“It’s a typical mistake made by an empire,” Putin said. “An empire always thinks that it’s so powerful that it can afford some mistakes and extra costs. But mistakes and costs multiply, and a moment comes when they become overwhelming in both security and economic spheres.”
Building on his defiance and boasts, Putin said Russia had nothing to fear given its resources, defense capability and “people ready to defend our sovereignty and independence.”
That was from a MilitaryTimes article about Putin.
I think when Putin and Xi observe the boondoggles of US defense acquisition they breath a sigh of relief. We constantly hear that the US is losing its military technology edge. Either this is true, in which case the US is squandering far more dollars and talent than Russia and China (in other words, the US has been far less effective at developing technology), or, this is a scare-tactic to make Congress and the public believe that the DOD can’t even take a 1% cut because of the dire consequences.
Maybe it’s just a catch-up phenomenon; progress is hard at the frontier. But what does that imply? That we need exponentially more research input to keep the same distance ahead of our peer adversaries? Actually, this seems to have been the trend over the last 30 years.
I don’t think that cuts it. Russia is in many ways ahead of us in rocketry, helicopters, and electronic warfare. China is making large strides, such as with hypersonic vehicles. They are not simply “catching up,” they are innovating at the frontier in ways we have not.
This cannot simply be a lack of funding, as the Pentagon suggests, because they are doing it at a lower cost. Ultimately, if Congress yields to DOD demands, then the DOD will never have to go through the pain of changing and innovating.
Of course, my recommendation to generate more trial-and-error in the DOD, and thus faster learning, is to move toward an organizational budget where project plans can benefit from exercising real options. Though the US market economy seems to do a good job of this kind of adaptability and learning, it isn’t hard to believe that Russia or China may exhibit more of these qualities in their defense acquisition systems than we in the US.
Since I wrote and scheduled this post, Donald Trump tweeted the following on December 3, 2018:
I am certain that, at some time in the future, President Xi and I, together with President Putin of Russia, will start talking about a meaningful halt to what has become a major and uncontrollable Arms Race. The U.S. spent 716 Billion Dollars this year. Crazy!
I imagine Putin’s comments are not unrelated to the sentiment surrounding Trump’s later tweet.
One final thing. Any Arms Race deal would likely have the Chinese/Russian position be flat or slower growth for them in return for flat or declining growth in US defense budgets, considering how large US spending is. That can only have a disastrous impact on the psyche of US policy makers –and the public more generally — when it comes to confrontation.
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