So again, to be clear, is your argument that the US should be using lower cost off-the-shelf or lower tech weapons? Presumably, with the ability to field more of these much lower cost weapons for superior ultimate effectiveness?
I mean, the example you have with the f-16 vs f-35, is a bit of a false dichotomy. The f-35 isn’t intended to totally replace the f-16. The two planes have a different set of capabilities and can be used in different ways. Ideally, they should be used in tandem, with the 35’s stealth, superior electronics, and sensor suite, it can fly deeper into contested territory and designate targets for other planes to safely engage from further away. So maximizing the value of weapons like the f-35 is in fact dependent on combining them with other (usually much cheaper) weapons already on the field. But when done this way, adding just a few of these new top of the line planes can increase the effectiveness of entire fighter groups.
All that is to say, the f-35 is in fact a bit of a complicated case to use as an example.
Also, this is sort of how the entire US military is designed to work, with each element making other elements around it more effective. For example an aircraft carrier alone is extremely vulnerable, so it has a whole “carrier group” with destroyers, cruisers, and subs all supporting each other against different threats. As a group each part is more powerful that it would have been alone.
I brought all that up to point out that providing “X” weapon to a foreign nation is always likely to be an inefficient use of that weapon. By providing just one specific weapon, it makes it likely that those forces won’t have all the supporting tools to make it most effective.
The arguments I’m making are fundamentally about the philosophy that underpins the assumptions that the decisions you’ve outlined above, are the right decisions to be making or even the right framework for making decisions.
Core to what I’ve been saying is that how we think about power; how we think about force: how we think about these things and the assumptions we make sets the stage for how we’ll think about technology, development, how to fight a modern war, or what a modern war would even look like.
This scene from Dr. Strangelove demonstrates the ideology clearly:
We wouldn’t want a doomsday gap would we? Look at the big board!!
Although satire, this movie highlights the basic mentality both the US and Soviet union had, which established both the soft power aspects of diplomacy, as well as the conclusions each country made around what military technologies to develop, how to develop them, and what the future of war and projection of force would look like. What we think about the world dictates how we behave in it.
Just try to see within what you are saying, the ideological assumptions you are implicitly making about war fighting, about the use of power, about projection of power, about soft versus hard power. You are treating them as immutable inevitabilities when they aren’t.
Take the scene even further; the Russian diplomat:
In the end we could not keep up with the expense of the arms race, the space race and the peace race, and at the same time our people grumbled for more nylons, and washing machines.
The current Russian federation is a perfect example of how a country (the Soviet Union) had one attitude towards war fighting, soft power, hard power, use of force, projection of power and pivoted to a completely different mentality with regards to how to do all of the above (The Russian Federation). And now, they’ve effectively beaten their age old enemy without even having to launch a missile. They’ve rendered the F35 inert, because they changed their philosophy of power, and were able to effectively capture the US government by proxy through imbeciles, nationalism, and stupid red hats.
Its also greatly telling how in the Dr. Strangelove scene, the Dr. quotes the “BLAND” corporation, which is a play of the RAND corporation; a consultant firm which has effectively dictated how the US government will develop itself militarily into the future for nigh on 60 years. My point is that the manner in which the US have developed itself militarily wasn’t selected for based on its effectiveness: its been demonstrated since Vietnam to be highly ineffective. Its only Hollywood blockbusters that keep any charade of the US military being able to accomplish its goals up. The manner in which the US military developed itself was selected for in a manner which would optimize profits for the Defense contractor industry.
The F35 is an incredible piece of technology. Like I said before, I’ve never experienced anything as loud. But it misses the moment in terms of what war fighting will look like in the future of now. Its not next gen fighter jets winning or losing in Ukraine (or that won in Afghanistan, or Iraq).
Oh my God… In that whole post, you’ve said absolutely nothing of substance! That was astonishing! I mean, actually impressive in a way…
In my post I had essentially only asked one question (and that question was “what are you actually suggesting?”) and you managed to not even address it. Instead, you went on a meandering tangent about Dr Strangelove. You continue to make assertions about military doctrine, that actual decisions about actual, tangible weapons are incorrect, but instead of explaining how they were incorrect or suggesting what specific alternative choices should have been made, you instead talk about vague philosophical misunderstandings… That’s bullshit.
Honestly, as useless as it is, I feel like I have to ask at this point, are you an LLM? (I can’t really expect any useful response to this whether you are an LLM or not, but it still feels right to ask)
I can now see that you are too dense to have a conversation on this matter. In the future, please, just be an obtuse buffoon earlier so I don’t have to waste my time putting together respectful, thoughtful responses for an idiot like yourself.
I mean, it’s had value for others certainly, to spark thinking on the relationship between how we think about power and the role that has in how we choose to which technology to develop and how.
It also puts you on display as a vapid and worthless void, fully absent of a thought worthy of responding to, so we all benefit from knowing more in that regard.
So again, to be clear, is your argument that the US should be using lower cost off-the-shelf or lower tech weapons? Presumably, with the ability to field more of these much lower cost weapons for superior ultimate effectiveness?
I mean, the example you have with the f-16 vs f-35, is a bit of a false dichotomy. The f-35 isn’t intended to totally replace the f-16. The two planes have a different set of capabilities and can be used in different ways. Ideally, they should be used in tandem, with the 35’s stealth, superior electronics, and sensor suite, it can fly deeper into contested territory and designate targets for other planes to safely engage from further away. So maximizing the value of weapons like the f-35 is in fact dependent on combining them with other (usually much cheaper) weapons already on the field. But when done this way, adding just a few of these new top of the line planes can increase the effectiveness of entire fighter groups.
All that is to say, the f-35 is in fact a bit of a complicated case to use as an example.
Also, this is sort of how the entire US military is designed to work, with each element making other elements around it more effective. For example an aircraft carrier alone is extremely vulnerable, so it has a whole “carrier group” with destroyers, cruisers, and subs all supporting each other against different threats. As a group each part is more powerful that it would have been alone.
I brought all that up to point out that providing “X” weapon to a foreign nation is always likely to be an inefficient use of that weapon. By providing just one specific weapon, it makes it likely that those forces won’t have all the supporting tools to make it most effective.
The arguments I’m making are fundamentally about the philosophy that underpins the assumptions that the decisions you’ve outlined above, are the right decisions to be making or even the right framework for making decisions.
Core to what I’ve been saying is that how we think about power; how we think about force: how we think about these things and the assumptions we make sets the stage for how we’ll think about technology, development, how to fight a modern war, or what a modern war would even look like.
This scene from Dr. Strangelove demonstrates the ideology clearly:
We wouldn’t want a doomsday gap would we? Look at the big board!!
Although satire, this movie highlights the basic mentality both the US and Soviet union had, which established both the soft power aspects of diplomacy, as well as the conclusions each country made around what military technologies to develop, how to develop them, and what the future of war and projection of force would look like. What we think about the world dictates how we behave in it.
Just try to see within what you are saying, the ideological assumptions you are implicitly making about war fighting, about the use of power, about projection of power, about soft versus hard power. You are treating them as immutable inevitabilities when they aren’t.
Take the scene even further; the Russian diplomat:
The current Russian federation is a perfect example of how a country (the Soviet Union) had one attitude towards war fighting, soft power, hard power, use of force, projection of power and pivoted to a completely different mentality with regards to how to do all of the above (The Russian Federation). And now, they’ve effectively beaten their age old enemy without even having to launch a missile. They’ve rendered the F35 inert, because they changed their philosophy of power, and were able to effectively capture the US government by proxy through imbeciles, nationalism, and stupid red hats.
Its also greatly telling how in the Dr. Strangelove scene, the Dr. quotes the “BLAND” corporation, which is a play of the RAND corporation; a consultant firm which has effectively dictated how the US government will develop itself militarily into the future for nigh on 60 years. My point is that the manner in which the US have developed itself militarily wasn’t selected for based on its effectiveness: its been demonstrated since Vietnam to be highly ineffective. Its only Hollywood blockbusters that keep any charade of the US military being able to accomplish its goals up. The manner in which the US military developed itself was selected for in a manner which would optimize profits for the Defense contractor industry.
The F35 is an incredible piece of technology. Like I said before, I’ve never experienced anything as loud. But it misses the moment in terms of what war fighting will look like in the future of now. Its not next gen fighter jets winning or losing in Ukraine (or that won in Afghanistan, or Iraq).
Oh my God… In that whole post, you’ve said absolutely nothing of substance! That was astonishing! I mean, actually impressive in a way…
In my post I had essentially only asked one question (and that question was “what are you actually suggesting?”) and you managed to not even address it. Instead, you went on a meandering tangent about Dr Strangelove. You continue to make assertions about military doctrine, that actual decisions about actual, tangible weapons are incorrect, but instead of explaining how they were incorrect or suggesting what specific alternative choices should have been made, you instead talk about vague philosophical misunderstandings… That’s bullshit.
Honestly, as useless as it is, I feel like I have to ask at this point, are you an LLM? (I can’t really expect any useful response to this whether you are an LLM or not, but it still feels right to ask)
I can now see that you are too dense to have a conversation on this matter. In the future, please, just be an obtuse buffoon earlier so I don’t have to waste my time putting together respectful, thoughtful responses for an idiot like yourself.
An easy copout, I could have predicted that…
Well I’m happy to be done with this exchange.
I mean, it’s had value for others certainly, to spark thinking on the relationship between how we think about power and the role that has in how we choose to which technology to develop and how.
It also puts you on display as a vapid and worthless void, fully absent of a thought worthy of responding to, so we all benefit from knowing more in that regard.