America’s National Security Wonderland

The counterinsurgency “forever wars” in the Middle East, once seen as the future of warfare in the era of global American dominance, are now remembered only as blunders. The war in Ukraine has marked a return to very old-fashioned industrial warfare between large-scale, conscript armies, something which few military planners in Washington ever saw coming before the fact. To add to these rising threats, China is now engaged in a process of naval rearmament that is putting the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century naval arms races to shame.

Reverend Wright: "USA manufacturing employment fraction peaked at 32 percent in the early 1950’s.
If it was still 30 percent (like china is) US manufacturing would be approx 45 million, not 13 million"

Just in case you weren't paying attention: that is precisely the issue that MAGA is intended to address.

So, several facts to keep in mind:

In 1955, US manufacturing employment was 17 million workers, or 26% of total employment.
Today, US manufacturing employment is 13 million, or 8% of total employment.
Adjusted for inflation, today's US workers produce more than double per hour that of workers in 1955.
US workers produce four times more per hour than Chinese workers.
In geostrategic terms, the US manufacturing workforce of 13 million can easily be expanded to 35 million by including in the count manufacturing workers in Canada and Mexico, both of which are among the world's most productive.
Finally, the US has now and will have huge reserves of manpower available for massive increases in manufacturing capacities.

Bottom line: with effective leadership, anything is possible.

That's what MAGA & "Golden Age" is all about.

So, our glass is well over half-full.

The technological change since World War II is mind boggling.

Carriers remain huge targets while the incredible array of weapons available to attack them boggles the mind.

They can be attacked from space, air, ground, other ships and by submarines—all even simultaneously.

In the beginning of World War II some countries still thought riders on horseback were a reasonable military option.

cgbg: "The technological change since World War II is mind boggling."

Sure, and so are the counter-measures.
The main thing is that all ships were/are vulnerable to land-based aircraft and so carriers try to stay well out to sea.

cgbg: "Carriers remain huge targets while the incredible array of weapons available to attack them boggles the mind.
They can be attacked from space, air, ground, other ships and by submarines—all even simultaneously."

All of those attacks were hazards of WWII also, except for space.
However, today's attacks from space can easily be considered the equivalent of 10 tons of projectiles traveling at Mach 3 from 25 miles away = one salvo fired from enemy battleships.

Sure, if you want to talk about hypersonic, that's fine.
The fact remains that, by the time your hypersonic missile comes within range of a carrier battle group, it's not going hypersonic anymore.
It's going the same speed as those projectiles fired from the big guns of battleships 80 years ago.

Again, I'm not saying modern US carriers are invulnerable.
I am saying they're tough, well protected and fully capable of doing the missions they're assigned.

cgbg: "In the beginning of World War II some countries still thought riders on horseback were a reasonable military option."

Are you kidding?
So did American special forces in Afghanistan.
It's always, always, always about using the right weapons for the mission assigned.

A defense budget larger than any in the world and bigger than most major parties combined and the first suggestion this very wordy essay is, THERE IS NOT ENOUGH MONEY?

You positively have to be kidding me.

What is more, I wonder why the publication needs to go to Sweden for an author?

Malcom Kyeyune is a writer based in Sweden and contributing editor of American Affairs.

I question the credibility of the entire enterprise and wonder what their real motives are. It sounds just like another rag promoting the defense industrial complex to be sustained in the current form or bigger. Like our stupid schools, and I do mean stupid schools since that is the bulk of what they produce, stupid children, the answer is not more money.

$15 billion for a carrier? SIXTY TIMES the cost of an LNG carrier? SIXTY, that’s right. TWENTY TIMES the cost of a drill ship; albiet one of the most complex vessels afloat and costs for oilfield products are some of the most inflated in the world. Somebodies have been lulled into just going with the flow on cost instead of making serious comparison about why they should cost so damn much. Carriers should cost no more than 1/3 the current going price.

The littoral combat ships? We once had wonderful frigates that could be stamped out like widgets.

Land military weapons? Trucks are just trucks and howitzers are the same. A WWII soldier could operate a new 155 withing half a day. They are that unchanged.

An M198 howitzer now costs about $575,000 and clocks in at 15,760 lbs., just shy of 8 tons. That means it is $71,000 a ton to make. It is simple machined and fabricated steel, maybe some titanium. Industral machinery, some a whole lot more complex than this howitzer hits somewhere south of $20,000 per ton. Maybe we should let Caterpillar make our howitzers instead of Rock Island Arsenal?

Costs are too high and the defense industrial complex is making far too much money from the taxpayer. If eggs in Mexico are $2 a dozen right now and the best we can do here is around $5 isn’t something wrong? Does anyone suspect that our methods are wrong? And no, our stuff is not more sophisticated than others. Not for the most part.

We are being raped on both cost and quality. Hesgeth, are you listening?

“A defense budget larger than any in the world and bigger than most major parties combined and the first suggestion this very wordy essay is, THERE IS NOT ENOUGH MONEY? “

That’s the irony. Kyeyune is correct that the current budget is far too small to maintain the current size of fleet, current airframes, 750 overseas bases etc.

And we know that because Navy ships in port for maintenance get the minimum, long term repairs are skipped over - because they can’t afford it.

Same with the F35s. Half available at any time because of the colossal cost of maintenance and parts.

If the US military wants to cut costs. It needs to downsize the overseas Imperial committments. And reduce the big ticket high cost weapons.

For carrier cost. You are just not being realistic about the price of these. For example the Stennis is in port doing a reactor change which was budgeted at 3.5 billion just for that one item.

M198 cost. You are right to look at the finished cost per ton. But you have to separate out the cost of the structure vs cost of components (eg gun optics, electronics). If an artillery gun was made out of hot rolled at $500/ton like some industrial machine, that would be one thing. But it is not. Titanium costs ~$7000/ton and the specialty high strength steels cost 10x times hot rolled (or more).

And the finished cost scales right up from the cost of the raw material.

were they the same alloy ? and were they processed the same way ?

Your argument is basically with people like Tom Eagar who says total cost of a physical structure is proportional. (~x10) to the raw material cost.

https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/10631/chapter/13

And that has proved true from hot rolled in commercial shipbuilding to Carbon-nomex-carbon composites on the x33 space plane. And every material in between.

DOD specifies in a way that only the most expensive materials will do. Even commercial aircraft single blades on jet engines cost $15K EACH.

https://www.mdpi.com/2504-4494/4/4/101

BTW that artillery gun barrel has a steel liner. (titanium is too soft and lacks fracture toughness) so there is a very expensive bonding process that has to be done

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