…according to these dolts, so we don’t force Russia into a nuclear corner.
This is the most amazingly dumb report I have seen regarding “what to do” about naked Russian aggression. We may have Russia on the ropes a bit, so shrink our military further?!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/moscow-could-be-pushed-…
Cheers!
Murph
(these people do not live in the real world)
Another way to look at the US military is from a performance viewpoint. It has proven to be a failure in every war this century.
Now that failure may be due to the generals or our political leaders that place them in situations that were unwinnable. In any case $7-8 trillion has been borrowed & spent on wasted effort. To say nothing of the deaths & physical disabilities incurred plus creation of many more people filled with hatred for the USA. Oh and political & economic problems for the EU from all the refugees from US misadventures.
Just think of what infrastructure improvement that could have been made with such amount of money.
Are really the best and brightest at the helm of our nation? If the US was a business; those in charge would have been sent packing long ago.
Now that failure may be due to the generals or our political leaders that place them in situations that were unwinnable.
The ‘news’ I heard is that in several cases the military was under the control of the State Department. The best military will fail if it’s not led properly, when not allowed to do their job.
The Captain
headline
Moscow could be pushed toward ‘nuclear escalation’ if the US overreacts to Russia’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine, new report warns
Murph,
You got to admit if you are desperate to work in journalism you will say anything.
Journalistic ethics…why? Looking quite perplexed.
Sadly, Leap1, the journalists are just reporting what the brilliant minds at Brown University said:
a new report from Brown University’s Costs of War Project that was shared exclusively with Insider warns…
Cheers!
Murph
( see previous link for more details of their “superior logic”) 
The US military spending suffers from the same “efficiency” issues that our medical system suffers from. We have the best Congress money can buy and a vast amount of military spending is squandered on weapons systems which offer questionable cost/benefit ratios and frequently turn out to be very expensive piles of junk.
Like a business, a military is as good as the people working there. Too few of America’s best and brightest feel attracted towards spending their lives in the military. Buying entry level talent may take money, but it’s a lot less expensive than hiring “consultants” and “contractors”.
It’s not that we should cut the military budget, but we should at least get our money’s worth (which would be a hell of a lot easier if former contracting officers were forbidden to work for vendors and contractors to the military).
Jeff
The US military spending suffers from the same “efficiency” issues that our medical system suffers from.
The Funeral Home business is even worse.
Another way to look at the US military is from a performance viewpoint. It has proven to be a failure in every war this century.
Like Russia, we’ve discovered that invading other countries is most often a prescription for death and expensive failure.
How long we remember that lesson is another matter.
The US military could easily achieve the same level of “success” with a 30% budget reduction.
The US military could easily achieve the same level of “success” with a 30% budget reduction.
The problem with that theory is that the cuts would have to get through Congress - and all the things the military says it really needs would be cut, so they could keep the stuff the military doesn’t need that is produced or located in certain Congressfolks’ districts visibly benefiting their constituents.
This is the most amazingly dumb report I have seen regarding “what to do” about naked Russian aggression. We may have Russia on the ropes a bit, so shrink our military further?!
How about we read what they actually said instead of your mis-interpretation.
The article actually says:
If the US and NATO overreact to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with drastic increases in defense spending and conventional forces in Europe, it could push Moscow toward “nuclear escalation,” a new report from Brown University’s Costs of War Project that was shared exclusively with Insider warns.
That is the article’s lead sentence, after a couple of bullet point sub-heads.
The article goes on:
Along these lines, the Costs of War Project report argues that “there is no additional cause for intensified fear of a Russian military threat to the US nor for the resultant expansion of the Pentagon budget.”
Further down:
The report says that though it might seem contrary to conventional wisdom, the US defense budget doesn’t need to grow. “Rather, cognizant of Russia’s conventional military weakness, the US military budget can instead be trimmed,” it adds.
And one final quote:
“Russian aggression in Ukraine requires an international response,” said Stephanie Savell, co-director of the Costs of War Project. “However, it does not justify increased US military budgets, which could ultimately escalate tensions with Russia and once again lead us down a dangerous path.”
Sure seems to me that the paper is arguing that we do not need to INcrease the US military budget in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They do suggest that the budget could be trimmed, but the main argument is that Russia’s poor performance in Ukraine does not justify a larger budget.
The people writing the report are far from dolts or from being stupid. They provide a logical and well-reasoned argument for their case.
Murph, your blatant denigration of them without actually providing an argument of why they are wrong tells me more about you than it does about the people in the Costs of War Project or the conclusions they have drawn in this research paper.
–Peter
Murph, your blatant denigration of them without actually providing an argument of why they are wrong tells me more about you than it does about the people in the Costs of War Project or the conclusions they have drawn in this research paper.
Hi Peter,
The fact that I have already provided an argument against acquiescing to Russian nuclear blackmail and you ignored it, tells me a lot about you.
https://discussion.fool.com/russia-on-the-run-invaders-pushed-ba…
Cheers!
Murph
OOPS! Wrong link!
Here it is:
https://discussion.fool.com/just-for-quotfunquot-let39s-ignore-t…
Cheers!
Murph
Further down:
The report says that though it might seem contrary to conventional wisdom, the US defense budget doesn’t need to grow. “Rather, cognizant of Russia’s conventional military weakness, the US military budget can instead be trimmed,” it adds.
And one final quote:
“Russian aggression in Ukraine requires an international response,” said Stephanie Savell, co-director of the Costs of War Project. “However, it does not justify increased US military budgets, which could ultimately escalate tensions with Russia and once again lead us down a dangerous path.”
Sure seems to me that the paper is arguing that we do not need to INcrease the US military budget in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They do suggest that the budget could be trimmed, but the main argument is that Russia’s poor performance in Ukraine does not justify a larger budget.
Peter, as to the above, it totally ignores China and other bad actors, as well as a MAJOR failed strategy.
For many years, the West has been convinced that if we would just bring Russia, China, and others into the mainstream of world trade, etc., they would gradually change their ways. So, we dramatically cut our defense budgets in anticipation of that happening.
History has now shown that this strategy is one of “hope”…which is the same non-strategy used on Hitler.
“Hoping” for the best is fine, so long as one is prepared for the worst.
Cheers!
Murph
If this battle cry is made with the intended segue to giving that money to someone else’s pet project or other free-bee’s, then is should just be ignored as fiscal manipulation.
Now if it goes directly to reducing the deficit and keeping it reduced with no game playing, then we can find all kinds of places for that money.
YR
“Now if it goes directly to reducing the deficit and keeping it reduced with no game playing, then we can find all kinds of places for that money.”
Like that’s going to happen. I’m sure that the military could tighten it’s belt in places but this is not the time to meaningfully cut military spending.
Macroman77
Murph, let me roll up a couple of things into a response to just your last post.
Forgive me for thinking that a random post in a different thread that doesn’t address military budgets at all is somehow responsive to the topic of military budgets. Seems like you’re stretching quite a bit there.
it totally ignores China and other bad actors
Yes and no. We’re still outspending China by more than 2 to 1. Was more like 3 to 1 a few years ago, but China has been ramping up their military spending.
I’d also hazard a guess that China’s spending is significantly more efficient. A centralized economy and military will do that. There are no special interests in China lobbying for this or that project with the goal of increasing the profits of some private company rather that providing truly useful military materiel.
On the other hand, what threat does China pose to the US? Are they planning an invasion? Granted, they do have a significant long range nuclear arsenal. However, I suspect the cold war principle of MAD is still in effect with China, although it is rarely talked about. Our early warning systems watching for missiles coming from Russia would work just as well for missiles coming from China. They’d more or less follow the same path over the polar regions.
As to a land invasion - that’s just as suicidal as us trying to invade China by land. Neither one is going to happen. The most likely thing would be some kind of proxy war. In spite of Biden’s comment on the issue on 60 Minutes yesterday, there is no way we’re going to put boots on the ground to protect Taiwan from China. So the proxy war would need to be elsewhere. And there really aren’t that many places where we’d be willing to fight such a proxy war.
The real threat from China is economic, not military. By moving so much production to China over the last 40 or so years, we have diminished our ability to manufacture things - particularly lower cost goods - in the US. And we’ve turned over lots of product knowledge to the Chinese. That is probably the biggest loss - the direct and indirect transfer of knowledge to China. They can now create knock off products of many familiar items and sell those into the world markets at significantly lower price points, undermining the businesses that traded their know-how for a cheaper production source. The price of that low cost production is turning out to be much higher than many thought.
So, back to the point. Do we really need to increase military spending because of the war in Ukraine? No. Do we need to increase military spending to counter the threat from Russia? No. They seem to be less of a threat than we have believed (or been told and willingly swallowed) for the last couple of decades. Do we need to increase military spending to counter a threat from China? No, because there is no significant military threat.
To be clear, I’m not arguing to reduce military spending, although that is something that seems to be reasonable to consider. I’m only arguing against increases in spending because of these perceived but not credible threats. The ideal solution would be to increase the efficiency of our spending, buying only those things that the military really needs to be effective, and resisting the temptations of pork barrel spending that mainly supports the re-election efforts of individual politicians. That would allow us to reduce our military spending while actually increasing our capabilities.
–Peter
So, back to the point. Do we really need to increase military spending because of the war in Ukraine? No. Do we need to increase military spending to counter the threat from Russia? No. They seem to be less of a threat than we have believed (or been told and willingly swallowed) for the last couple of decades. Do we need to increase military spending to counter a threat from China? No, because there is no significant military threat.>
Peter, the West’s perception that Russia (and others) were not military threat led to MANY years of reduced military expense budgets…which Russia noticed…and then did what they did.
Just because you can’t see China as a threat militarily right now does not mean they can’t be:
Example: 90% of the high-end chip production is in Tawain; wonder how many of our weapon systems use these chips?
Oh! And the Japanese never had any real plans to invade the continental US during WWII. So, by your definition, they must not have been any military threat to the USA in the long term, other than Pearl Harbor, Wake Island and maybe Midway?
The West does not think long-term…most of their enemies/potential enemies do…especially China.
So, I totally disagree with statement above…especially when dealing with totalitarian states.
Hope for the best; prepare for the worst. Every time the West drops it guard, there has been someone who tries to take advantage of it (Hint: See WWII).
You will not convince me, and I will not convince you, so let’s give it a rest.
Cheers!
Murph
The Pentagon is good for business. Why would we cut our economies?
Peter, the West’s perception that Russia (and others) were not military threat led to MANY years of reduced military expense budgets…which Russia noticed…and then did what they did.
And Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is going down in the books as one of the epic military blunders of all time. Despite being vastly outgunned and outnumbered, Ukraine has fought Russia to a standstill mostly with Soviet-era equipment with a small amount of whiz-bang stuff from the West. A lot has been made of the 16 HIMARS which Ukraine has been using with devastating effect. The US has 500 HIMARS, and that’s not counting our NATO allies. The US has 12 carrier battle groups. Russia currently has zero and might not ever have one again. Similarly, Russia invaded with about 180,000 troops. Which is a lot by any measure, but those troops lacked basic equipment like optics, night vision, modern body armor, etc. all of which US and NATO troops have. We have triple the fighter jets with much, much better trained pilots. On and on.
In a straight up war vs. the US/NATO, Russia would get crushed like a bug. There is no way that Putin invaded Ukraine because he thought the West was weak militarily. He thought the West was weak politically.
I think this episode speaks to your point that being prepared is invaluable. This war was won or lost years ago. But the fallacy is that preparedness can be measured in the number of dollars spent. What you spend those dollars on is the important thing. Russian military doctrine has long been quantity over quality. Or as they put it, quantity is quality. And sure enough, they showed up with a huge numerical advantage in everything. But it wasn’t enough because their equipment and troops are garbage. Many people suggest defense spending should be X% of GDP. Nope. Our defense spending should match our defense needs. Our defense needs don’t know anything about GDP.