Obama's War Machine for the 21st Century

[Admiral Yi]

I think it's time to start cutting uniformed military pay and benefits.

[The Minsky Moment]

Well as Otto has mentioned and i think most people here would agree, the bureaucracy is a huge challenge to overcome to get cost effective weapons programs into the hands of the military; he'll maybe that's the US military greatest challenge, rather than as you say the unknowns of the future.

The campaign to crack down on Pentagon waste and inefficiency has been going on since the five walls first went up in the 40s.  It would be nice if big savings could be wrung of it.  Just like it would be nice to have peace between Israelis and Palestinians, or workable nuclear fusion.  I'm all for the effort but practical, real world planning does not permit assuming such conjectural savings.

[mongers]

Rather than outlining specific war fighting plans or guessing likely scenarios of future conflicts, why doesn't the US decide what sort of conflicts it's willing to fight vs the probably costs involved ?

So my outline would be this:

1. maintain naval dominance of all oceans and be able to concentrate forces to control any sea or coastal regions for extended periods of time.

2. Don't fight new land wars on the Asian mainland, unless it's an existing commitment that's can be mostly limited in it's geographic scope ie defending S.Korea.

3. Maintain amphibious forces so as to be able to seize and hold significant sections of an enemies coastal regions for an extended period.

4. Avoid all conflicts that require or end up evolving into a multi-year occupations / pacifications of an asian state.

5. Maintain nuclear parity or deterrents with/against Russia and China.

6. Keep a sufficiently large technologically advanced air force to be able to gain air superiority over nearly all other combinations of states across most of the earth's airspace, thus enabling the application of tactical air power to overcome most numerical disadvantages in any supported land war of limited scope.

Well that's a start anyway. 

[mongers]

Well as Otto has mentioned and i think most people here would agree, the bureaucracy is a huge challenge to overcome to get cost effective weapons programs into the hands of the military; he'll maybe that's the US military greatest challenge, rather than as you say the unknowns of the future.

The campaign to crack down on Pentagon waste and inefficiency has been going on since the five walls first went up in the 40s.  It would be nice if big savings could be wrung of it.  Just like it would be nice to have peace between Israelis and Palestinians, or workable nuclear fusion.  I'm all for the effort but practical, real world planning does not permit assuming such conjectural savings.

Come on, I think there is some possibility of peace in Israel/Palestine and fusion has to work eventually doesn't it ?

[The Brain]

Well as Otto has mentioned and i think most people here would agree, the bureaucracy is a huge challenge to overcome to get cost effective weapons programs into the hands of the military; he'll maybe that's the US military greatest challenge, rather than as you say the unknowns of the future.

The campaign to crack down on Pentagon waste and inefficiency has been going on since the five walls first went up in the 40s.  It would be nice if big savings could be wrung of it.  Just like it would be nice to have peace between Israelis and Palestinians, or workable nuclear fusion.  I'm all for the effort but practical, real world planning does not permit assuming such conjectural savings.

Come on, I think there is some possibility of peace in Israel/Palestine and fusion has to work eventually doesn't it ?

How exactly would fusion power work?

[mongers]

Well as Otto has mentioned and i think most people here would agree, the bureaucracy is a huge challenge to overcome to get cost effective weapons programs into the hands of the military; he'll maybe that's the US military greatest challenge, rather than as you say the unknowns of the future.

The campaign to crack down on Pentagon waste and inefficiency has been going on since the five walls first went up in the 40s.  It would be nice if big savings could be wrung of it.  Just like it would be nice to have peace between Israelis and Palestinians, or workable nuclear fusion.  I'm all for the effort but practical, real world planning does not permit assuming such conjectural savings.

Come on, I think there is some possibility of peace in Israel/Palestine and fusion has to work eventually doesn't it ?

How exactly would fusion power work?

You're in the 'business', you tell us if it's practical or not.

[Ideologue]

Don't listen to Brain.  He's got a fissile bias.

(Although fusion's got some serious issues.  Generating and maintaining sufficient temperatures and pressures is a huge problem; so is neutron flux from D-T and D-D fusion processes; He-3 is aneutronic but isn't plentiful enough on Earth--and yields less eV per reaction as well iirc.)

[Richard Hakluyt]

"Nuclear power? No thanks!" bumper stickers always had a picture of a gigantic fusion reactor on them............curious.......

[The Brain]

Well as Otto has mentioned and i think most people here would agree, the bureaucracy is a huge challenge to overcome to get cost effective weapons programs into the hands of the military; he'll maybe that's the US military greatest challenge, rather than as you say the unknowns of the future.

The campaign to crack down on Pentagon waste and inefficiency has been going on since the five walls first went up in the 40s.  It would be nice if big savings could be wrung of it.  Just like it would be nice to have peace between Israelis and Palestinians, or workable nuclear fusion.  I'm all for the effort but practical, real world planning does not permit assuming such conjectural savings.

Come on, I think there is some possibility of peace in Israel/Palestine and fusion has to work eventually doesn't it ?

How exactly would fusion power work?

You're in the 'business', you tell us if it's practical or not.

It's not practical in any meaningful sense of the word.

[The Brain]

Don't listen to Brain.  He's got a fissile bias.

(Although fusion's got some serious issues.  Generating and maintaining sufficient temperatures and pressures is a huge problem; so is neutron flux from D-T and D-D fusion processes; He-3 is aneutronic but isn't plentiful enough on Earth--and yields less eV per reaction as well iirc.)

Fusion has a number of great applications. Power just isn't one of them.

[Admiral Yi]

Don't listen to Brain.  He's got a fissile bias.

(Although fusion's got some serious issues.  Generating and maintaining sufficient temperatures and pressures is a huge problem; so is neutron flux from D-T and D-D fusion processes; He-3 is aneutronic but isn't plentiful enough on Earth--and yields less iirc.)

Just patch in the phaser array to the lightspeed drive and perform a manual override.

[Ideologue]

It is practical if you can generate sufficient pressure to ignite a self-sustaining fusion process.

You only need a billion trillion trillion kilograms of hydrogen.  Then you're all set.  No special training required to operate.

[Ideologue]

Don't listen to Brain.  He's got a fissile bias.

(Although fusion's got some serious issues.  Generating and maintaining sufficient temperatures and pressures is a huge problem; so is neutron flux from D-T and D-D fusion processes; He-3 is aneutronic but isn't plentiful enough on Earth--and yields less eV per reaction as well iirc.)

Fusion has a number of great applications.

Such as increasing the neutron flux within a uranium casing?

[The Brain]

Don't listen to Brain.  He's got a fissile bias.

(Although fusion's got some serious issues.  Generating and maintaining sufficient temperatures and pressures is a huge problem; so is neutron flux from D-T and D-D fusion processes; He-3 is aneutronic but isn't plentiful enough on Earth--and yields less eV per reaction as well iirc.)

Fusion has a number of great applications.

Such as increasing the neutron flux within a uranium casing?

I was gonna go straight to Moscow, Tehran, Mecca, Peking...

[CountDeMoney]

Since I'm not in the DoD anymore I can say that probably more than any other government agency it is in serious need of better financial reporting and oversight systems. There's just too many different spending ideologies, I genuinely think you could reduce the budget of the DoD by 1/3rd and still maintain all of the military's current capabilities if you streamlined things.

Hell, revamping the entire contractor and sub-contractor model alone would probably solve a substantial portion of budget issue.