Rand Corporation

[Marvin the Martian]

The Rand Corporation war games various scenarios and recently wargamed the US fighting China and Russia. One can find the links, it appears to be wildly popular in the far right press. It has made its way to military history forums, where I saw it.

It turns out the US loses and The Baltic states are back to speaking Russian and Taiwan is part of China again.

Rand's solution, $24 billion in more defense spending.

Rand says our weakness is in enemy smart missiles. They view their missiles as devastating to our fleets, one participant said anything that floats above water will have a hard time staying there.

The same weakness is true for the army. Rand claims that our fighters will be destroyed in droves on the ground. They suggest the army made a huge mistake in making massive cuts to air defense. Airfields, supply depots, command and control are all destroyed. One spokesman said the blue team always quit when their monitors and headsets had nothing but static.

Now I suspect there is some truth to the fact it would be difficult to stop both the Russians and Chinese from making attacks at their border and thousands of miles from ours. But I will take a page from history and offer a solution far cheaper than $24 billion. Have a foreign policy that prevents Russia and China from teaming up.

In Germany, Bismark crafted policies to guarantee her adversaries never teamed up. That is also how Britain stayed safe from the late 1700s on.

Even if we could militarily win the Rand war, isn't it a better win never to fight it?

 

[IUCrazy2]

The Rand Corporation war games various scenarios and recently wargamed the US fighting China and Russia. One can find the links, it appears to be wildly popular in the far right press. It has made its way to military history forums, where I saw it.

It turns out the US loses and The Baltic states are back to speaking Russian and Taiwan is part of China again.

Rand's solution, $24 billion in more defense spending.

Rand says our weakness is in enemy smart missiles. They view their missiles as devastating to our fleets, one participant said anything that floats above water will have a hard time staying there.

The same weakness is true for the army. Rand claims that our fighters will be destroyed in droves on the ground. They suggest the army made a huge mistake in making massive cuts to air defense. Airfields, supply depots, command and control are all destroyed. One spokesman said the blue team always quit when their monitors and headsets had nothing but static.

Now I suspect there is some truth to the fact it would be difficult to stop both the Russians and Chinese from making attacks at their border and thousands of miles from ours. But I will take a page from history and offer a solution far cheaper than $24 billion. Have a foreign policy that prevents Russia and China from teaming up.

In Germany, Bismark crafted policies to guarantee her adversaries never teamed up. That is also how Britain stayed safe from the late 1700s on.

Even if we could militarily win the Rand war, isn't it a better win never to fight it?

Personally, this is why I believe that the Euros need to be a more equal partner in NATO. If you book the potential battle down to a mostly conventional affair, a competent European ally makes Russia less of a threat in that kind of two front war. That is partially why every President we have had since W. has been asking Europe to do better. Trump has been criticized for the way he has asked but at the end of the day, he is right. The Europeans are shirking the responsibility of their own defense in the face of an increasingly hostile Russia.

With Taiwan, that battle would need to be won as the Chinese tried to cross the straights. They may be developing a larger missile threat that is dangerous to our surface fleet, but we have another type of craft that is capable of sending their invasion force to the bottom of the ocean.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

The Rand Corporation war games various scenarios and recently wargamed the US fighting China and Russia. One can find the links, it appears to be wildly popular in the far right press. It has made its way to military history forums, where I saw it.

It turns out the US loses and The Baltic states are back to speaking Russian and Taiwan is part of China again.

Rand's solution, $24 billion in more defense spending.

Rand says our weakness is in enemy smart missiles. They view their missiles as devastating to our fleets, one participant said anything that floats above water will have a hard time staying there.

The same weakness is true for the army. Rand claims that our fighters will be destroyed in droves on the ground. They suggest the army made a huge mistake in making massive cuts to air defense. Airfields, supply depots, command and control are all destroyed. One spokesman said the blue team always quit when their monitors and headsets had nothing but static.

Now I suspect there is some truth to the fact it would be difficult to stop both the Russians and Chinese from making attacks at their border and thousands of miles from ours. But I will take a page from history and offer a solution far cheaper than $24 billion. Have a foreign policy that prevents Russia and China from teaming up.

In Germany, Bismark crafted policies to guarantee her adversaries never teamed up. That is also how Britain stayed safe from the late 1700s on.

Even if we could militarily win the Rand war, isn't it a better win never to fight it?

Seriously? $24 billion? Is that all? The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was $800 billion. A measly $24 billion wouldn't have even paid the administrative overhead of the ARRA.

6 or 7 years ago, we had lasers that could destroy incoming artillery. Who knows what we have now. 15 or 20 years ago I read a series of seemingly science fiction military books by Dale Brown and Air Force guy. He wrote about cutting edge air borne weapons, including those in space. Turns out that a number of things he wrote about actually exist today. Some of what he wrote about probably also exist but we don't know it. Thought control aircraft being one of those.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Seriously? $24 billion? Is that all? The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was $800 billion. A measly $24 billion wouldn't have even paid the administrative overhead of the ARRA.

6 or 7 years ago, we had lasers that could destroy incoming artillery. Who knows what we have now. 15 or 20 years ago I read a series of seemingly science fiction military books by Dale Brown and Air Force guy. He wrote about cutting edge air borne weapons, including those in space. Turns out that a number of things he wrote about actually exist today. Some of what he wrote about probably also exist but we don't know it. Thought control aircraft being one of those.

Trump's increase last year in defense spending was more than Russia's total defense spending. Just the increase was more. If we can't fight a war, it isn't because we are spending enough money it is because we are spending money wrong. If you find the articles somewhere, you might note there is great skepticism about our aircraft carriers being able to survive such a war.

One consideration we have, the Brits lost a court ruling on keeping Diego Garcia. It is non-binding, but they historically have accepted them. If the Brit give that up, we do have a giant hole in our system to worry about. That assumes we cannot come to an agreement with the Mauritus on keeping the base.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

Trump's increase last year in defense spending was more than Russia's total defense spending. Just the increase was more. If we can't fight a war, it isn't because we are spending enough money it is because we are spending money wrong.

Is the comparison apples to apples? As one example does Russia pay for its version of the VA out of defense spending? (Or does Russia even have a VA?) I don't know, just asking.

Edit: VA probably not a good example. What about military pensions for veterans and their dependent survivors?

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Is the comparison apples to apples? As one example does Russia pay for its version of the VA out of defense spending? (Or does Russia even have a VA?) I don't know, just asking.

Edit: VA probably not a good example. What about military pensions for veterans and their dependent survivors?

The big difference is personnel, I think I saw we spend about 42% on personnel costs. That is far more than Russia or China. On the other hand, that should buy us something. Morale is critical to an army, and better pay/food/benefits all add up. The individual American soldier should be superior in training, morale, and supply.

In addition, we technically have all the money spent by Europe. We can argue it isn't 3% of GDP, but in real money western Europe spends more than Russia. Again, a lot of it might be for personnel but the amount that isn't should offset some of our personnel spending (same for Japan).

I would be curious as to Aloha's opinion of the super carriers. I fear they are this generation's Arizona and Oklahoma. But we can't stop building them because that's all our current military leaders have ever known. If the Russians or Chinese can just swarm them with smart missiles, I am not sure we wouldn't be advised to other come up with other ideas (even the old Japanese idea of a carrier submarine).

 

[twenty02]

Trump's increase last year in defense spending was more than Russia's total defense spending. Just the increase was more. If we can't fight a war, it isn't because we are spending enough money it is because we are spending money wrong. If you find the articles somewhere, you might note there is great skepticism about our aircraft carriers being able to survive such a war.

One consideration we have, the Brits lost a court ruling on keeping Diego Garcia. It is non-binding, but they historically have accepted them. If the Brit give that up, we do have a giant hole in our system to worry about. That assumes we cannot come to an agreement with the Mauritus on keeping the base.

Not sure how relevant nominal numbers are. We obviously spend a lot, but 3.6% is a fairly low number for the US, historically.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Not sure how relevant nominal numbers are. We obviously spend a lot, but 3.6% is a fairly low number for the US, historically.

We need to define historically. Before the Korean War we only had a standing army during times of war*.

*Yes, we had a "standing" army but it was extremely small. We entered the Civil War, WWI, WWII, and Korea with virtually no army at all. I guess maybe that was reflective of a very small GDP?

 

[twenty02]

We need to define historically. Before the Korean War we only had a standing army during times of war*.

*Yes, we had a "standing" army but it was extremely small. We entered the Civil War, WWI, WWII, and Korea with virtually no army at all. I guess maybe that was reflective of a very small GDP?

Post-war era.... Only time we've been this low was a blip during the late 90s.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Post-war era.... Only time we've been this low was a blip during the late 90s.

Right, this all goes back to that choice after Korea to let the military industrial complex win. Our founders certainly wanted a small army, they built it into the Constitution by limiting how far out congress could fund the military. Even Ike wanted the army reduced back, he worried about the US becoming a "Garrison State". The chart, while nice, also does not include last year's increase in spending.

China has traditionally spent about 2%, but this chart also stops a few years ago.

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

Right, this all goes back to that choice after Korea to let the military industrial complex win. Our founders certainly wanted a small army, they built it into the Constitution by limiting how far out congress could fund the military. Even Ike wanted the army reduced back, he worried about the US becoming a "Garrison State". The chart, while nice, also does not include last year's increase in spending.

China has traditionally spent about 2%, but this chart also stops a few years ago.

The Founders couldn’t have possibly anticipated and baked in to their views the rapid advancement in military technology that would allow threats to project across the world in short time. Once the airplane was invented, the course of military technology and defense requirements skyrocketed.

 

[twenty02]

The Founders couldn’t have possibly anticipated and baked in to their views the rapid advancement in military technology that would allow threats to project across the world in short time. Once the airplane was invented, the course of military technology and defense requirements skyrocketed.

The Founders couldn't anticipate a lot of things.... that's why they left things vague and open to future adjustment.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

The Founders couldn’t have possibly anticipated and baked in to their views the rapid advancement in military technology that would allow threats to project across the world in short time. Once the airplane was invented, the course of military technology and defense requirements skyrocketed.

True, but Ike knew about the plane and atomic weapons. I am sure you've seen his "cross of iron" speech, from it:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms in not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.

It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.

We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.​

We did spend a lot more, percentage wise, in the 1950s. But this article has some outstanding Ike quotes. Ike did not trust the military, he knew they were always going to oversell their case. I'd love to find the quote again, I recall a quote of his how he feared the US not having a military man as president for they would not know how much of what the Pentagon was selling was BS.

If our goal is to fight the Afghanistan's of the world, the super carriers make tremendous sense (for now). If it is to fight China and Russia, why are we building them? I think anyone who is paying attention has to wonder why we are building the F-35. I am sure if it ever gets built and refitted, it would be a fine plane. But there will be so few of them at cost I'm not sure what value they will be.

Ex generals go to work for contractors. I don't blame them, the money is good. But it also has a huge impact on our spending. Let me word it this way, do you think they are being paid because they know a cheaper way to put a bomb on target?

 

[hoot1]

The big difference is personnel, I think I saw we spend about 42% on personnel costs. That is far more than Russia or China. On the other hand, that should buy us something. Morale is critical to an army, and better pay/food/benefits all add up. The individual American soldier should be superior in training, morale, and supply.

In addition, we technically have all the money spent by Europe. We can argue it isn't 3% of GDP, but in real money western Europe spends more than Russia. Again, a lot of it might be for personnel but the amount that isn't should offset some of our personnel spending (same for Japan).

I would be curious as to Aloha's opinion of the super carriers. I fear they are this generation's Arizona and Oklahoma. But we can't stop building them because that's all our current military leaders have ever known. If the Russians or Chinese can just swarm them with smart missiles, I am not sure we wouldn't be advised to other come up with other ideas (even the old Japanese idea of a carrier submarine).

Never could buy into setting our military budget as a percentage of GDP. This might provide an interesting historical comparison but doesn't take into account what real threats are present at any point in time.

As has been pointed out in this thread, our personnel costs associated with the all volunteer (all recruited) military force may not entirely provide us with the required funds to meet potential threats. Retirement pay expenditures, for example, might have helped attract someone into service but doesn't help us once the person reaches retirement.

Finally, how accurate are the Rand threat assumptions and costs to meet those assumptions ? Also is it how much is spent which is important, or how smart the expenditures are? In addition threats must take into account those present in both the short and long term.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Never could buy into setting our military budget as a percentage of GDP. This might provide an interesting historical comparison but doesn't take into account what real threats are present at any point in time.

As has been pointed out in this thread, our personnel costs associated with the all volunteer (all recruited) military force may not entirely provide us with the required funds to meet potential threats.

Finally, how accurate are the Rand threat assumptions and costs to meet those assumptions ? Also is it how much is spent which is important, or how smart the expenditures are? In addition threats must take into account those present in both the short and long term.

Anyone can find the news stories, I just wasn't about to link anything to places like Zero Hedge.

The spending was mostly on more air defense. The army basically eliminated air defense a while back, they wouldn't need it as the air force would always have control of the skies. But the smart missiles render air superiority worthless. In addition, one of the articles said we have one mobile Patriot Missile unit in Europe, and it almost certainly would be sent to defend Ramstein. But it would be unable to deal with the volume sent against the target. So these weapons would destroy air assets as they landed for refueling. Also they would hit all our big ammo dumps.

The problem against the Chinese was their missile but also communications. The Chinese have worked hard at jamming or destroying all our communications systems. So we would have no way to coordinate planes, fleets, land units. Their is a system that is more secure that Rand was recommending.

But if Rand's study also shows our carriers are sunk, maybe we could shrink the carrier fleet to pay for these things? We have a new carrier on the drawing board, the USS Barack Obama. Just cancelling that alone gets us over 1/3 the way to the $24 billion. And I suddenly foresee support from every Republican.

I am not sure congress is actively involved in deciding what wars we need to be prepared for and what army we need to fight it. I think they look at two things. Will my vote make me long tough on defense and what jobs will this weapons system bring to my district/state. We need as a nation, and especially congress, to decide what we want our military to accomplish and build that military. Just "we will build the greatest military ever seen" is great for reelections, but full of waste.

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

The Founders couldn't anticipate a lot of things.... that's why they left things vague and open to future adjustment.

Wait...I thought they wanted us armed to the teeth at all times?

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

True, but Ike knew about the plane and atomic weapons. I am sure you've seen his "cross of iron" speech, from it:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms in not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.

It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.

We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.​

We did spend a lot more, percentage wise, in the 1950s. But this article has some outstanding Ike quotes. Ike did not trust the military, he knew they were always going to oversell their case. I'd love to find the quote again, I recall a quote of his how he feared the US not having a military man as president for they would not know how much of what the Pentagon was selling was BS.

If our goal is to fight the Afghanistan's of the world, the super carriers make tremendous sense (for now). If it is to fight China and Russia, why are we building them? I think anyone who is paying attention has to wonder why we are building the F-35. I am sure if it ever gets built and refitted, it would be a fine plane. But there will be so few of them at cost I'm not sure what value they will be.

Ex generals go to work for contractors. I don't blame them, the money is good. But it also has a huge impact on our spending. Let me word it this way, do you think they are being paid because they know a cheaper way to put a bomb on target?

First of all, I totally agree with your OP that diplomacy and geo-strategy is far superior than stockpiling weaponry and military tech in preventing a Sino-Russian partnership against the West.

But, I don’t read Ike’s comments as being distrusting of the military. I read them as a man who is tired and weary of war and had his eyes opened to the massive problems we have at home. He’s right and all of his comments are spot on.

But to all that I say “so what?” So what if we’d like to lower our defense spending and out that capital towards infrastructure and domestic programs? As long as there are madmen like Putin in office and power-hungry socialists like Xi in China, we cannot let our guard down. They are existential threats to our superior way of life. The smaller failed states are not.

Until we can staff a White House with competent diplomatic leadership and a Dept of State of adults and not the riff raft that I’ve personally witnessed, we won’t be achieving that utopia. At least not until the aliens invade and unite us.

 

[i'vegotwinners]

The Rand Corporation war games various scenarios and recently wargamed the US fighting China and Russia. One can find the links, it appears to be wildly popular in the far right press. It has made its way to military history forums, where I saw it.

It turns out the US loses and The Baltic states are back to speaking Russian and Taiwan is part of China again.

Rand's solution, $24 billion in more defense spending.

Rand says our weakness is in enemy smart missiles. They view their missiles as devastating to our fleets, one participant said anything that floats above water will have a hard time staying there.

The same weakness is true for the army. Rand claims that our fighters will be destroyed in droves on the ground. They suggest the army made a huge mistake in making massive cuts to air defense. Airfields, supply depots, command and control are all destroyed. One spokesman said the blue team always quit when their monitors and headsets had nothing but static.

Now I suspect there is some truth to the fact it would be difficult to stop both the Russians and Chinese from making attacks at their border and thousands of miles from ours. But I will take a page from history and offer a solution far cheaper than $24 billion. Have a foreign policy that prevents Russia and China from teaming up.

In Germany, Bismark crafted policies to guarantee her adversaries never teamed up. That is also how Britain stayed safe from the late 1700s on.

Even if we could militarily win the Rand war, isn't it a better win never to fight it?

are they still using WOPR for these?

 

[IUCrazy2]

First of all, I totally agree with your OP that diplomacy and geo-strategy is far superior than stockpiling weaponry and military tech in preventing a Sino-Russian partnership against the West.

But, I don’t read Ike’s comments as being distrusting of the military. I read them as a man who is tired and weary of war and had his eyes opened to the massive problems we have at home. He’s right and all of his comments are spot on.

But to all that I say “so what?” So what if we’d like to lower our defense spending and out that capital towards infrastructure and domestic programs? As long as there are madmen like Putin in office and power-hungry socialists like Xi in China, we cannot let our guard down. They are existential threats to our superior way of life. The smaller failed states are not.

Until we can staff a White House with competent diplomatic leadership and a Dept of State of adults and not the riff raft that I’ve personally witnessed, we won’t be achieving that utopia. At least not until the aliens invade and unite us.

You could have the best diplomats and bureaucrats the world has ever known and still have a need to defend yourself from the likes of Putin or Xi. Sometimes you cannot talk your way out of a fight.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

You could have the best diplomats and bureaucrats the world has ever known and still have a need to defend yourself from the likes of Putin or Xi. Sometimes you cannot talk your way out of a fight.

While true, the secret is to not let them team up. A classic case, Mao and Stalin hated each other. Our foreign policy however sucked and pushed them into a forced marriage. With any diplomacy at all, everything from Korea on goes much differently.

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

You could have the best diplomats and bureaucrats the world has ever known and still have a need to defend yourself from the likes of Putin or Xi. Sometimes you cannot talk your way out of a fight.

I’m the short run yes. But theoretically the best diplomats would neutralize guys like Putin and Xi and render them helpless.

 

[JamieDimonsBalls]

The Founders couldn’t have possibly anticipated and baked in to their views the rapid advancement in military technology that would allow threats to project across the world in short time. Once the airplane was invented, the course of military technology and defense requirements skyrocketed.

How legit is this Rand Corporation from a military perspective?

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

How legit is this Rand Corporation from a military perspective?

I have no idea. I was too low ranking to be involved in games of that level. I was only brought into one game, when I was a platoon leader of a long range recon and surveillance unit and it was a joke. The proctors basically ignored us. I don’t think it was Rand.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

I have no idea. I was too low ranking to be involved in games of that level. I was only brought into one game, when I was a platoon leader of a long range recon and surveillance unit and it was a joke. The proctors basically ignored us. I don’t think it was Rand.

It was Rand's report that became The Pentagon Papers, they at least got that right even if presidents ignored it. But it would be interesting to know their overall track record.

And in this specific case, they had to make overall assumptions about Russian military equipment. We know that consistently from the 50s through the end of the USSR that NATO severely overestimated the quality of USSR military equipment.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Since it ties in, the Abrams is getting upgraded largely because of the Russian Armata.

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

Since it ties in, the Abrams is getting upgraded largely because of the Russian Armata.

Until Putin talks his puppet out of it