its long-term economic value. Economies at times systematically create bezzle, unleashing substantial economic consequences that economists have rarely understood or discussed.
In a famous passage from his book The Great Crash 1929, John Kenneth Galbraith introduced the term bezzle, an important concept that should be far better known among economists than it is. The word is derived from embezzlement, which Galbraith called “the most interesting of crimes.”
Galbraith recognized, in other words, that there could be a temporary difference between the actual economic value of a portfolio of assets and its reported market value, especially during periods of irrational exuberance.
Unfortunately, the bezzle is temporary, Galbraith goes on to observe, and at some point, investors realize that they have been conned and thus are less wealthy than they had assumed. When this happens, perceived wealth decreases until it once again approximates real wealth. The effect of the bezzle, then, is to push total recorded wealth up temporarily before knocking it down to or below its original level. The bezzle collectively feels great at first and can set off higher-than-usual spending until reality sets in, after which it feels terrible and can cause spending to crash.
By itself, this was quite a useful concept, but in the 1990s, the vice chair of Berkshire Hathaway, Charles Munger, developed it into a far more important and subtle concept. The bezzle doesn’t need embezzlement to work, he pointed out. Anytime the reported market value of an asset or portfolio temporarily exceeds its real economic value (by which he meant the value of future returns on that asset), the economy goes through the same increase in psychic wealth followed by a decrease.
Munger’s insight was that rising stock or real estate prices can generate income and wealth effects whether or not these rising prices reflect real increases in the earning capacity of these assets, that is to say in their real fundamental values.
Mish Observation
We have enormous Bezzle in GDP, the Stock Market, and free money handouts.
Handing out free money feels good for a while and temporarily boosts GDP. There is a payback coming.
For discussion of GDP, please see Real GDP Beats Expectations, Rises 2.4 Percent in First Estimate for 2023 Q2
For more discussion of payback bezzle, although I did not specifically mention the word bezzle at the time, please see Beware the Huge Negative Lag Impact of Three Rounds of Covid Stimulus
Meanwhile, the persistent push for more and more military spending goes on and on. How much of it is outright wasted?
The US Navy has been neglected for 20 years now and is definitely at a disadvantage vis China. Granted, they did bungle a few big ticket programs. The need now is more very good ships, not a handful of super ships.
Keep in mind too that in the case of China their labor cost is a fraction of US. Adjust and their spending would be significantly higher.
It almost sounds like the military is exaggerating threats to get a bigger budget. Have they ever done that before? Like weapons of mass destruction.
The insane thing is, ever since we developed nuclear bombs, the US has not been under any threat of invasion. We only need our military to influence the decisions of other countries. Something that seems very undemocratic to me. So, we need the military to defend democracy overseas, but in reality it’s used for the exact opposite. We use it to force countries to do things that elected officials would otherwise not do.
One of the main reason the soviet union failed is they spent too much on defense. Seems we’re likely headed for the same outcome.
I hope the Republicans are successful in opposing the sale of US nuclear subs to Australia. We’re set to hand over several hundred billion dollars to supposedly help counter the threat of China, which is probably destined to undergo a demographic and economic collapse without any input from anyone else….
It’s a lot of money to spend to provoke conflicts you cannot possibly win.
One highlight of the UFO testimonials this week was the implication that private defense contractors have been funneling taxpayer money into revere engineering and research of alien crafts.
Maybe we don’t need all those conventional weapons, we have the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator.
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If we really had alien tech, we would certainly be using it. As would other country.
Nobody has bupkis when it comes to alien technology.
Aliens prefer interactions with Americans, especially jarheads.
Of course.
Maybe we are.
If you gave a cavemen an iPhone, how would they use it?
You do know that chimpanzees have been taught how to use smart phones don’t you?
We’re broke. Payback is going to be a bitch for the Empire.
How are we behind or why are there gaps when we outspend China and Russia combined every year for decades? This is utter BS. Taxpayers are being ripped off. We buy so much crap from China, let’s offer to buy some of their military weapons, probably less expensive than US made😀 How about cut the military budget by 10% per year fora few years and demand lower prices from the military contractors? Then we’ll hear every dollar spent by government is spent efficiently and every dollar is needed.
We can’t buy military supplies/weapons/systems from China or Russia. We wouldn’t know what backdoors they had hidden in the hardware that could be activated on command.
The US and Australia have just announced more frequent US submarine visits. I guess we will need “even more” subs.
Australia is spending a few hundred billion in subs. They won’t be commissioned for probably 20 years and thus when “new” they will be antiquated compared to the far cheaper Hunter-killer man less drone subs that will make artificial reefs of all ships and subs.
The Norwegian intel report claiming that the war in Ukraine is weakening Russia military is laughable. Russia has field tested its weapons and its tactics and has seen the poor performance of the stuff NATO sent against them. The Russian hardware is far cheaper, more robust and better in performance. NATO stuff is like an F1 racing car, great under perfect conditions with a top notch pit crew but not so great in off road battlefield reality. Also Russia is manufacturing huge numbers of weapons and ammo whilst the West is losing their limited stocks in the Ukraine. The West can’t keep pace and if they tried then the trillions in extra expenditure will be a repeat of what Reagan did to the Soviet Union in the 80s by hastening the collapse of indebted regimes.
I’d hate to see China become the ruler of the world but Western governments stupidity and Wall Streets greed in offshoring manufacturing to China will be our undoing. We should have worked with Russia but instead we did everything to antagonise them and push them into an alliance with China. Dumb.
[Foolish] Neal wrote “We should have worked with Russia but instead we did everything to antagonise them and push them into an alliance with China.”
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Yes, according to Neal, it sounds like we should have said to Putin “You want Ukraine? Go ahead and take it. We won’t try stop you”].
I’m reasonably certain that this is what Trump would have said, were he the President then.
Climate change : the melting arctic is our 6K miles weak link. Russia has 3 dozen ice breakers, including 2 nukes. We have zero. From Arkhangelsk near Norway and Finland all the way to Alaska we are exposed to Russian threats. The arctic is rich in untapped commodities and oil.
Icebeaker? Doesn’t match the current Climate Change Narrative.
“HOW DARE YOU!!!”
“WE’RE ALL GOING TO BE DEAD IN SEVEN YEARS!!!”
I’m not in favor of war, nor nation-building, I opposed the Iraq invasion.
That said, I’m not stupid enough to buy into pacifism at the same time another nuclear superpower is attempting to intimidate us into pacifism.
Starting a fight is wrong, fighting back is not.
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Starting a fight is all the US does. No one here is promoting pacifism. If you want peace prepare for war. Just NOT the insane amounts being promoted by the MIC oligarchs and their political puppets.
Gov spending increased to preempt recession. Investors finance roadwork,
new modern factories and the military to get their 5.5% dividends. We are a major : naval, air and space power. We protect Europe, Asia and the ME.
Its cheaper to prevent a war than inviting a war.
About that ME protection. It seems our protection turned a beautiful culture into a bunch of angry militants that hate us. Of course, the other countries don’t have a choice about our protection. We have soldiers already deployed on the bases we put there. Imagine how most of the idiots here in America would act if another country did that with us. And maybe, Europe wouldn’t need so much protection had they not encircled Russia with nukes. And invited Ukraine into NATO. An organization designed specifically to fight Russia. Stupid thinking like that is what you are defending. Color me surprised.
Color you a Russian asset. Tell Putin, you’re going to lose.
Facts are irrelevant to the ignorant. Something libtards and neocons excel at
If we aren’t involved in the war, it will cost us nothing.
One criticism of the military spending chart. The EU as an institution gives support to Ukraine and the countries in EU also give support separately so to get a true picture you have to add each country’s support to the total and you find that Europe gives almost as much to Ukraine as the US does.
The US Department of Defense is the single largest institutional fossil fuel user in the world. Since 2001, the military has been responsible for 77 to 80 percent of federal energy consumption.
Yep. Demand for fossil fuels just keeps going up every year. Including in the military.
They currently burn around 13 million gallons of fossil fuel per day.
And biggest polluter as well. As well as the most expensive of the welfare class.
Yep.
What’s your point?
A lot of people are too blind to see the obvious.
Funny! And I agree.
You are describing a lot of people who comment here!
Money for the Space Forces will be well spent. Russia is almost out of Space, Europe well behind and China rising. We have a nice lead that we must capitalize on.
How is the “Space Force” doing. Haven’t heard anything about them lately.
Read a bit about them. The information is there but not too much in the news feeds. Its not sexy like tanks and airplanes. They are into some very esoteric things.
If we are the only ones that can de-orbit asteroids, we won’t need nukes.
Directing the asteroid where you want it to hit is the big problem.
You don’t use an asteroid to do that.
Kinetic bombardment is one of the least fanciful things the Space Force could do.
Lol Dr. Strangelove was the first thing that came to my mind. Peter Zaihan had an analysis of Russian and Chinese military capabilities compared to the US. His conclusions were that we could very well fight a two front war with them and prevail . Those articles are MIC press releases. It’s pathetic we have such a corrupt group of politicians. Best government money can buy.
What exactly is the counter proposal?
If it is a good one, I’m all ears. If it involves giving territory to dictatorships that don’t recognize what a patent rights violation is. . . let alone a human rights violation, its a non starter for me.
Nukes are apparently no longer a sufficient threat, I fear, to keep these dictatorships from expanding their back yards. It was a nice 75 years, but the direct memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are gone and toddlers have the suitcases now to rattle around with their sabres.
When the talking heads of countries start talking war and threatening trade routes, you increase military spending and check the leashes on all vassals and check your ties with all friends. If war has taught us anything in history it is that all sacred cows will be sacrificed. If you are unwilling to sacrifice your sacred cows and your enemy is, you will lose.
The only solution is to ban warfare entirely, but how? If it is allowed you may be called upon as a nation to sacrifice everything or cease to exist.
To think that these dictatorships will not expand out of the kindness of their heart is how you go the way of the Aztecs. In light of recent events, to think that is also an act of blindness.
You must work for the CIA or MIC. You surely can’t be thinking rationally with that comment
You seriously believe if we stopped defending ourselves we wouldn’t fall under dictatorship?
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Yes that is EXACTLY what I said. You may elect to read my other comment before you ask dumb questions.
Toot Toot!
Considering they’re the only ones who never did “fall to a dictator”; despite the full monty of superpowered dictators all having had a go at them by now; it stands to reason (among the few still capable of such feats…) that whatever the defence budget of the Afghans is, is plenty sufficient. Anything beyond that, serve no reason other than own-population suppression, grandstanding and pork.
LOL, even Alexander the Great struggled in Afghanistan.
I think a lot of leaders who go there quickly start to wonder, “what was the point again?”
Ad hominem.
Last bastion of the idiot. Before the guns come out at least.
Wow, excellent job of thinking as your told! You may have an extra soma this week.
Learning Chinese is difficult for an English speaker, just sayin’.
Sakman,
The US is the aggressor in E. Europe and Asia. It has surrounded Russia and China with military bases for the purposes of projecting military force.
It was the aggressor in the late 18th and 19th Century when it committed genocide of the Native American race, euphemistically called Manifest Destiny.
It also expanded its empire in the 19th Century by unilaterally attacking Mexico and Spain then literally plundering by force parts of old Mexico and inserting puppet dictatorships in Cuba and the Philippines. It finally in 1893 invaded Hawaii and by 1898 it was annexed.
In the 20th Century the US either invaded or involved in regime change in the following countries in Latin America:
Invaded – https://www.yachana.org/teaching/resources/interventions.html
Regime change –
https://library.brown.edu/create/wecannotremainsilent/chapters/chapter-1-revolution-and-counterrevolution-in-brazil/the-u-s-government-and-the-1964-coup/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change_in_Latin_America
It is a history of expansion, militarism and empire building.
What is required for the US is to defend its shores and invest in its people.
Empire building destroy republics.
Thanks for the history lesson.
Where does it end?
At what point is setting up defenses not considered aggression?
It never ends, everyone is always and everywhere the aggressor. All religions all nations, ever, in the history of the world were born in a power vacuum where other powers could not effectively project power into it.
It isn’t about who is the aggressor for me, everyone is the aggressor. It only shows how little a person understands to even challenge this concept or complain about who is the aggressor.
Its about something very simple. Every single, Chinese, Russian, Middle Easterner that I have ever encountered would never go back. Why? You ask them.
Not so for Europeans or Americans. Why? You ask them.
Humans should fight for nations that they actually want to live in with the knowledge of what life is like in ALL countries! This is specifically why media controls are set to maximum in the sick countries. Limiting knowledge and debate is a major problem for me.
It’s actually over 1 trillion dollars that we are spending on military/defense related budget line items. 840 billion is just the Department of Defense budget. This does not include the Veteran’s Affairs budget nor does it include the military pensions line item or the Army Corps of Engineers line item. But let’s leave the Corps budget out of this as it is “defense” in name only. The real issue is that the military and defense budgets have been the lucky winner in our polarized political landscape. Democrats, not wanting to be labeled “weak” on military have not pushed back on increased military budgets and where possible, have given their support in exchange for budget approval increases on social welfare issues. The military budgets have expanded as a result. So all this happy talk about getting tough on fiscal deficits is just that: happy talk. With Social Security now running structural deficits, all federal revenue is eaten up by defense, SS, Medicare and Medicaid and interest on the debt (at increasingly higher interest rates). This will not have a happy ending!
Democrats are now the ones driving increased military budgets. They’re now the war party. They accuse republicans of being weak on defense. They get a lot more business contributions than republicans. They’re against free speech. Democrats have become what they used to accuse republicans of being.
Yes, there has been a very distinct and sustained pivot on defense spending by the Dems. Good comment.
“…fiscal 2024 provides the biggest-ever defense spending increase and also one of the largest peacetime budgets when adjusted for inflation.”
How is a proxy war, peacetime?
should not need much more spending on the Artic , as shortly once we get the planet carbon free the ice will come back thicker than ever cheers rick