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- Опубликовано: 24 июл 2024
- Trae Stephens, Co-Founder of Anduril and Partner at Founders Fund, joins The Realignment's daily end-of-year coverage to discuss Anduril's mission document: Rebooting the Arsenal of Democracy. Trae and Marshall discuss the defense industrial base vulnerabilities exposed by the war in Ukraine, how technology can deter aggression, and how to address challenges rising from outdated systems to the spiraling defense budget.
This episode is a part of The Realignment's daily end-of-year coverage of the themes and topics that defined 2022.
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0:00 - Introduction
0:37 - Is our military falling behind?
4:25 - Reaction to war in Ukraine
7:06 - What does deterrence mean?
14:14 - America’s manufacturing base
20:35 - How do we upgrade our military technology?
38:24 - How has the recent recession affected military tech firms?
40:54 - The process of developing & implementing military technology
45:00 - Cyberwar
47:09 - Controlling defense budgets
50:23 - What should we do to fix these problems?
Realignment is really hitting home runs with this series of end-of-the-year podcasts.
On the discussion of how being prepared for war is not the same as desiring war, I was reminded of a line from the book A Tenderfoot in Colorado, in which a young Englishman recounted his visit to what is now Wyoming in 1869-70. He asked an old-timer why he carried a gun, and the response he got was (as I recall), "You can go twenty years without needing a gun, but if you ever do need one, you're going to need it powerful bad."
Just say it: "They dont need to start wars because they make more stable profits through deterrence"
As a former defense contractor, I can say the value-add the government gets from a butts-in-seats paradigm of spending is significantly worse than a fixed-cost model.
Corporate PR specialist for the MIC says, "Nobody in the defense industry wants war."
Wasn't McNamara also a complete flop in his over reliance on technology over soft power policy
air force still maintains a fleet of 1950s era B-52 bombers ...
Can you get Alex Karp of Palantir on?
US Army eliminated 3 Sustainment (Logistics) Commands and burned through and did not replace stockpiles of munitions during the GWOT.
I personally remember burning through cheap $2000 TOW missiles like hot cakes but they were replaced by $80,000 Javelins at a fraction of percentile of 1:1 replacement ratio.
This is NOT a technology issue, this is an issue of MASS. We no longer have the depth of MASS we used to or is required. We are woefully deficient in mass of munitions, mass of reserve troops, mass of Armor, mass of spare parts, mass of pre-positioned stockpiles.
This is also an issue of allocating funding. We have spent 33 Billion dollars on IVAS Soldier heads up display, meanwhile I can buy a higher quality rifle at the local Bass Pro and better Combat helmet from OpsCore. We spend mountains of cash chasing “tech” and “revolution” in some technology. Meanwhile, simple upgrades and iterative improvements are pennies on the dollar and yield substantial improvements.
I see your point but is the TOW effect against modern tanks? Considering the modern tanks have ERA blocks specifically designed to protect it. Especially on its frontal and side armour. Secondly, supporting units like IFV and even light utility vehicles are mounted with anti tank.Additional didn't the army command switch direction due to their perceptions of future warfare... Such as high mobility, high technological driven and less traditional conflicts.. this would be more funding on drones, long range, first to see ..
well said
@@nealrutgerskid Short answer, YES, the TOW is more than effective. Most Russian tanks on the battlefield in Ukraine are T-72 (or derivative) and even antique T-64. That is exactly what the TOW was designed for. Moreover, the TOW warhead can be modified for pennies on the dollar to new systems and the example of this is TOW-tandem warhead and TOW-Top Attack. Both will destroy every tank on the planet. Total overkill (the best kind of kill).
The most important part of my comment above is not that Javelin is not needed or that Javelin is bad (it is fantastic), it is that the replacement rate was not 1:1 or even 10:1. These fall in line with the whittling away of our cold war stockpiles and worldwide logistics chain through all of GWOT that was never replaced. But this was not a surprise to anyone. We all saw this coming and did nothing anyway: Example- during the Obama-Hillary war against Libya in 2012, NATO air forces flatly ran out of bombs. We have plenty of "gold plated" capabilities, but we cannot execute those abilities at full scale (e.g. LSCO). Not enough meat or metal.
Mr. Stephans is correct that procurement is broken and that we can and should fix the bloat and rot in all thing procurement related. Likewise, he rightly points out that there has been a wild imbalance in modernization of our military. Some systems are very long in the tooth, while others are bleeding edge. This asymmetry has integration issues of its own.
However, Mr. Stephans is wrong in continuing to pursuit the allure of "technology" has and is currently leading to massive waste in all service programs. This is a failure to learn the lessons of the past and while sounding nice is just a new spin on "more of the same".
Let us not forget those lessons:
-The Navy's Zumwalt class destroyer debacle or the Littoral Combat Ship nightmare,
-DOD camouflage uniform sage and its billions in waste
-US Army Bradley fighting vehicle replacement (Ground Combat Vehicle now OMFV),
-US Army Land Warrior now IVAS system
-US Army / USMC HMMWV (Hummer) replacement with the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) that is too heavy and a Maintenace nightmare.
-USMC V-22 Osprey that keeps crashing
-US Air Force and its disjointed F-35 "Joint" strike fighter development
-Congress failing to authorize the filling of Strategic Petroleum reserve (was only 1/2 full in 2022 compared to what was authorized -but not funded- about a decade ago)
In EVERY SINGLE ONE of these programs there was wild optimism of capital "T" technology being the solution to ALL problems. DOD spent HUNDREDS of BILLIONS for programs that were canceled, for ships whose hulls are cracking just 5 years after launch or rail guns that never worked or Infantry Fighting Vehicles that weighted in excess of 100 tons, or for fighter airplanes that cost 5x what they are replacing to fly and operate, for JLTVs that break while simply parked in a motor pool.
Procurement issues, corporate greed, terrible leadership (no one was fired BTW) and DOD having an unlimited budget (GWOT money) led to lavish spending on General's fever dreams. Defense Contractors intentionally over promised and over sold technology readiness to get the contract and milked DOD for every dollar. No accountability, no investigations, no black balling of defense contractors. Just papering over the problems and returning to the same poisoned well (generals, congressman, corporations, think tanks) for "new" solutions.
And all of this while the obvious solutions, of simple improvements and upgrades, stockpiling good old fashioned "beans and bullets" would be way cheaper and far more effective. Anyone in the DOD knew we had very little in reserve, now we are left scrabbling to fill the gaps but it is far too late and any purchases now are going to be much harder to do and much more expensive than they otherwise would be.
So more of the same "we just need to be more like the mass Soviet army" type thinking?
We are burning lots of ammunition and some older systems in Ukraine fighting Russia. ***That's why we have that ammo and those systems.*** At one time, there were exactly two near-peer rivals we needed to worry about. That expenditure has reduced it to one near-peer. Russia will not be able to reconstitute conventionally for a very long time - if ever. OTOH, NATO has woke up and can help handle any remaining threat for now. This means there will be time to spool up the production of the stuff consumed in Ukraine or, more likely, bring on more advanced replacement systems.
We have also NOT been sending our top-tier products. Yes to HIMARS and no to ATACMS. Yes to NASAMS and no to Patriots. Yes to HARM but no to F-16s. Yes to old APCs but no to modern armor. I understand we had a large number of solid fuel rocket boosters we were simply going to discard that suddenly become useful because Boeing can stick a small diameter guided bomb on the end and shoot them out of GMLRS tubes for a whole new weapon system. Should be available in spring if Uncle Sam goes for it.
If there is a sudden crisis, the US can move faster than people give credit. Boxes get thought outside of. Red tape gets cut, money gets spent, and American industry goes BRRRR.
Then consider the remaining near-peer rival, China. We won't be needing 155 shells and Javelins in that fight. We'll need a navy with missiles and aircraft carriers and submarines. We'll need an air force with state-of-the-art aircraft and missiles and SIGINT and space-based assets. We'll need those Patriots we aren't sending to Ukraine.
I'm not worried about it.