Tag: military industrial complex

The US Military Is Laying the Groundwork to Reinstitute the Draft

The most recent edition of the US Army War College’s academic journal includes a highly disturbing essay on what lessons the US military should take away from the continuing war in Ukraine. By far the most concerning and most relevant section for the average American citizen is a subsection entitled “Casualties, Replacements, and Reconstitutions” which, to cut right to the chase, directly states, “Large-scale combat operations troop requirements may well require a reconceptualization of the 1970s and 1980s volunteer force and a move toward partial conscription.”

An Industrial War of Attrition Would Require Vast Numbers of Troops

The context for this supposed need to reinstate conscription is the estimate that were the US to enter into a large-scale conflict, every day it would likely suffer thirty-six hundred casualties and require eight hundred replacements, again per day. The report notes that over the course of twenty years in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US suffered fifty thousand casualties, a number which would likely be reached in merely two weeks of large-scale intensive combat.

The military is already facing an enormous recruiting shortfall. Last year the army alone fell short of its goal by fifteen thousand soldiers and is on track to be short an additional twenty thousand this year. On top of that, the report notes that the Individual Ready Reserve, which is composed of former service personnel who do not actively train and drill but may be called back into active service in the event they are needed, has dropped from seven hundred thousand in 1973 to seventy-six thousand now.

Prior to the Ukraine war, the fad theory in military planning was the idea of “hybrid warfare,” where the idea of giant state armies clashing on the battlefield requiring and consuming vast amounts of men and material was viewed as out of date as mass cavalry charges. Instead, these theorists argued that even when states did fight, it would be via proxies and special operations and would look more like the past twenty years of battling nonstate actors in the hills of Afghanistan. In a recent essay in the Journal of Security Studies, realist scholar Patrick Porter documents the rise of this theory and the fact that it is obviously garbage given the return of industrial wars of attrition.

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Unique Chevy Suburban Command Vehicle Delivered To Military

Ahighly customized stretched Chevy Suburban mobile command vehicle was recently delivered to U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM). The modified sport utility vehicle features a robust and secure communications suite. It looks set to join a U.S. military task force that is primarily on call to help respond to domestic nuclear, chemical, and biological attacks and other incidents.

Accelerated Media Technologies (AMT) issued a statement earlier this month about the delivery and provided additional details about the “mobile command center” vehicle for U.S. Northern Command. The Auburn, Massachusetts-based company offers a variety of customized SUVs and trucks intended for military forces and law enforcement agencies, as well as mobile television broadcast vehicles.

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F-35 Stealth Fighter Only Mission Capable About Half The Time, Government Report Finds

A new government report has found that U.S. F-35 fighter jets are only ready for a mission about half of the time, with the remaining time spent awaiting maintenance.

On Thursday, the the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a report (pdf) which concluded that the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter, was only mission capable about 50 percent of the time for the A and B variants and 57 percent for the C variant of the fighter. These mission capability rates, the GAO report states, are “far below program goals” of 90 percent for the F-35A variant and 85 for the B and C variants.

The F-35—which is operated by the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps, as well as a host of U.S. allies—is one of the most advanced systems in Western arsenals. The 5th Generation fighter jet is made with an array of special radar-absorbent materials and other “stealth” features. The multirole fighter jet boasts capabilities for a range of different mission types, and the F-35B variant operated by the Marine Corps has unique short take-off and vertical landing capabilities.

The F-35 is also one of the most expensive systems in Western arsenals. The U.S. Department of Defense has estimated the F-35 program will cost the department about $1.7 trillion over its life cycle. A majority of this estimated lifetime cost, $1.3 trillion, is expected to go toward maintenance. The GAO said it conducted this latest sustainment study of the F-35 in part because of this high program cost.

Contributing to this low mission capability rate, the GAO report concluded the F-35 program is heavily reliant on contractors for maintenance work and the DOD has been slow to take over the program’s responsibilities.

The GAO report said the DOD is still working to determine the right balance of government and outside contractor roles to sustain the F-35 program going forward. The DOD also lacks both the technical data and training to support its desired program sustainment model.

While the GAO report identifies challenges with the F-35 program, it also describes an opportunity to overhaul the program to both bring down costs and improve the maintenance process that drags on it.

“The military services must take over management of F35 sustainment by October 2027 and have an opportunity to make adjustments—specifically to the contractor-managed elements,” the report states. “Reassessing its approach could help DOD address its maintenance challenges and reduce costs.”

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PENTAGON’S BUDGET IS SO BLOATED THAT IT NEEDS AN AI PROGRAM TO NAVIGATE IT

AS TECH LUMINARIES like Elon Musk issue solemn warnings about artificial intelligence’s threat of “civilizational destruction,” the U.S. military is using it for a decidedly more mundane purpose: understanding its sprawling $816.7 billion budget and figuring out its own policies.

Thanks to its bloat and political wrangling, the annual Department of Defense budget legislation includes hundreds of revisions and limitations telling the Pentagon what it can and cannot do. To make sense of all those provisions, the Pentagon created an AI program, codenamed GAMECHANGER. 

“In my comptroller role, I am, of course, the most excited about applying GAMECHANGER to gain better visibility and understanding across our various budget exhibits,” said Gregory Little, the deputy comptroller of the Pentagon, shortly after the program’s creation last year. 

“The fact that they have to go to such extraordinary measures to understand what their own policies are is an indictment of how they operate,” said William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and expert on the defense budget. “It’s kind of similar to the problem with the budget as a whole: They don’t make tough decisions, they just layer on more policies, more weapons systems, more spending. Between the Pentagon and Congress, they’re not really getting rid of old stuff, they’re just adding more.”

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Mold, raw sewage, brown tap water found in US barracks

Government investigators found mold, gas leaks, brown tap water, and broken sewage pipes in U.S. military barracks despite record-high Pentagon spending, according to a major report released by the Government Accountability Office on Tuesday.

“We found that living conditions in some military barracks may pose potentially serious risks to the physical and mental health of service members, as well as their safety,” the GAO reported, noting that the conditions also impact troop readiness.

The independent investigation paints a shocking picture of the conditions at U.S. military barracks, which all enlisted service members must live in at the start of their military careers. As GAO notes, the problem is far from new. The watchdog issued several reports in the early 2000s that found widespread safety issues in barracks across the world, and conditions appear to have gotten worse in the intervening years.

The scathing report linked the poor conditions in barracks to the military’s ongoing issues with recruitment. “Thousands of service members come through this base for training every year and live in these barracks,” an anonymous enlisted officer told the GAO. “They go home and tell their friends and family not to join the military because of living conditions.”

GAO wrote that, as of last year, there was a $137 billion backlog of deferred maintenance costs for Pentagon facilities. Barracks and other “lower-priority facilities” are “chronically neglected and experience increased deterioration,” the report notes. The impressive sum represents a fraction of current military spending, which is set to reach $886 billion next year.

Investigators, who visited 10 barracks and held focus groups with service members, recommended 31 policy changes to increase oversight of the facilities and improve living conditions for service members. The Pentagon endorsed most of the suggestions and noted several cases in which efforts were already underway to address them.

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US authorities ask locals for help in finding missing F-35 jet

A stealth-capable US fighter jet has vanished during flight, prompting an unusual call to the public to help locate the missing multimillion-dollar plane.

After what US authorities labelled as a “mishap”, the pilot flying that F-35 in the southeastern state of South Carolina on Sunday ejected. He survived and was taken to hospital where he was in stable condition.

The pilot’s name has not been released.

The military, however, was left with an expensive problem: it couldn’t find the jet, leading Joint Base Charleston to ask for help from residents.

“If you have any information that may help our recovery teams locate the F-35, please call the Base Defense Operations Center,” a post from the base read on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Base authorities said they were searching in coordination with federal aviation regulators around two lakes north of Charleston city.

A South Carolina Law Enforcement Division helicopter also joined the search after weather improved in the area.

The pilot of a second F-35 returned safely to Joint Base Charleston.

The planes and pilots were with the Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501 based in Beaufort, not far from South Carolina’s Atlantic coast.

The planes, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, cost about $80m each.

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The Inside Story of How the Navy Spent Billions on the “Little Crappy Ship”

It took investigators months to unravel the mystery of the engine’s breakdown. But this much was clear at the outset: The Freedom’s collapse was another unmistakable sign that the Navy had spent billions of dollars and more than a decade on warships with rampant and crippling flaws.

The ongoing problems with the LCS have been well documented for years, in news articles, government reports and congressional hearings. Each ship ultimately cost more than twice the original estimate. Worse, they were hobbled by an array of mechanical failures and were never able to carry out the missions envisaged by their champions.

ProPublica set out to trace how ships with such obvious shortcomings received support from Navy leadership for nearly two decades. We reviewed thousands of pages of public records and tracked down naval and shipbuilding insiders involved at every stage of construction.

Our examination revealed new details on why the LCS never delivered on its promises. Top Navy leaders repeatedly dismissed or ignored warnings about the ships’ flaws. One Navy secretary and his allies in Congress fought to build more of the ships even as they broke down at sea and their weapons systems failed. Staunch advocates in the Navy circumvented checks meant to ensure that ships that cost billions can do what they are supposed to do.

Contractors who stood to profit spent millions lobbying Congress, whose members, in turn, fought to build more ships in their home districts than the Navy wanted. Scores of frustrated sailors recall spending more time fixing the ships than sailing them.

Our findings echo the conclusions of a half-century of internal and external critiques of America’s process for building new weapons systems. The saga of the LCS is a vivid illustration of how Congress, the Pentagon and defense contractors can work in concert — and often against the good of the taxpayers and America’s security — to spawn what President Dwight D. Eisenhower described in his farewell address as the “military industrial complex.”

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Real threat to world is the nation encircling the planet with its military bases

In the eyes of some Westerners, China is accused of posing a “systematic challenge” to the “world order.” However, failing to specifically articulate this challenge or threat, many across the West resort to citing a list of fabricated claims regarding China’s internal political affairs including the status of the island of Taiwan as well as pointing toward territorial disputes in the South China Sea. 

While the West often depicts these territorial disputes as exclusively between China and the rest of the region, omitted is the fact that all other claimants in the region also have disputes with each other. Despite the sometimes heated nature of these disputes, these nations still maintain close ties with one another and with China, revealing this as an excuse rather than a genuine reason to label China as the biggest threat to global security and prosperity.

While Western leaders struggle to justify labeling China as a challenge or threat, the collective West led by the US has participated in the worst acts of aggression of the 21st century. The US, for example, led an invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. This was followed by a bloody occupation that spanned two decades ending only as recently as 2021. 

In 2003, the US yet again led the West into an act of unprovoked military aggression, this time against Iraq. The war resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. US troops remain in a deeply divided and destabilized Iraq to this day. 

In 2011, a US-led attack against the Libyan government destroyed, destabilized and divided Libya. One of the enduring outcomes of the war is modern-day slavery including slave auctions flourishing in the failed state, as US-based Time Magazine reported in 2019. 

In just the 21st century alone, the US and its allies have cut a swath of death and destruction from North Africa to Central Asia, killing hundreds of thousands and displacing or otherwise disrupting the lives of tens of millions. The instability the US has sown globally has created a climate of insecurity as weapons the US surges into proxy wars, including now in Ukraine, are finding their way to battlefields elsewhere around the globe. 

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US OKs First-Ever Foreign Military Financing Arms Package for Taiwan

The Biden administration has approved the first-ever military aid package for Taiwan using Foreign Military Financing (FMF), a State Department program that gives foreign governments money to buy US arms.

The Associated Press noted that FMF is typically reserved for sovereign, independent states, and the US does not recognize Taiwan as a country. US officials told AP that the only other time FMF has been used for a non-nation-state was assistance to the African Union, a bloc of 55 African states.

The FMF package is worth $80 million, but the administration did not disclose its contents in a notification to Congress. The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act included $2 billion in FMF funds for Taiwan. This marks the first time the funds have been used.

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