US Military Budget

I don't think it's funny, its quite serious actually

As the Americans lose purchasing power abroad, by way of the collapse of the USD, they will deflate their debts and asset values

And they will produce everything themselves

I don't underestimate them, they know exactly what they're doing

Arrow wrote:

The USA is a bankrupt state that produces less and less weapons. Printed USD 50 billion will not change much.

The US is moving into a closed cycle economy

They are going to build everything themselves

They have tons of weapons, and they will increase what they don't have

All factories will be dual use, so their new chip factories will also produce the electronics for Naval strike missiles, SM6, and LRSM

This will give them the ability to exponentially increase production

They already are building factories in Arizona for chips to replace TSMC

You know what else will get made there? Drones, in huge quantities

We are witnessing an industrial giant rebirth

They are retooling all of their factories for dual use, so they will pump missiles, artillery, vehicles, and when they need, they can switch to civilian goods,

They are spending more money like there is no tomorrow and they are making their own situation worse.

When the US dollar tanks having enormous numbers of factories to pump out weapons or consumer goods would be pointless... who is going to buy the shit they make?

How would they compete with things made in India or China or even Russia?

When your currency is worthless you can't pay a workforce and life savings are rendered worthless... panic buying to build up their military industrial complex is just going to speed up their demise... even if they could increase production four times with the snap of the fingers it will take them 10 years of production to restock their own supplies and the supplies of their allies in HATO, and those allies in HATO expect a nice shiny brand new 155mm shell for every cheap 122mm and 152mm they had in storaged since just after WWII that they generously gave to Ukraine, not to mention the tanks and guns and aircraft and missiles... shitty old SA-7 SAMs that they will expect to be replaced by the latest state of the art newest model Stinger.

They are going to spend trillions making obsolete material that didn't work very well in Ukraine... but they don't care because they are telling themselves 10 million Russians are dead because of the super weapons they already sent... Russia is on the ropes...

Russia should not be bogged down in war when the Americans reach full industrial potential, Russia needs to match them in productivity

Russian military production is just fine and will earn good money in the near future as they sign military contracts to sell combat proven equipment to lots of eager countries not wanting to remain US colonies.

The US going to a war footing will further destroy their economy, and piss away billions of dollars that disappear into corruption land...

Economic ratios will no longer matter, it will be about who makes what

When things start to get rough for the US Kiev will find out they have the attention span of a teenager and will be dropped like last years fashion.

In the US a lot of rather important people have already said that Russia is not really that important and that China is the real threat to US hegemony and that the US would be better to spend its energy trying to pry Russia and China apart because that would greatly weaken China if they didn't have reliable energy flowing over a land border that the US cannot block or interfere with. Russia can supply coal and gas and oil and all the raw materials to make anything they please, and are in the process of building up their strategic air defence system so they will know if they are under attack from the US etc.

As the Americans lose purchasing power abroad, by way of the collapse of the USD, they will deflate their debts and asset values

As the value of their dollar collapses their dollar becomes worthless in debt repayment so they have to start paying their debts in tangible products or materials... like gold or silver or other items of value... they might even end up having to give up IP rights to some things to help pay the bills... having factories in the US wont help them much... unless they have factories that can turn dirt into gold.

And they will produce everything themselves

By the time they need to do that it will be too late.

Russia survived western sanctions because they were applied gradually and they learned their lessons, plus they had the rest of the world to turn to for cooperation and support.

Who wants to help the US when there is no value in the US dollar for the bribes and corruption?

I don't underestimate them, they know exactly what they're doing

I don't underestimate them, but they are bullies and not geniuses... the sharks rule the tank and have wiped out any dolphins and whales. There is just scum left at the top.

The US is moving into a closed cycle economy

They are going to build everything themselves

Hahahaha... that is probably the plan and expectation, but it wont work because corruption is too deeply embedded on both sides of the political landscape. No one could make the changes needed because they have congress and the senate to stop a president from doing too much to change the system in two terms.

They have tons of weapons, and they will increase what they don't have

They blew all their ammo reserves on Ukraine in that tiny little war.... most of the conflicts they have fought in in the last 40 years they have constantly run out of cruise missiles during the early stages where production has been increased and then slashed the minute that conflict ended leading to the same problems for the next conflict.

All factories will be dual use, so their new chip factories will also produce the electronics for Naval strike missiles, SM6, and LRSM

Hahaha... yeah... one week they will be making X box's and next week they will be making ESSM missiles, and the week after that Maverick missiles... but when the US dollar is worthless what is the government going to pay the US MIC with to buy the weapons that are made?

What are US citizens going to use to buy these Xboxs and other consumer goods with? When the dollar collapse it will be 200 billion dollars for one Xbox... kids will be making kites out of 1,000 US dollar bills because those 1,000 dollar bills will be cheaper than a piece of paper that size like in Germany just before WWII.

This will give them the ability to exponentially increase production

No, that would cripple production because every time they change to make something else it costs a lot of money and down time where they are not producing anything at all and while they retrain their workers they will be spending money and not making money... always a terrible time for any factory.

They already are building factories in Arizona for chips to replace TSMC

Yes, they are and how is that going by the way?

You know what else will get made there? Drones, in huge quantities

That would be very scary for a country with weak air defences like most of the west... for Russia... well US drones will likely cost more than most of the missiles Russia will be using to shoot them down.

We are witnessing an industrial giant rebirth

We are looking at a system in the process of collapsing... America will always be a powerful entity but it wont remain a globally powerful entity for much longer because it is broken and it wont even face up to that fact.

It prints its own money and bullies the entire western world of rich white colonial to help it get richer and it is still 33 trillion in debt and you think it is an industrial giant?

I would say it is a car crash in serious need of a real reset with itself because its rich are getting richer and the rest of its population is getting poorer and the middle class is disappearing into the poverty zone of the poor class... that is not sustainable. People are moving to Russia from the US... when has that ever happened before (other than a small migration of black people during the depression when the Soviets wanted skilled workers).

What they should be doing is massive infrastructure projects to upgrade and improve their own infrastructure while the US dollar still has value so that at least when the dollar tanks they have nice infrastructure to last for the next 40 years while they go into isolation mode to reduce spending and start paying off more than just the interest they owe.

As the world economy slows and inflation increases so do interest rates on borrowed money and as that increases that 33 trillion debt is going to drag them underwater and drown them.

The US is moving into a closed cycle economy

A closed cycle economy that needs to import huge numbers of oil, uranium and other vital stuff.

This will give them the ability to exponentially increase production

Who will be working at those factories? 60 year old men?

They already are building factories in Arizona for chips to replace TSMC

Past regimes tried to build a breeder reactor to get rid of Plutonium, as a treaty with Russia demanded,
they failed miserably despite spending 25 Billion.

Hole wrote:
Who will be working at those factories? 60 year old men?

Maybe obese and woke people, and fentanyl addicts

They already have a job at Amazon.

Most factory work in the west does not provide enough income to do more than pay your rent and eat occasionally, and is not a sustainable model for an economy...

Nobody got rich working in a factory, which means working in a factory will not appeal to young people...

You can down load thousands of movies and tens of thousands of songs onto a hard drive and play video games and watch movies the rest of your life and be somewhat happy because you realise the good times are over and working till you die makes the very rich slightly richer and makes you a slave.

Promises of get rich quick schemes are not new but are rather more effective these days...

GarryB wrote:

They are spending more money like there is no tomorrow and they are making their own situation worse.

When the US dollar tanks having enormous numbers of factories to pump out weapons or consumer goods would be pointless... who is going to buy the shit they make?

How would they compete with things made in India or China or even Russia?

In the 90s, when NAFTA was signed, there was the concept of the Amero, and trading links with south American and Central American countries, as well as absorbing Canadian gas and oil fields

This is what Autarky is, it's a closed cycle, where exports are only to fill budgetary needs

Actually the US can copy exactly what Russia did, a model for recovery from imperial collapse

garryb wrote:
When your currency is worthless you can't pay a workforce and life savings are rendered worthless... panic buying to build up their military industrial complex is just going to speed up their demise... even if they could increase production four times with the snap of the fingers it will take them 10 years of production to restock their own supplies and the supplies of their allies in HATO, and those allies in HATO expect a nice shiny brand new 155mm shell for every cheap 122mm and 152mm they had in storaged since just after WWII that they generously gave to Ukraine, not to mention  the tanks and guns and aircraft and missiles... shitty old SA-7 SAMs that they will expect to be replaced by the latest state of the art newest model Stinger.

Currency strength is only important for importation, as the US switches to autarky, they will devalue their currency

Ofc they can pay workers, they can make their own things, and pay in a new currency for circulation

Restocking NATO won't be a concern, NATO will be long gone, and in its place a full blown nazi Europe

Garryb wrote:
As the value of their dollar collapses their dollar becomes worthless in debt repayment so they have to start paying their debts in tangible products or materials... like gold or silver or other items of value... they might even end up having to give up IP rights to some things to help pay the bills... having factories in the US wont help them much... unless they have factories that can turn dirt into gold

They have very little in the way of foreign debt, most of it is internally held by a few banks, so they can write it off, remove some zeroes, and replace the supply chains to China with internal ones, that is what an autarky is

garryb wrote:
By the time they need to do that it will be too late.

Russia survived western sanctions because they were applied gradually and they learned their lessons, plus they had the rest of the world to turn to for cooperation and support.

Who wants to help the US when there is no value in the US dollar for the bribes and corruption?

The US doesn't really need help for much, except maybe budget in the future when they can't print anymore

But if they regain their farming and Agriculture, and are independent for energy, they really don't need much help, sales to nazi Europe of expensive gas are enough to fill the budget

It did for Russia for 50 + years

garryb wrote:
Hahahaha... that is probably the plan and expectation, but it wont work because corruption is too deeply embedded on both sides of the political landscape. No one could make the changes needed because they have congress and the senate to stop a president from doing too much to change the system in two terms.

Democracy was a historic phenomenon, autarkic USA will be openly a military dictatorship run by security apparatus as it is now, it's just they mask it with democracy values

BTW the one who announced the retooling of US MIC was the Pentagon, the same ones who really run the country

garryb wrote:
They blew all their ammo reserves on Ukraine in that tiny little war.... most of the conflicts they have fought in in the last 40 years they have constantly run out of cruise missiles during the early stages where production has been increased and then slashed the minute that conflict ended leading to the same problems for the next conflict.

They are currently in full production mode, and as they keep opening and modernizing factories, it will increase

You act like time is frozen, but it keeps moving

garryb wrote:
Hahaha... yeah... one week they will be making X box's and next week they will be making ESSM missiles, and the week after that Maverick missiles... but when the US dollar is worthless what is the government going to pay the US MIC with to buy the weapons that are made?

What are US citizens going to use to buy these Xboxs and other consumer goods with? When the dollar collapse it will be 200 billion dollars for one Xbox... kids will be making kites out of 1,000 US dollar bills because those 1,000 dollar bills will be cheaper than a piece of paper that size like in Germany just before WWII.

It doesn't take advanced chips for guidance systems and datalinks, you can take them from a washing machine remember?

And as I said, hyperinflation will never happen in US like it did in Weimar Germany, or other states without resources, the US is self - sufficient enough that it can drop some zeroes, call it something new, and call it a day

That's the thing about superpowers like USA and Russia, they don't really need other states for help

garryb wrote:
No, that would cripple production because every time they change to make something else it costs a lot of money and down time where they are not producing anything at all and while they retrain their workers they will be spending money and not making money... always a terrible time for any factory.

Currently their military has shortages of everything, there is no downtime, that's why 60 year Olds are working in those old factories

They need to increase stocks of everything , much work to do

garryb wrote:

That would be very scary for a country with weak air defences like most of the west... for Russia... well US drones will likely cost more than most of the missiles Russia will be using to shoot them down.

Again, in a closed economy aka autarky, prices are favorable for domestic producers,  I don't think it's understood by most posters that the entire world is undergoing this process

The time of a global hegemon has passed, the US dollar wont be what it was in a few years

It's a totally different dynamic

garryb wrote:
We are looking at a system in the process of collapsing... America will always be a powerful entity but it wont remain a globally powerful entity for much longer because it is broken and it wont even face up to that fact.

It prints its own money and bullies the entire western world of rich white colonial to help it get richer and it is still 33 trillion in debt and you think it is an industrial giant?

I would say it is a car crash in serious need of a real reset with itself because its rich are getting richer and the rest of its population is getting poorer and the middle class is disappearing into the poverty zone of the poor class... that is not sustainable. People are moving to Russia from the US... when has that ever happened before (other than a small migration of black people during the depression when the Soviets wanted skilled workers).

The system will collapse, but it doesn't change the reality, they didn't become hegemon by being stupid, they did it by implementing their strategic plans at a global scale

And barring an invasion, or serious losses at home, they will be the same minus influence in the global south

But they will be starting more wars in those places to arrest development of the multipolar order, and with new weapons and ammo and a stable supply , they can arm proxies for decades to come

They never would have won in Ukraine, but they can win in Africa, Latin America, some Asian conflicts and so on

They just need to buy time until they stabilize their new production sites as the dollar comes down

It's a controlled collapse, not a free fall

For that reason, Russia should maintain production, and finish off these wars in Europe as it is a net drain on lives, economy, and creates a zone of instability on the border

Russia needs to implement a security architecture in Europe which allows it to exert influence in the immediate area, without risk of nuclear wars and high intense conventional ones

Maybe it will have to go to Moldova and resolve PMR issue , or maybe the baltics will be next if they try anything with Kaliningrad

I doubt Russia cares about article V at this point, with 1.5 million troops, and 500k steamrolling the baltics, opening a safe path to Kaliningrad isn't too hard

But this whole front of instability needs to be culled, so that Russia can return to growth and compete with rivals without the net drain of these wars going on

Actually the US can copy exactly what Russia did, a model for recovery from imperial collapse

It possibly could but it wont. The super rich have too much power and their system of government means to get anything done you need to have a majority in the Congress and the Senate and also have the president... and even if you manage to get that how much can they do in two terms... to fix things you have to break things first and the pain and suffering created by the breaking of things will get the president kicked out of office and the next president will roll things back to how they were which means they are fkd again.

Currency strength is only important for importation, as the US switches to autarky, they will devalue their currency

It is the strength and stability of the US dollar that makes it a choice for many countries for international trade... you start devaluing that and they will get rid of their reserves and the dollar will collapse and become worthless.

Ofc they can pay workers, they can make their own things, and pay in a new currency for circulation

When the US dollar collapses all imports will become horribly expensive, and so that will create potential for local production but setting up local production takes time and money and the cost of imports will encourage using local resources for all aspects of production, but developing local sources for things will also delay things even further.

Restocking NATO won't be a concern, NATO will be long gone, and in its place a full blown nazi Europe

They will have contracts... HATO wont die... they wont let it... it is too useful for them.

They have very little in the way of foreign debt, most of it is internally held by a few banks, so they can write it off, remove some zeroes, and replace the supply chains to China with internal ones, that is what an autarky is

The almost 34 trillion is foreign debt... it is all foreign debt. If it was owned by local banks then why did the US government bail them out a few decades ago with 750 billion dollars that they didn't make those banks pay back? Nor did they demand part ownership of the banks... it was just a gift...

The US doesn't really need help for much, except maybe budget in the future when they can't print anymore

When no one accepts their currency they will be in trouble... when no one wants your money how do you buy anything? You pay for things in trade and you sell raw materials for currency you can use. Very much limits your options and trading partners. And does not really allow you to twist arms and get really good deals on things.

Being rich is about never having to pay full price for anything.

They are not going to like not being rich.

And obviously the US government will decide that these multi billionaires could pay a bit more of their fair share of taxes, which means they will all immediately leave the country with their gold and priceless artwork and jewelery that is not effected by the value of any dollar.

But if they regain their farming and Agriculture, and are independent for energy, they really don't need much help, sales to nazi Europe of expensive gas are enough to fill the budget

Their farming is marginal and weather dependent and requires a lot of fertilisers and chemicals to be successful, and they are no where near independent for energy... they import most of their Uranium fuel and they sometimes use more gas than they export and have to import the difference and in terms of oil things are going from bad to worse... Biden has dipped in to their oil reserves already to keep prices down but that will have to be replaced and when they do replace it they will be paying top dollar...

It did for Russia for 50 + years

Russia has ten times the land and sea area and most of the resources they burned up were in European and southern Russia... which is now not Russia any more...

They cherry picked the easy stuff but new technology means the harder to get stuff is not that hard any more.

Democracy was a historic phenomenon, autarkic USA will be openly a military dictatorship run by security apparatus as it is now, it's just they mask it with democracy values

Don't be silly, a military dictatorship would disarm its own population and that alone would start a civil war in the US because they don't trust their government.... and neither they should.

BTW the one who announced the retooling of US MIC was the Pentagon, the same ones who really run the country

They don't even run the military or there would be no Woke BS. Having fluid gender people in the military does not make it stronger or better.

They would be more effective with psychopaths than with fairy tree huggers.

They are currently in full production mode, and as they keep opening and modernizing factories, it will increase

And those companies that are producing and supplying are going to make an enormous amount of money out of this... the loser is the US taxpayer who is paying for all this BS.

You act like time is frozen, but it keeps moving

Russia isn't winning in Ukraine because it makes more shells and bombs than Kiev does. Russia is skillfully using tactics to maximise enemy casualties while also allowing them to surrender if they wish, while the enemy is trying to exterminate all Russians and will kill all of its men and women in the process to try to do so.

This is akin to the German retreat from the Soviet Union during WWII, except this time it is the Ukrainians that are throwing men and resources to push back the numerically inferior Russian forces. The core difference is that Kiev does not have the manpower to spare to fight this way and the Russians are not losing ground it is moving back and forth with the attacks the Ukrainians send in but gets pushed back almost immediately. The Russians also have superior artillery and air control and short supply lines.

The more Zelensky demands progress be made so he can show the west that they can win this the more men and material they are going to lose in useless suicide lunges at Russian lines.

It doesn't take advanced chips for guidance systems and datalinks, you can take them from a washing machine remember?

Washing Machines don't have digital datalink electronics or image processing hardware for guidance systems... that is western media bullshit... and who will the US be fighting with these new weapons? Better question who would they want to fight that wont kick their arses, that Russia and China wont supply the weapons and equipment to defeat the US over? They could invade Fiji. If they tried to invade Mexico, which one politician in the US said day one he was going to invade Mexico to deal with the drug cartels... I would say a coalition of the willing would quickly form from central and south american countries to come to Mexicos aide...

And as I said, hyperinflation will never happen in US like it did in Weimar Germany, or other states without resources, the US is self - sufficient enough that it can drop some zeroes, call it something new, and call it a day

Hyper inflation comes from devaluing your currency, it has nothing to do with the viability of the state... it is how much printed money there is out there and what the country is worth. The US is no where near self sufficient... they import most things now.

There was a 2017 report I posted a few years back that said that the US can't even make tents because the fabric they need is no longer made in the US... because it is made in China at a price US producers can't compete with and so US producers of the fabric failed and no longer make it.

This will be a common theme across the board in a wide range of technologies and areas.

That's the thing about superpowers like USA and Russia, they don't really need other states for help

Bullshit. Russia would be in a terrible position if China and India and lots of other countries around the world stopped trading with them.

It is not all loyalty to Russia and it is not a lack of loyalty to the west. India bought Russian oil at a discount. When the discount came off they kept buying, but not because they wanted to help Russia. They bought it because it was the cheapest and they kept buying because even with the discount gone it is still the cheapest.

Despite what the west says Europe is still using Russian gas... they can deny it all they like but it is Russian gas they are using. They pay more and buy it through middlemen who make money too, but the gas being used in Europe is still more than the amount China is buying from Russia so far.

Over time China is going to adapt to gas and its consumption will likely massively increase because it is cheap and cleaner than coal and easier to pump through pipelines etc.

Again, in a closed economy aka autarky, prices are favorable for domestic producers,

In a closed economy that is a market driven democracy the prices for domestic stuff is often only slightly better than for imported stuff and so the domestic producers make an enormous profit which they will put into expanding production to make even more money but their workers wont get more than minimum wage and the owners and the shareholders are the ones making money... but that money is American dollars so it is worthless outside the US.

I don't think it's understood by most posters that the entire world is undergoing this process

There are very few countries that could be self sufficient in everything they need. Even China has an enormous internal consumer base but they need to import lots of energy to keep things working and also food too. Russia produces a surplus of energy and food so working together with China and most other countries that are reasonable makes a lot of sense for them to cooperate.

If the US wants to isolate itself it will collapse into a bloody civil war.

The time of a global hegemon has passed, the US dollar wont be what it was in a few years

It's a totally different dynamic

I totally agree, but if the US wants to blame anyone for the demise of the US currency dominance it can only blame itself... China and Russia bought US debt until the US tried to punish them and restrict their use of US dollars so they got rid of it and are stopping trading in it as an international currency.

The system will collapse, but it doesn't change the reality, they didn't become hegemon by being stupid, they did it by implementing their strategic plans at a global scale

The ones in charge didn't get the US to where it got to... the inbred children who inherited the earth have driven the inmates of the asylum to kick them off the island and will be running things for themselves now.

But they will be starting more wars in those places to arrest development of the multipolar order, and with new weapons and ammo and a stable supply , they can arm proxies for decades to come

A country does not make money from war... arms companies make money for a few families and shareholders from wars... the west isn't going to get the money it has invested in Ukraine the last 70 years back...

They never would have won in Ukraine, but they can win in Africa, Latin America, some Asian conflicts and so on

I think the tide is changing and the rest of the world has worked out the colonial wests game and they wont want to play it any more... and with advice and support from countries that have been colonised by the west... including Russia from the 1990s... they wont make the same mistakes they kept making.

It's a controlled collapse, not a free fall

A devaluation of their currency wont make their debt smaller, and wont reduce their interest rates... in fact it will just make it much harder to pay off and the people they owe the money to might start making demands...

Russia needs to implement a security architecture in Europe

Russia can't trust anyone in the west in Europe or the US, their word is meaningless and their agreements are BS. Russia needs to destroy what is left of the Ukraine and deal with factions there and build a wall across Europe. Send and receive stuff via the Danube to Serbia and continue to deal with non hostile countries like Hungary and Turkey, but the rest, close up the embassies etc and close their embassies in Russia and pettition the world to shift the UN to somewhere in Asia or Africa or Central or South America that is neutral.

Defense bill would let Air Force retire A-10s, F-15s — but not F-22s

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2023/12/07/defense-bill-would-let-air-force-retire-a-10s-f-15s-but-not-f-22s/

Looks like fiscal realities are finally hitting the oh so precious U.S navy, regardless of how bloated the budget is.
Everyone wants their cut.

https://www.zerohedge.com/military/west-point-mafia-has-systematically-destroyed-nations-maritime-strength

This started when George W Bush became POTUS and Dick Cheney decided to outsource all non-combat duties to the private sector. Namely companies like Halliburton who he used to work for.

The US Army Corps of Engineers is basically useless today. You just can't expect them to do anything of consequence. And same thing for the Seabees. They only have a skeleton crew and no capabilities to do actual work. Anything that needs to be done is contracted out to civilian contractors. And since a lot of what they used to do wasn't that profitable to begin with, you then end up with situations like this where there are no ships to do the work to remove the bridge in the US and you need to hire them from Europe.

Him blaming the US Army is just idiotic. It isn't the Army which decides how the budget is cut. And the Navy itself has done a remarkably poor job using its own still vast budget since the end of the Cold War with few exceptions like the Virginia submarine and Super Hornet. But those programs are basically modifications of previously existing Cold War era programs. The Seawolf and Hornet respectively. All new programs have either had massive delays and lots of problems, like the Ford class carrier, or were complete failures like the Zumwalt, or the LCS.

That puppet of Oligarchs is only sad because he will receive a few millions less in bribes in the coming years
if some programs are axed.

It would actually be fun to run a blade through all their programmes cutting out the fat and leaving lean meat, but it would only make them stronger so keep feeding at that trough fat boy or there wont be any pudding.... pudding.

Yeah. I hope they start the construction of a new aircraft carrier soon. 

The main problem with Zumwalt was that it was not ambitious enough... they need to make them four times bigger and have ABM missiles and 600mm calibre guns...

Like this? 

The US needs to spend every cent on rail guns. Rail guns are everything and countries that do not deploy them are nothing. Hypersonic missiles?
Ancient primitive technology.