[Nuke]

i dont see no point in building planes for wars that dont exist. our biggest threats right now are those who can do more with less (guerrilla warfare/terrorism). expensive planes do little to fight those. its just an international penis measuring contest that we've won several times over. were better off pumping the money into intelligence and associated tech.

Hm. Intelligence I might agree with, but I disagree with you in saying that these kinds of projects are necessary. The reason we haven't had a hot war with a country or coalition of countries that might challenge us is because of this stuff. We've won the war before it even starts, and we've left all of the other developed nations in the dust, desperately trying to play catch-up, especially China. It doesn't matter how many personnel they have, with outdated, rusting hardware, a couple of our CVBGs could wipe them off the map. The same could be said for just about anyone else, too. The Soviets tried to play this game with us, and they lost. Hard.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe the threat of a true World War 3 is overblown because the world economy is so co-dependent. Maybe we don't need these projects and our isolated location would be enough to protect us from invasion. Maybe the world's free trade lanes would be fine without our CVBG's prowling around loaded to the gunwales with ordinance.

But I sure as hell wouldn't want to actually test that.

well look at our existing arsenal. we've got nukes, we got some bad ass planes from the cold war (and unlike the russians/chinese/etc designs, ours actually work and are maintained). we have top notch ground forces, we've got carriers, submarines, and other warships, many with near infinite range thanks to nuclear reactors. from a technological standpoint we pewn, we really dont need anything else. we have the best military hardware there is, and we have a lot of it, do we really need better?

if some nation decided to try and outdo us, it would be all over our radar. our satellites and intelligence operatives would know what they were doing. they would get our gears turning, and before they were done, and we could roll out a superior design and we would have ours on the assembly line while they are still hammering the bugs out of their prototype. we are the primary producer of military hardware in the world after all. im just saying the funds would have been better off feeding our early warning engine, so that we can react to what a potential enemy is doing. intelligence is one thing that needs work, but were also starting to fall behind in space tech as well. surely we wouldn't mind having the f22 money spent on space stuff. but i guess its too late for that.

[Mefustae]

Hm. Intelligence I might agree with, but I disagree with you in saying that these kinds of projects are necessary. The reason we haven't had a hot war with a country or coalition of countries that might challenge us is because of this stuff. We've won the war before it even starts, and we've left all of the other developed nations in the dust, desperately trying to play catch-up, especially China. It doesn't matter how many personnel they have, with outdated, rusting hardware, a couple of our CVBGs could wipe them off the map. The same could be said for just about anyone else, too. The Soviets tried to play this game with us, and they lost. Hard.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe the threat of a true World War 3 is overblown because the world economy is so co-dependent. Maybe we don't need these projects and our isolated location would be enough to protect us from invasion. Maybe the world's free trade lanes would be fine without our CVBG's prowling around loaded to the gunwales with ordinance.

Yes, the United States has an overpowering lead in terms of military power and technology over every other major nation on Earth, and that's precisely what the problem is. Every nation on Earth knows that the US would beat them in a straight-up fight. There's simply no denying it, the US has an overwhelming ability to project force anywhere on the planet, and the economy and manpower to back it up. The downside of this overwhelming superiority is that any opponent to US knows exactly how outmatched they are in conventional battle, and will therefore do everything possible to avoid just such a conflict. Take China for example; they have a large military, but it's honestly outdated. Moreso, they lack any true ability to project force far outside the Asian theatre. Therefore, why would they even try? They can't fight the US conventionally, so they'll attack using cyberwarfare, terrorism, or outright economic warfare. They would attack the US in every way possible that doesn't involve marching armies and grand battles. In that type of battlefield, the bloated US military would serve as more of a hindrance than advantage. Asymmetrical warfare has always been a troubling task for modern military establishments.

Nuke has it 100% correct; extensive and reliable intelligence resources are infinitely more useful than a fleet of a thousand F-22s. I hate to drag a cliche out of the bag, but you should always win the war before you fire the first shot.

[NGTM-1R]

Intelligence is useless without strength. I can offer you dozens of examples. The Germans got to experience this paradox a lot; so did the Poles. You can't concentrate on one or the other. You have to continue to work on both.

[Mefustae]

Intelligence is useless without strength. I can offer you dozens of examples. The Germans got to experience this paradox a lot; so did the Poles. You can't concentrate on one or the other. You have to continue to work on both.

Well, yes. A balance is needed, rather than the lopsided investment in ultra-expensive weapons programs with questionable payoff. The influence of the military-industrial complex strikes again.