The Awful Arithmetic Of Our Wars

 

"DEFENSE ONE" By Peter W. Singer

"The math of current battlefields remains literally orders of magnitude beyond what our budget plans to spend, our industry plans to build, our acquisitions system is able to contract, and thus what our military will deploy."

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 "At the lowest point of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln characterized the core factor between victory and defeat as finding a general who understood the “awful arithmetic” of war. War is a contest of blood and treasure; each can, and must, ultimately be counted and measured. It has been the same for every conflict before and after. 

Yet this arithmetic is constantly changing, and never faster than right now. If the United States cannot update its calculations to properly reflect our new era, our failure will not just cost us blood and treasure, but will drive us toward defeat.

Cost imposition has long been a tenet of U.S. strategy. During the Cold War, the U.S. launched expensive programs such as stealth and Star Wars not just for their tactical value, but to send a strategic signal to the Kremlin: neither your economy nor your war machine can keep up. Gorbachev, persuaded, gave up the decades-long competition with the U.S. 

The very same concept of cost imposition was also elemental to the most celebrated operations of the past year. In Operation Spider’s Web, Ukraine used inexpensive drones, reportedly costing less than $500 each, to damage strategic bombers worth many millions of dollars, degrading Russia’s long-range strike capabilities for years to come. Similarly, in Operation Rising Lion, cheap Israeli drones took out Iranian surface-to-air missiles and radars, paving the way for the destruction of command and nuclear facilities worth tens of billions of dollars. In each, the tactical became the strategic through new operational concepts that leveraged the new math of new technologies. 

Now contrast this with our own approaches, which overwhelmingly rely on sophisticated but costly overmatch.

The most lauded U.S. operation of 2025 was Operation Midnight Hammer, our followup to Rising Lion. One estimate put its cost at $196 million, from combining B-2 bomber’s nearly $160,000 per flight hour and Tomahawk missiles' rough price of $1.87 million apiece. (It does not count the initial purchase of the seven B-2 Bombers that cost $2.1 billion each, nor the $4.3 billion submarine that launched the missiles.) 

Perhaps it was worth spending one-fifth of a billion dollars to damage Iranian nuclear facilities, but the numbers in Operation Rough Rider—the strikes against the Houthis last spring—illustrate the problem more starkly. The Pentagon spent roughly $5 billion on munitions and operating costs to stop attacks on Red Sea shipping, which simply started back up this month.

The same awful arithmetic haunts the current operations in the Caribbean against the Venezuela-based, government-connected Cartel de los Soles. The entity was recently designated by the Trump administration as a foreign terrorist organization, as part of its argument that US forces are engaged in an “armed conflict.” The cartel was declared by the Department of Justice to be the hub of a cocaine transport network, shipping a reported street value of between $6.25 billion and $8.75 billion in drugs (the cartel gets an unknown, but clearly lesser, percentage of that overall value in actual profit). 

To battle this foe, the United States has assembled a fleet that cost at least $40 billion to buy in total. The carrier Ford alone cost $4.7 billion to develop and $12.9 billion to build. The fleet is backed by at least 83 aircraft of assorted types, including 10 F-35Bs ($109 million apiece), seven Predator drones ($33 million each), three P-8 Poseidons ($145 million per), and at least one AC-130J gunship ($165 million). To be sure, all of these assets will continue to serve long after Operation Southern Spear is wound down, but this is how we are using the investment. 

But the current cost of operations and expendables hardly tells a better story. The Ford alone costs about $8 million a day to run. The F-35s and AC-130J cost about $40,000 per flight hour; the P-8s, about $30,000; the Reapers, about $3,500.

Analysis of the strike videos on the 21 boats show that U.S. forces have fired AGM-176 Griffins ($127,333 apiece in 2019), Hellfires (running about $150,000 to $220,000) and potentially GBU-39B Small Diameter Bombs ($40,000). In some cases, they are reportedly firing four munitions per strike: “twice to kill the crew and twice more to sink it.”

All this is arrayed to sink motorboats, 21 at last report. One of the boats was described by Pentagon officials as a 39-foot Flipper-type vessel with four 200-horsepower engines. New ones go for about $400,000 on Boats.com, but the old, open top motorbots in the videos are obviously well below that in cost. Their crews have been reported as making $500 per trip.

Put in comparison, the cost of the US naval fleet deployed is at least five times what the cartel makes in smuggling. The air fleet deployed costs at least another two times more.  It is roughly 5,000 times the cost of the suspected drug boats that have been destroyed. Indeed, just the cost of operating the Ford off Venezuela for a single day has still not yet equaled the maximum cost the cartel paid for the boats it has lost.

In the air, the U.S. military spent roughly 66,000 times more to buy each unmanned drone in the operation than the cartel paid each man that the unmanned drones killed. The US spent between 80 to 300 times more for each bomb or missile it has used than the cartel paid each man killed by those bombs or missiles. 

The math is arguably even worse when we're on the defense. 

In September, a wave of 19 Russian drones crossed into Polish airspace.. The Gerbera-type drones cost as little as $10,000—so cheap that they are often used as decoys to misdirect and overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses. NATO countered with a half-billion-dollar response force of F-35s, F-16s, AWACS radar planes, and helicopters, which shot down four of the drones with $1.6-million AMRAAM missiles. 

This is a bargain compared to how challenging U.S. forces have found it to defend against Houthi forces using this same cheap tech. Our naval forces have fired a reported 120 SM-2, 80 SM-6, and 20 SM-3 missiles, costing about $2.1 million, $3.9 million, and over $9.6 million each. And this is to defend against a group operating out of the 187th-largest economy in the world, able to fire mere hundreds of drones and missiles. Our supposed pacing challenge, China, has an economy that will soon be the largest in the world and a combined national industrial and military acquisition plan to be able to fire munitions by the millions. 

Even in America’s best-laid plans for future battlefields, there is a harsh reality that is too often ignored. The math of current battlefields remains literally orders of magnitude beyond what our budget plans to spend, our industry plans to build, our acquisitions system is able to contract, and thus what our military will deploy. 

As a point of comparison, Ukraine is on pace to build, buy, and use over four million drones this year. The U.S. Army, meanwhile, aims to acquire 50,000 drones next year—about 1.25 percent of the Ukrainian total. In its most optimistic plans, it hopes to be able to acquire 1 million drones “within the next two to three years.” ​​ 

When you spend orders of magnitude more than your foe, you are in what is known as a “losing equation.” And if we don’t change this math, we will need an update to Norm Augustine’s infamous “law” of defense acquisitions. Back in 1979, Augustine calculated that if the Pentagon couldn’t curtail the cost curve of its purchasing, by 2054 we wouldn’t be able to afford a single plane. 

The 2025 version is that if we don't master the new math of the battlefield, we won’t be able to afford to win a single battle."

The awful arithmetic of our wars

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

 

P.W. Singer is Strategist at New America and the author of multiple books on technology and security, including Wired for War, Ghost Fleet, Burn-In, and LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media.

What It Means To Kill in Combat

 

"DEFENSE ONE"By Phil Zabriskie

"The killing a country does through its soldiers is part of its fabric and identity. The less it is examined, the less a country will know about itself, its impulses, and the impact of what it has trained and dispatched its sons and daughters to do."

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"If a war fails to achieve its stated objectives—as Vietnam did—it can make the reasons for killing even harder to accept. Some recent vets of Iraq and Afghanistan, said the psychiatrist, are already asking, “What was it all for?”

This is not to cast troops who kill in combat as victims. They should carry the weight of what they did. But they should not be forced to carry it alone. Their leadership, from the company level all the way to the Chief of Staff, is part of every killing that’s carried out. So too are the civilian architects of these wars. And the rest of us bear some responsibility as well.

The killing a country does through its soldiers is part of its fabric and identity. The less it is examined, the less a country will know about itself, its impulses, and the impact of what it has trained and dispatched its sons and daughters to do.

A more honest conversation about what war is and what war does is a good place to start. Those who [called] for boots on the ground in Iraq, Syria, or anywhere else, should be first to have it. They should understand and explain exactly what it [means] if troops are deployed, and they should press the military to give its charges tools that not only help them kill when they should, but also how to live with the killing they’ve done later in life.

More counseling must be made available as well, as part of the broader overhaul of the VA, and steps taken to remove the stigma that still exists around seeking help for the psychological wounds of war. And no one should ask a veteran if he or she has killed anybody unless they really want to hear the answer—and are prepared to listen."

What It Means To Kill In Combat

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Phil Zabriskie, a writer living in New York, is the author of The Kill Switch. Previously, he lived and worked throughout Asia and the Middle East, including in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

Small Business Mentoring And Social Networking

"SMALLTOFEDS" By Ken larson "

A 19 year veteran mentor's critical review of 2 major non-profit small business mentoring web sites and the role of social networking

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"SCORE

From 2006 to 2011, I supported SCORE as a volunteer counselor.  During some years I had several hundred clients. The web site was dynamic, fast, easily accessed and fairly simple. 

SCORE is a nonprofit organization and a resource partner of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). The web site operation is run from SCORE HQ in Herndon, Virginia.  Only U.S. Citizens are eligible to participate since it has been heavily funded by SBA government tax dollars.  

SCORE management elected a complicated redesign of the site in 2011. The original design of the site was radically changed.  

I was part of the system conversion test team as a high volume mentor. I warned the conversion team that my tests were failing, I provided detailed data on necessary fixes. The site was rolled out in May of 2011 and crashed.  I moved on to MicroMentor to continue my volunteer work. 

I rejoined SCORE in March of 2019 principally to handle veteran cases referred to SCORE by the SBA.  I continued to conduct my Micromentor volunteer work.

To once again become a SCORE counselor,  I underwent a new member  background check and a two week training program.  I found the ability to see a client profile to whom I was not connected was gone.  SCORE management now screened mentor requests and decided which mentor should get them. 

Every exchange with an entrepreneur is required to be reported by the mentor. The number of hours expended and background provided to the entrepreneur on the content of a conversation is necessary.  A code of ethics training course on conflict interest is required every year for all mentors. 

30% of my clients now come through SCORE. These are mostly veterans and other small businesses who are pursuing small business federal government contracting and small business innovative research programs.

The federal government has recently elected to discontinue funding SCORE. It has had a dramatic impact on the operation of the organization and small business clients.

MicroMentor

MicroMentor is a "Two Way Street" meeting place for entrepreneurs to select a mentor and propose a mentoring relationship and vice versa. I have been a Mentor on MicroMentor for over 13 years, joining the site when the SCORE web site crashed. 

MicroMentor is worldwide NGO. The MicroMentor web site operations are managed at facilities in Portland Oregon. 

Both mentor and entrepreneur can see each other's backgrounds and initiate the process. Thereafter, with no capacity for attachments and a perceived need for privacy by many, the exchange generally moves to email and evolves in a manner the customer support organization does not see.

With the discontinuation of the Mentor Rating feature, MicroMentor site management gets little feedback from entrepreneurs on the quality of the help they have received unless they (the entrepreneur) make a point of commenting by contacting customer support, or  marketing and PR staffs contact individuals entrepreneurs. 

Thus, in its simplest form,  MicroMentor is a bulletin board of individuals who seek help and those who are willing to provide it if they so choose, while looking at each other's profiles.

The MicroMentor Q&A feature is a neat catalyst that promotes exchanges and offers the opportunity to exhibit entrepreneur problems, interests and challenges, as well as mentor knowledge and expertise. It fosters a healthy learning environment in itself by simple observation and allows a human interaction dynamic to occur.

Customer support and control of spamming has been superb. MicroMentor Q&A is a very under-rated feature of the site. 

MicroMentor is international. Participants throughout the world have varying outlooks and skills, based on their culture, customs, values and conditions. 

The natural dynamics of human interaction when a match occurs and when circumstances exist at the time for potential success is where mentoring succeeds. 

The system promotion, volume and reach are its greatest assets in creating the probability that positive mentoring dynamics will occur.  The ability of entrepreneurs and mentors to see one another's backgrounds and communicate directly is a major asset of the site. 

70 % of my client now come through MicroMentor. 40% of those are on the continent of Africa in multiple countries.

Integrated Social Networking 

The vast majority of my cases over the last 19 years have come to me at both SCORE and MicroMentor from social networking on the Web. LinkedIn, in particular, is a vast reservoir of clients and referrals.

3 out of 5 MIcroMentor clients with whom I work already have a profile on LinkedIn when I begin working with them. If they do not, I suggest they create one. In my view,  a LinkedIn individual and company profile is a vital part of any small company marketing plan, since it is the largest professional business web site in the world and it is FREE.

My two blogs, "Rose Covered Glasses" and "Smalltofeds" generate mentorship users as well by referral. Both blogs are free to me  on Google except for a $10 dollar annual fee to own the "Smalltofeds" domain name. That fee has not changed in 17 years.

Were I to recommend any topic for Mentor and Entrepreneur  training, I would suggest social networking guidance. It has been, and will continue to be, the wave of the future. Why Social Network To Promote Your Small Business?

Small Business Mentoring And Social Networking

 

The US Military Has Became A Wal-Mart

“FOREIGN POLICY”  By Rosa Brooks

“Asking warriors to do everything poses great dangers for our country — and the military.

Our armed services have become the one-stop shop for America’s policymakers.

Here’s the vicious circle in which we’ve trapped ourselves: As we face novel security threats from novel quarters — emanating from nonstate terrorist networks, from cyberspace, and from the impact of poverty, genocide, or political repression, for instance — we’ve gotten into the habit of viewing every new threat through the lens of “war,” thus asking our military to take on an ever-expanding range of nontraditional tasks. But viewing more and more threats as “war” brings more and more spheres of human activity into the ambit of the law of war, with its greater tolerance of secrecy, violence, and coercion — and its reduced protections for basic rights.

Meanwhile, asking the military to take on more and more new tasks requires higher military budgets, forcing us to look for savings elsewhere, so we freeze or cut spending on civilian diplomacy and development programs. As budget cuts cripple civilian agencies, their capabilities dwindle, and we look to the military to pick up the slack, further expanding its role.

“If your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” The old adage applies here as well. If your only functioning government institution is the military, everything looks like a war, and “war rules” appear to apply everywhere, displacing peacetime laws and norms. When everything looks like war, everything looks like a military mission, displacing civilian institutions and undermining their credibility while overloading the military.

More is at stake than most of us realize. Recall Shakespeare’s Henry V:

In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man

As modest stillness and humility:

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,

Then imitate the action of the tiger;

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,

Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage… 

In war, we expect warriors to act in ways that would be immoral and illegal in peacetime. But when the boundaries around war and the military expand and blur, we lose our ability to determine which actions should be praised and which should be condemned.

For precisely this reason, humans have sought throughout history to draw sharp lines between war and peace — and between the role of the warrior and the role of the civilian. Until less than a century ago, for instance, most Western societies maintained that wars should be formally declared, take place upon clearly delineated battlefields, and be fought by uniformed soldiers operating within specialized, hierarchical military organizations. In different societies and earlier times, humans developed other rituals to delineate war’s boundaries, from war drums and war sorcery to war paint and complex initiation rites for warriors.

Like a thousand other human tribes before us, we modern Americans also engage in elaborate rituals to distinguish between warriors and civilians: Our soldiers shear off their hair, display special symbols on their chests, engage in carefully choreographed drill ceremonies, and name their weapons for fearsome spirits and totem animals (the Hornet, the Black Hawk, the Reaper). And despite the changes ushered in by the 9/11 attacks, most of us view war as a distinct and separate sphere, one that shouldn’t intrude into our everyday world of offices, shopping malls, schools, and soccer games. Likewise, we relegate war to the military, a distinct social institution that we simultaneously lionize and ignore. War, we like to think, is an easily recognizable exception to the normal state of affairs and the military an institution that can be easily, if tautologically, defined by its specialized, war-related functions.

But in a world rife with transnational terrorist networks, cyberwarriors, and disruptive nonstate actors, this is no longer true. Our traditional categories — war and peace, military and civilian — are becoming almost useless.

In a cyberwar or a war on terrorism, there can be no boundaries in time or space: We can’t point to the battlefield on a map or articulate circumstances in which such a war might end. We’re no longer sure what counts as a weapon, either: A hijacked passenger plane? A line of computer code? We can’t even define the enemy: Though the United States has been dropping bombs in Syria for almost two years, for instance, no one seems sure if our enemy is a terrorist organization, an insurgent group, a loose-knit collection of individuals, a Russian or Iranian proxy army, or perhaps just chaos itself.

We’ve also lost any coherent basis for distinguishing between combatants and civilians: Is a Chinese hacker a combatant? What about a financier for Somalia’s al-Shabab, or a Pakistani teen who shares extremist propaganda on Facebook, or a Russian engineer paid by the Islamic State to maintain captured Syrian oil fields?

When there’s a war, the law of war applies, and states and their agents have great latitude in using lethal force and other forms of coercion. Peacetime law is the opposite, emphasizing individual rights, due process, and accountability.

When we lose the ability to draw clear, consistent distinctions between war and not-war, we lose any principled basis for making the most vital decisions a democracy can make: Which matters, if any, should be beyond the scope of judicial review? When can a government have “secret laws”? When can the state monitor its citizens’ phone calls and email? Who can be imprisoned and with what degree, if any, of due process? Where, when, and against whom can lethal force be used? Should we consider U.S. drone strikes in Yemen or Libya the lawful wartime targeting of enemy combatants or nothing more than simple murder?

When we heedlessly expand what we label “war,” we also lose our ability to make sound decisions about which tasks we should assign to the military and which should be left to civilians.

Today, American military personnel operate in nearly every country on Earth — and do nearly every job on the planet. They launch raids and agricultural reform projects, plan airstrikes and small-business development initiatives, train parliamentarians and produce TV soap operas. They patrol for pirates, vaccinate cows, monitor global email communications, and design programs to prevent human trafficking.

Many years ago, when I was in law school, I applied for a management consulting job at McKinsey & Co. During one of the interviews, I was given a hypothetical business scenario: “Imagine you run a small family-owned general store. Business is good, but one day you learn that Walmart is about to open a store a block away. What do you do?”

“Roll over and die,” I said immediately.

The interviewer’s pursed lips suggested that this was the wrong answer, and no doubt a plucky mom-and-pop operation wouldn’t go down without a fight: They’d look for a niche, appeal to neighborhood sentiment, or maybe get artisanal and start serving hand-roasted chicory soy lattes. But we all know the odds would be against them: When Walmart shows up, the writing is on the wall.

Like Walmart, today’s military can marshal vast resources and exploit economies of scale in ways impossible for small mom-and-pop operations. And like Walmart, the tempting one-stop-shopping convenience it offers has a devastating effect on smaller, more traditional enterprises — in this case, the State Department and other U.S. civilian foreign-policy agencies, which are steadily shrinking into irrelevance in our ever-more militarized world. The Pentagon isn’t as good at promoting agricultural or economic reform as the State Department or the U.S. Agency for International Development — but unlike our civilian government agencies, the Pentagon has millions of employees willing to work insane hours in terrible conditions, and it’s open 24/7.

It’s fashionable to despise Walmart — for its cheap, tawdry goods, for its sheer vastness and mindless ubiquity, and for the human pain we suspect lies at the heart of the enterprise. Most of the time, we prefer not to see it and use zoning laws to exile its big-box stores to the commercial hinterlands away from the center of town. But as much as we resent Walmart, most of us would be hard-pressed to live without it.

As the U.S. military struggles to define its role and mission, it evokes similarly contradictory emotions in the civilian population. Civilian government officials want a military that costs less but provides more, a military that stays deferentially out of strategy discussions but remains eternally available to ride to the rescue. We want a military that will prosecute our ever-expanding wars but never ask us to face the difficult moral and legal questions created by the eroding boundaries between war and peace.

We want a military that can solve every global problem but is content to remain safely quarantined on isolated bases, separated from the rest of us by barbed wire fences, anachronistic rituals, and acres of cultural misunderstanding. Indeed, even as the boundaries around war have blurred and the military’s activities have expanded, the U.S. military itself — as a human institution — has grown more and more sharply delineated from the broader society it is charged with protecting, leaving fewer and fewer civilians with the knowledge or confidence to raise questions about how we define war or how the military operates.

It’s not too late to change all this.

No divine power proclaimed that calling something “war” should free us from the constraints of morality or common sense or that only certain tasks should be the proper province of those wearing uniforms. We came up with the concepts, definitions, laws, and institutions that now trap and confound us — and they’re no more eternal than the rituals and categories used by any of the human tribes that have gone before us.

We don’t have to accept a world full of boundary-less wars that can never end, in which the military has lost any coherent sense of purpose or limits. If the moral and legal ambiguity of U.S.-targeted killings bothers us, or we worry about government secrecy or indefinite detention, we can mandate new checks and balances that transcend the traditional distinctions between war and peace. If we don’t like the simultaneous isolation and Walmartization of our military, we can change the way we recruit, train, deploy, and treat those who serve, change the way we define the military’s role, and reinvigorate our civilian foreign-policy institutions.

After all, few generals actually want to preside over the military’s remorseless Walmartization: They too fear that, in the end, the nation’s over-reliance on an expanding military risks destroying not only the civilian competition but the military itself. They worry that the armed services, under constant pressure to be all things to all people, could eventually find themselves able to offer little of enduring value to anyone.

Ultimately, they fear that the U.S. military could come to resemble a Walmart on the day after a Black Friday sale: stripped almost bare by a society both greedy for what it can provide and resentful of its dominance, with nothing left behind but demoralized employees and some shoddy mass-produced items strewn haphazardly around the aisles.”

How the Pentagon Became Walmart

Military Industiral Complex Warped Priorities

Politicians make no difference.

We have bought into the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) ever since we took on Russia in the Cold WAR.

Through a combination of public apathy and threats by the MIC we have let the SYSTEM get too large. It is now a SYSTEMIC problem and the SYSTEM is out of control.

I am a 2 tour Vietnam Veteran, retired after 36 years of working in the Defense Industrial Complex on many of the weapons systems being used by our forces as we speak.

There is no conspiracy. The SYSTEM has gotten so big that those who make it up and run it day to day in industry and government simply are perpetuating their existence.

The politicians rely on them for details and recommendations because they cannot possibly grasp the nuances of the environment and the BIG SYSTEM.

So, the system has to go bust and then be re-scaled, fixed and re-designed to run efficiently and prudently, just like any other big machine that runs poorly or becomes obsolete or dangerous.

This situation will right itself through trauma. I see a government ENRON on the horizon, with an associated house cleaning.

The next president will come and go along with his appointees and politicos. The event to watch is the collapse of the MIC.

A Formula For U.S. Long Term Strategic Vision

Although by far the most powerful country in the world, the U.S. is suffering from a lack of long term vision. The individual citizen is as much at fault for this condition as the politician or the military industrial complex.

From our relationships with each other and with other countries, from corporate board rooms to Wall Street stock run ups, we must use long term strategic vision in lieu of pursuing short term gains.

Polarization, ignoring environmental and  geopolitical realities, engaging in costly war intrusions, neglecting education/infrastructure and accumulating a $38 Trillion National Debt, heavily mortgaging future generations, are all symptoms of our lack of long term strategic vision.

Geopolitical Realities and the US Role

George Friedman accurately addressed the historical geopolitical state in a recent article:

“To put it simply, a vast swath of the Eurasian landmass (understood to be Europe and Asia together) is in political, military and economic disarray.

Drawing on the recollection of Desert Storm  it was assumed that American power could reshape the Islamic world at will after the US was attacked September 11th, 2001. All power has limits, but the limits of American power were not visible until later in the 2000’s.

At that point two other events intervened.

The first was the re-emergence of Russia as at least a regional power when it invaded Georgia in 2008. [The invasion tactic continued with the Ukraine War]

The other was, of course, the financial crisis. Both combined to define the current situation. [COVID continued the strain on the world economy]

The United States is, by far, the worlds most powerful nation, That does not mean that the United States can — or has an interest to — solve the problems of the world, contain the forces that are at work or stand in front of those forces and compel them to stop. Even the toughest guy in the bar can’t take on the entire bar and win.”

China the Peace Maker 

David Grammig enlightens us in an article in “Geopolitical Monitor “to an alternative to war and debt laden international finance being practiced by the Chinese:

“Geopolitical calculations are as much a reason for this 2-trillion-dollar project as economic ones.

The OBOR project represented one of China’s new overarching foreign policy goals, and it demonstrated a willingness and ability to challenge old power structures, especially in Central Asia and the Middle East.

The Silk Road, or OBOR project, aimed at creating an enormous economic bloc and fostering trade, cultural exchange, political collaboration, and military cooperation among its members – under Chinese domination. [ The recent military competition against U.S. interests and associated weapons buildup by China with threats to Taiwan served as a diversion from China’s overarching foreign policy goals through the Silk Road Project]

An obvious competitor against Russia’s Eurasian Union and India’s Act East and Connect Central Asia initiatives, the OBOR project had many Central Asian and Middle Eastern states justifiably worried of being caught up in a race for dominance in the region, producing somewhat cautious reactions to China’s big plans. Yet, some countries in the region – even those torn by sectarian conflict – may still be inclined to step into a new age due to China’s vast investments and its associated desire to protect its economic engagements.

The United States and its military interventions on the other hand, which aimed at securing political influence and protecting economic interests, bore no sustainable fruits and have led to growing instability in the region. Furthermore, US policy in the Middle East yielded anti-American resentment in the public and political spheres.

China’s approach, however, will most likely not lead to demonstrations, burning flags, and attacks against its embassies, because it will not be seen as a war-mongering imperialistic force, giving itself a chance to establish itself as a partner whose outstretched hand is worth taking.”

The US Market Mirage 

Rana Foroohar demonstrates in Time Magazine how the folly of short term thinking often drives poor investment in the stock market when assessing the value of companies:

“One of the hardest-dying ideas in economics is that stock price accurately reflects the fundamental value of a given firm. It’s easy to understand why this misunderstanding persists: price equals value is a simple idea in a complex world. But the truth is that the value of firms in the market and their value within the real economy are, as often as not, disconnected. In fact, the Street regularly punishes firms hardest when they are making the decisions that most enhance their real economic value, causing their stock price to sink.

There are thousands of examples I could cite, but here’s a particularly striking one: the price of Apple stock fell roughly 25% the year it introduced the iPod. The technology that would kick-start the greatest corporate turnaround in the history of capitalism initially disappointed, selling only 400,000 units in its debut year, and the company’s stock reflected that. Thankfully, Steve Jobs didn’t give a fig. He stuck with the idea, and today nine Apple i Devices are sold somewhere in the world every second.  CEOs, who are paid mostly in stock and live in fear of being punished by the markets, race to hit the numbers rather than simply making the best decisions for their businesses long term. One National Bureau of Economic Research study found that 80% of executives would forgo innovation-generating spending if it meant missing their quarterly earnings figures.

Nobody–not Economists, not CEOs and not policymakers–thinks that’s good for real economic growth. Yet the markets stay up because of the dysfunctional feedback loops. Eventually, of course, interest rates will rise, money won’t be cheap anymore, and markets will go back down. None of it will reflect the reality on the ground, for companies or consumers, any more than it did during the boom times.”

Achieving Strategic Vision

From the above analysis by experts, it is apparent that the US is in dire need of strategic vision.  To achieve it we must:

Face  environmental, geopolitical and economic realities, stop war interventions and invest in relationships within and without our country by offering mutual collaboration.

Cease dwelling on threat and build long term infrastructure, education and international development.  The threats will melt away.

Invest for the long term at the stock holder, company and  national levels based on a strategy dealing with present day and long term challenges in education, communication and society value transitions.

Elect a Congress and an Administration that knows how to strike a balance between long and short term actions. We must then let them know what we think regularly by communicating with them.

Know that most cultures and societies in upheaval today are watching our national model and choosing whether or not to support it, ignore it or attack it.

The Road To A $1 Trillion U.S. Defense Budget

“NATIONAL SECURITY JOURNAL” By Brent M. Eastwood

“A trillion here and a trillion there. Pretty soon, you are talking about…a big problem. That is the projected defense budget cost in the coming years—a cool one trillion—and perhaps even more.“

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“In 2022, the defense budget was still only 3 percent of GDP. During the Cold War, it was much higher. So, comparing the level of spending to the size of the economy is a different way to look at it.

But that top-level number is certainly eye-watering.

Even though the United States is not currently in a major shooting war, it is still confronted by the growth of great power and rising power rivalries with China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, plus contingencies in the Middle East. That means more spending is required to keep up.

Let’s examine the reasons for high costs and where the U.S. defense budget could be headed in the years to come, especially in the era of great power competition.

Major Defense Hardware Programs Are What People Criticize the Most

Most people associate defense spending with expensive major-end items, and these are budget busters. Existing programs like the F-35 have been a money pit. New toys such as the B-21 Raider stealth bomber, the newfangled Next-generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter, and the Ford-class aircraft carrier are costly. All acquisition programs cost $146 billion in 2023.

Personnel Costs Are Rampant

Other costs that are not readily apparent are personnel costs for the U.S. military uniformed service and the civilian service for the Pentagon. Salaries are expensive. Healthcare costs for active duty personnel and their families are out of this world. Retirement pensions also have heavy sunken costs in the budget. That’s a total of $184 billion a year and rising.

Parochial Interest Over Defense Jobs and Economic Development

The United States is also doing what it hasn’t done since the Cold War: bringing on new weapons, funding legacy systems, and spending more on research and development—all at once.

Something has to give because congressional lawmakers and politicians of all stripes want defense jobs in their neighborhoods, and that means continued spending on all of the above.

Overseas Operations Are Not Cheap

The Pentagon has other costs. There is a sprawling number of overseas installations and bases, plus new base construction and sustainability on our continent. There is an unending supply of money that goes to special operations forces. There is maintenance of existing weapons. Let’s round up and call that around $55 billion.

Ammunition, missiles, and bombs are expensive. Peacekeeping operations and disaster relief are also part of the budget equation.

Funding Allies for Their Wars

We may not be fighting any major wars, but allies are. Tens of billions of dollars have gone to Ukraine for its war against Russia. Money goes out the door to Israel to fight its war against Hamas. Funds are also required to help Egypt with its defense forces, plus aid to several other countries. The estimated cost is $100 billion.

What to Do With Old Hardware and Ammunition?

Other costs that people don’t consider are destroying old equipment, storing out-of-date hardware, and placing retired airplanes in a “Boneyard” in Arizona. All of this costs money.

This totals $916 billion in 2023, or 13 percent of the federal budget. That’s twice as much as all of the NATO countries and 40 percent of all spending worldwide. In a few years, it seems sure we will top over $1 trillion.

Cutting the Budget? How?

Where can the United States cut the budget? You may have noticed that I am a military analyst who is often in love with big-ticket military hardware. I can find a reason to fund numerous new programs and sustain legacy weapons. So, I’m probably guilty on the defense acquisition side for an advocate to plus-up spending.

Nobody wants to cut the pay of active-duty or reserve forces. All earn their healthcare, housing, and retirement pensions, and there is no political will to change that. Look for personnel costs to increase every year.

To be a world leader, the United States needs to maintain a forward presence worldwide. Treaties require some of this, such as the need for bases in South Korea, like the sprawling Camp Humphreys, which houses a big part of the American presence on the peninsula.

Military R&D Is Important Too

We need research and development, not only for the future of the military but also to sustain the defense industrial base that has spawned great dual-use technological transformations and seed funding for GPS and the Internet.

Many Watchdogs Already Exist

How about cutting waste, fraud, and abuse or ending bad acquisition systems?

Federal government agencies such as the Defense Contract Management Agency and the Government Accountability Office already closely monitor most defense programs. Congress, nonprofits, think tanks, and the defense media also monitor potential overspending.

With the 24/7 internet-driven press oversight and social media, there are few secrets about defense wastefulness and many watchful eyes to shine a light on problems. One could argue that programs should be eliminated early, such as the terrible U.S. Littoral Combat Ship or the questionable V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft. But these cancellations would not make much of a difference in the overall budget.

Can the United States Back off on Equipment?

A group of non-profits and think tanks are calling for more restraint in foreign policy and fighting American overreach in defense spending. But they have difficulty breaking through the noise in Washington, DC, with so many other domestic problems that need solutions.

The Defense Train Keeps Chugging Along

So, the defense train is almost unstoppable. We are in for a penny and in for a pound nowadays. Don’t look for Republicans and Democrats to cut military spending that much. The price is too baked into the system. We are going to see trillion-dollar defense budgets in the coming years, and most people will not even notice. The Federal Reserve Bank can continue to print money to fund the defense budget, and a high deficit is not enough to scare the public off from supporting or ignoring more defense spending. Buckle in for a bumpy ride.”

About the Author: Dr. Brent M. Eastwood

Brent M. Eastwood, PhD, is the author of Don’t Turn Your Back On the World: a Conservative Foreign Policy and Humans, Machines, and Data: Future Trends in Warfare, plus two other books. Brent was the founder and CEO of a tech firm that predicted world events using artificial intelligence. He served as a legislative fellow for U.S. Senator Tim Scott and advised the senator on defense and foreign policy issues. He has taught at American University, George Washington University, and George Mason University. Brent is a former U.S. Army Infantry officer. He can be followed on X @BMEastwood.   

12 Names on a Wall in Washington D.C. Forgotten By Many But Not By Me

PLEASE CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

VETERANS DAY - 11 NOVEMBER 2025

To those who died serving USAECAV  Countrywide  

http://thewall-usa.com/ 

  Database of the 58,195 Names on The Wall in Washington D.C. This is the most accurate database online.

 

For Veterans Day 2025 – What Can Be Learned To Avoid Future ‘Walls Of Faces'?

Vietnam War Wall of Faces

 

Our active duty military soldiers are the best in the world to defend us if war occurs.  They cannot defend against the financial influence and political weight of the largest military industrial complex in world history.  Managing  that threat is the voters job. 

What I have learned in two combat tours and 36 years in the weapons systems business is that someone different than I may not have the same value system as I possess, but by learning from them I will be able to make distinctions between my values and theirs. 

That permits me to consider accepting the differences between us without prejudice, communicate with them and move forward on common objectives.All wars eventually result in negotiated settlements. Avoiding them by learning and negotiation in the first place is the most effective war weapon and by far the least costly in materials, debt and lives. 

As a participant in warfare and weapons over the last half century I have learned a considerable amount about

TWO MAJOR DRIVING FACTORS IN OUR RECENT WAR HISTORY

FACTOR 1 - GOVERNMENT CONTRACTOR  MOTIVES:

The motives of the U.S. Military Industrial Complex (MIC) and The US Agency for International Development (USAID) contractors fostered continuing wars. Continued wars net billions in sales of weapons and massive construction and redevelopment dollars for contracting companies.

It is common knowledge that many of these corporations spend more each year in lobbying costs than they pay in taxes and pass exorbitant overhead and executive pay costs on to the tax payer, thus financing the riches of their operating personnel while remaining marginally profitable to stockholders.

I watched this from the inside of many of these companies for 36 years. You can read my dissertation on the subject at:

Odyssey of Armaments | Ken Larson - Academia.edu

Here is an example of how the lobbying and behind the scenes string-pulling worked during the run up and the conduct of the war incursion into Iraq: 

CorpWatch : US: Lockheed Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

DRIVING FACTOR 2 - LACK OF CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING 

There has been a  complete lack of cultural understanding between U.S. decision makers and the cultures they have been trying to "Assist" by nation building. 

The only real cultural understanding that existed during the period was in the person of General Schwarzkopf who spent much of his youth in the Middle East with his father, an ambassador to Saudi Arabia. He was fascinated by the Arab culture, commanded their respect and, like Eisenhower, led a successful coalition during the first Gulf War to free Kuwait.  

He astutely recommended no occupation of Iraq, went home and stayed out of government. Norman, like General Eisenhower, knew the power of the MIC. 

Eisenhower's Departing Speech

U.S Tax payers funded billions in USAID and construction projects in Iraq. The money was wasted due to a lack of cultural understanding, waste,  fraud and abuse. The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) has documented that aspect of the Iraq war history, as well as similar motives and abuses in Afghanistan. 

POGO on Iraq

We now have history repeating itself - much like Vietnam, the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan and now the Gaza conflict, the above two factors are deeply at play as we look back over our shoulder.

We must come to the understanding, like a highly respected war veteran and West Point instructor has, that military victory is dead:

“Victory’s been defeated; it’s time we recognized that and moved on to what we actually can accomplish."

Military Victory is Dead

Frank Spinney is an expert on the MIC. He spent the same time I did on the inside of the Pentagon while I worked Industry. You may find his interviews informative.

Inside the Pentagon: 30-Year Insider Chuck Spinney

THE INESCAPABLE CONCLUSIONS:  

The two major war making factors discussed here have been in play from Vietnam, the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine and now to the continued Middle East bedlam. 

Political and military values on both sides of a world conflict collide when governments and weapons makers treasure the economic windfalls in collective military industrial technology and refuse to negotiate. Soldiers and civilians then die. 

Our near term future as a country involves weighty decisions regarding our fiscal and national security.  There will be trade-offs. We have now exceeded a National Debt of $38 Trillion with a downgraded fiscal credit rating while carrying the financial burden of ongoing support for NATO and the Ukraine war, the Middle East Gaza conflict, as well as domestic program needs. 

 A look over our shoulder at the two driving factors in our recent warfare is useful when viewing our future while making prudent decisions regarding our future financial and defense security. Every U.S. citizen from the individual voter to the politician must consider them. 

Effective negotiation must involve learning the other party's values, not simply the perceived threat they represent to us because we do not know them.

From the neighborhood to the boardroom, from the statehouse to the Congress, we would do well to learn more about those different from us before we fight.