How Quickly Can the DoD Rebuild and Recast the Munitions Industrial Base?

You are wrong to assume that everyone in that 5% want war.

And what about the soldiers or operations folks that actually carry out the war?

The trouble usually is, that the 95% has a huge portion willing to sacrifice anyone else in the same society they live on for peanuts dropped to them by the 5%! : / (see the Trump effect as a light example) Parasites are everywhere, being rich or poor, they suck out the blood of fellow people.

The share of ignorants (does not move a muscle in any direction) are even bigger than the peanut lovers so a healthy society is a fairytale. The economically stronger eat up the weak still.

I wish I were such a useful idiot that I could just imagine-away incentives in a system so I could more easily create imaginary solutions :(

I think the chatter about corruption in Ukraine is partly a function of the fact that it's democratizing. People don't really talk much about corruption in corrupt countries, not as much as they do in less corrupt countries. Everybody knows it's there; it's a given. But without transparency and a steady flow of concrete data and admitted examples, there's not much to talk about. You just assume such-and-such was a corrupt deal. Only when a country is capable of combating corruption do you see robust, public debates about it, as you see in Ukraine.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/06/world/europe/ukraine-war-...

Any kind of emergency is an opportunity for graft.

P.S. Two separate enquiries found that this was fine because the corrupt scheme was fairly operated according to its corrupt terms of reference. They didn't consider whether the scheme was corrupt per se.

I don't know how people can have such a romantic view. Like read some fictional books on the matter. All quiet on the Western front or Catch 22.

Back cutting and corruption goes rampant and the worst kind of people profiteer while losers are slaughtered.

1. If Zelensky was corrupt, he could've easily sold out the country to either Putin or Trump, both were ready to make him a billionaire and let him keep power if he gave in to their demands. If high level generals were corrupt, Ukraine would have already lost.

2. The proof is in the pudding (battlefield results). The fact that the Ukrainian army has held back the Russian army for almost 5 years now (longer than the Soviet war with Nazi Germany in WW2) against incredible odds means that whatever they are doing is WORKING. And in 2026 the UA army is doing better than ever: has gained territory instead of losing it, and is now striking deep into the heart of Russia with impunity. A corrupt army could NEVER achieve what Ukraine has achieved.

3. The Ukrainian army has never had a high-level whistleblower defection like Prygozhin/Wagner who exposed the corruption in the Russian army.

The first Iowa-class battleships were laid down in 1940 (so after WW2 started but before the US entered the war), and did see active service in the war. The British had two classes of battlecruisers that were laid down in WW1 that saw service in WW1, although they commissioned after the Battle of Jutland, which was essentially the only major naval action of WW1. It's debatable if you want to lump battlecruisers in with battleships, but considering that the main long-lead item of battleships are their guns and battlecruisers are essentially battleship guns on a cruiser, I think it's fair to do that here.

Aircraft carriers are not battleships, but I do think it is worth noting that except for Essex herself, all of the Essex carriers were laid down after the US entry in WW2 and these were the ships that formed the US assault in the Pacific in WW2.

It's basically how Ukraine is doing it, with the EU and the US providing high-end systems while they have hundreds of small companies building drones. Russia also repurposed existing warehouses and factories to pump out hundreds of cheap drones per week relatively quickly.

But the elephant in the room is that they both rely heavily on China for batteries and electronic components, which the US obviously won't choose to do.

They have a miniature Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, and a rotary coded aperture, and a singular or just handful of gas-cooled IR detector devices. Either the aperture, or more commonly the entire telescope, is on a spindle and rotates at high RPM. So imagine one of those palm sized super long focal length camera lens is put onto a disassembled hard drive and the entire thing spinning at the disk drive speed. On models after AIM-9B, either the front group, or again the entire thing, is on a quick responding 2-axis gimbal.

A dot of heat source within view of the seeker, interfering with spinning coded aperture, will create a characteristic pulses and/or beats. The pattern can be half-open half-close disc, an asterisk/sunburst pattern, or a half covered asterisk. And the spindle can be strategically angled, or it can be perfectly straight. Anyhow, the way IR source is interrupted gives the seeker theta and alpha angles by the intervals of the blocker part of aperture passing over it, or the delay between the start of new rotation to the IR spike getting through and whatnot.

(I think this mechanism is where the hallmark Sidewinder grrrrr -> wheeeEeEeEEEEE growl comes from but I don't know...)

A separate flare sensor with filters to mask engine exhaust and focusing on flare spectrum is added, and it is wired to activate a mechanical aperture to limit the view as well as tracking disable signal to the seeker so that the missile flies towards last known direction as long as a flare is in the field of view of the seeker; the field of view is limited to a very narrow cone in the first place, and that is why seekers are built on the Schmidt-Cassegrain system, and extremely rapid tracking allows the seeker to work despite tiny FOV.

And, you know, in this day and age, it could be just a camera. And they in fact use cameras since AIM-9X and on(9X3? 9X4?).

And my point is, the US already uses the GP's suggested strategy of maintaining bare minimum military spending at uneconomical price to be spent on maintaining emergency ramp-up capability, combined with regularly repeated and easily won wars in Central Asia, as well as strict controls of advanced military technologies such as what I described above to slow catch-ups by other players than the US, except it is all out of control, now crippling the US and the Western world itself.

Slap an ESP32CAM on the head of a rocket with a pair of SG90 servos and it'll serve perfectly as a $49 superior substitute to a Stinger guidance block(exaggerating but shouldn't be more than 1.5 digits off). Military technologies and controls on technological proliferation completely missed that, and Stingers are still dumping current on Peltier coolers and spinning those mirror drive systems, genuinely costing thousands to make before bonuses and capped to peacetime rates.

I'm not from the US and I don't identify as an American so maybe I really shouldn't be saying this and I might recall this later in the way some retired American military officials pointing out basic corrective actions to be taken in after the Putin's massive blunder in the Ukrainian invasion - but I think that is the problem that the US military industrial complex is facing, what tech billionaire right wingers were making clumpy half-baked A for effort attempts to fix, and partly why they support what is effectively the destruction of the USA. I think.

I agree, this isn't the cheapest way to develop. I just don't think I'd call it "fraud".

Peace requires policing, a credible deterrent to abuse. On the world's stage, there's no actual hegemon for the planet. You gotta choose who will police by mere "I'm stronger than you". I think the US is the most acceptable police, at least it's an elected democracy with individual freedom at its core.

At the end of the day, a government is whoever is strong enough to prevent the other one from governing: provide protection and services to your people in exchange for being the boss. Roaming bands overthrow each other, still visible in Afghanistan and Syria, and dictate who's effectively Government on a given day in a given area. Who applies the laws, who provides justice, who keeps you safe. Scale that up to modern nations and we look at it as if it was the natural order of things: just stick to you backyard and all will be good. But no, it was never like that and even less so these days: the world is shrinking rapidly.

Can't have peace without deterrence against bad actors. And deterrence doesn't stop only on your turf.

And the US has 11 carriers, not "over a dozen." And we do that to keep world trade flowing because it's good for business, Trumpian idiocy notwithstanding. We have 11 carriers so we can keep about 3 or 4 on patrol at any given time, because that's the level of maintenance and staffing that's required to do that.

The tariffs costing us jobs play well because we’re told we’re making “them” pay, just like we made “them” build the wall.

Half the country has been conditioned to associate ecological and public transit work as woke socialism, and only get emotionally motivated by hurting/punishing whoever “them” is during election season.

The people with enough money to buy media empires will invest whatever it takes to make sure they’re not the next “them.”

Once you can no longer achieve mutual deterrence (perhaps because you are a nation who has a streak/role of engaging in interventionist wars of choice, or maybe you are planning for the case when deterrence fails, and you are now under attack), you have to decide how to protect your assets, if even in a limited way.

An airbase which gets overwhelmed and lost after 5 days of bombardment is an airbase that hopefully was able to contribute 5 days of value to your effort. It's true that the costs will not always work out in your favor.

That is way oversimplified. There are many more factors. Few countries are peer adversaries in the fist place. When your economy is larger you can sustain losses. Interceptors can be scaled up (if they work)...

Also even if interceptors don't work perfectly, they can be good enough. Russia is spending a lot more on drones now that the original Shaheds - Ukraine's interceptors for the first generation is working near perfect and they have the economic advantage over Russia's attempt to overwhelm air defenses. (resulting in higher costs missiles, which Ukraine cannot intercept - but even there Ukraine is working on interceptors because they have no other option - the missiles are coming either way and will do even more economic damage than the cost of an interceptor.

But a few dozen launches removes pretenses like “limited strikes”, which may allow for easier on-ramps. Missile defense can ensure the first step is a full step.

An example is the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Shangani where 5 guns defeated a force of 7000.

However when both sides had the same capabilities, attack became very costly.

The point is, depending on the type of drone, the sheer cost of fighting them off is prohibitive with current interceptor tech (ie anti air missles). In fairness they were designed to attack targets 10x their cost, and take years to build.

For the USA specifically, they have a bunch of bases within range of cheap drones. This means that you need radar/sensor controlled chain guns, or moveable nets to defend cheaply. Its almost time for barrage baloons.

Yet the chronic 'loser' US is somehow the superpower hegemon

And the USA is even losing its hegemony with the Iran war that's causing global pain without global consensus that it was neccessary, but the real loser in the USA is the American taxpayer who gives up domestic social benefits to fund these wars.

Trump was clueless that Iran is 3X to 5X the size of Iraq in whatever dimension you want to measure. Trump did as Trump does and blathered his way to defeat by being totally unprepared. He demonstrated that it is possible for the superpower hegemon to screw things up that badly.

The solution also is not complicated but it's difficult for someone like Trump to accept: unilaterally de-escalate. Then we would have all the money the missile factories would ever need to restock.

Although thinking about how many humans a kill machine is worth is one hell of an idea to ponder

You can't police a multipolar world - you can when you're the sole superpower in a unipolar word where "policing" can be a euphemism.

I think there is now a general or at least generational attitude shift about world policeman type stuff vs smash, grab and bully in America.

The job of the hegemon is to maintain the status quo, proper order. Hegemony, the maritime order, global currency (US dollar), and forever war are inseparable. The cliché "if you want peace, prepare for war." Some low-level, mostly contained, amount of violence is the price for a larger "peace".

Post WWII, the USA did not engage in total war or seek unconditional surrender. Because breaking the equilibrium wrecks hegemony. As demonstrated by GWB's ill-advised conquest of Iraq, which (IMHO) was the deflection point for Pax Americana.

The notion of just war and world cop is mythmaking, rationalization. So the citizens will keep subsidizing the hegemony. (h/t Niall Ferguson) Any notions of justice, human rights, and whatnot were savvy marketing, born of (PR) competition with other hegemons.

As bad as Pax American hegemony has been for all participants, I'm certain we'll look back with nostalgia. In that "What has Rome ever done for us?!" sort of way. The ~70 years of (relative) peace was kind of incredible.

The emerging multi-polar world (and poly-crisis) is more chaotic, violent, and terrible. And will prove ever more so over time.

This is going after the production and distribution of the drugs for the Mexican cartels, but doing so from outside of Mexico.

For minerals, we've sent mercenaries (Erik Prince) to help protect mineral extraction and transport out of places like the DRC (Congo).

We'll probably get some gold out of Venezuela.

WILL BE is key here.

The US had expensive systems because INS and accuracy is expensive without GPS.

GPS will be denied in any future war environment. That's why we stopped work on things like the Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb. It was useless in Ukraine due to GPS denial.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/order-limit-starshield-...

That Starshield was remotely limited is not in dispute, only whether it was just Elon's doing, or at Trump's behest.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M247_Sergeant_York

In the context of a potential civil war, isn't this basically just importing foreign combatants?

People with guns mostly kill themselves, no?

From 2005 to 2025, 730,000-760,000 Americans died from firearms related injuries, including police shootings, gang violence, and accidents, however suicide alone is between 55-60% of those total deaths.

From 2005 to 2025, in Europe, around 1,400,000 Europeans died from heat related deaths. Between 70-80% of that number could have been prevent by having air condition based on data from the National Bureau of Economic Research.