"Dunning-Kruger effect" is the term for people basically being too stupid and incompetent to understand that they are too stupid and incompetent for an issue.
'He's a stupid man's idea of a smart man.' was said about a certain politician.
Combine these two things and you get the modern-day pundits (and more general: "comment-givers") who now diagnose the need for more military spending. They do so with an aura that spans a spectrum from "honest truth-teller" to "elder statesman".
They're idiots. That's the nice way to put it.
And the media people who amplify such messages are too stupid to smell the horseshite.
The Russian Armed Forces are failing to subdue a country that hadn't even come close to spending at least 10 billion $ in a year from independence three decades ago till the all-out invasion of 2022.
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/UKR/ukraine/military-spending-defense-budget
NATO members had 1,096.6 billion $ military spending in 2020, 325.9 billion $ without the U.S. (which went insane long ago).
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_197050.htm
Russia's military spending never exceeded 88.4 billion $ in any year.
https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/military-expenditure
And the horseshite producers conclude that, obviously, we don't spend enough. NATO outnumbers Russian military personnel about 2:1 without counting the U.S., and outspends it by about 4:1 (not quite as dramatic when correcting by purchasing power parity, but still outspending).
We do spend too much - not too little - on the military.
There's practically no other direct threat to NATO than Russia, and it proved to be a sick man of Europe, utterly rotten and incapable. Their air force is ineffective, their army is shite, Russia of today combines all flaws known from past 200 years of Russian history while the only strength is the size of their dumb munition stocks and factories.
The realization that the only threat is impotent leads to the logical conclusion that previous threat estimates - and thus required military power assessments - need to be revised DOWN.
Some people may be concerned about the PRC, but that's no direct threat to any NATO territory*, and nobody seems to argue to pump arms, spares & munitions into Taiwan for real NOW. No, these horseshite spewers want more military in Europe, where it matters jack shit for Taiwan.
This is not fantasy football. It's about real public funds. Billions and billions of Euros that would be allocated to military power if the horseshite becomes mainstream. One billion Euros is equivalent to about 100 citizen lives not saved by preventative measures that cost. One billion Euros is equivalent to 100 human sacrifices on the altar of wankers feeling good about military power.
Horseshite is not "honest truth-telling" or "elder statesman wisdom". It's homicidal horseshite, it's quasi-genocidal.
Misallocating so much money has real-world opportunity costs. It's not fantasy money in a fantasy game.
The horseshite-spewers are ethically to be ranked well below bank robbers and rapists. Not only is horseshite more dangerous to the society; at least some bank robbers and rapists are aware of themselves being terrible, antisocial persons.
The European armed forces as a whole (and big ones such as the British or German ones) don't have an underfunding problem. They have an inefficiency problem. Billions and billions of Euros are being allocated to worthless crap that matters jack shit for deterrence and defence. Meanwhile, essentials such as large and properly cared-for munition and spare parts stocks are getting neglected.
It's the "hollow force" syndrome. The "hollow force" syndrome is not being caused by underfunding. It's caused by stubborn resistance to cutting fat and stubborn resistance to resizing according to budget. The generals and admirals prefer to keep units and platforms in service in hope of getting bigger budgets later again rather than to resize. It's a shared responsibility of minister of defence and generals/admirals.
They (MoD, admirals, generals) fail their nation by hollowing out the armed forces, NOT the legislators who appropriate budgets that don't fit to the legacy military size. The executive branch is supposed to follow the legislative ranch on this, not the other way around. Your waiter does not get to dictate how much you have to spend on dining.
We have huge fiscal challenges to cope with. The demographic changes in much of Europe (fertility well below 2.0) make long-term investments in infrastructure and real estate (rather than building cheaper, less durable stuff) advisable. Decarbonisation costs much. Chronic large budget deficits are unsustainable, as the rate of technological progress (and thus GDP growth) keeps slowing down. Generational budget distribution fights are raging under the radar.
There's never a good time to waste resources, and that's very evident today.
We need to improve the resources allocation in the armed forces (more spare parts, more munitions, more budget for exercises, less units that are irrelevant for deterrence and defence).
We do NOT need to spend vastly more on the military. In fact, we could cut our military spending by half without any loss of security or stability.
related:
https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/search?q=military+spending
S O
*: Guam and Hawaii are NOT covered by the North Atlantic treaty.
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Agree on the inefficiency part, but what if 2% serves other purposes than publicly advertised that are considered necessary, but impossible to pursue directly in democracies?
ReplyDeleteThat's illegitimate and an offence against democracy and thus freedom.
DeleteIt's pretty much the same story with Brexit. If it was just a mistake based on fraudulent data, the Brits would have reverted it.
DeleteThere's a level of deception of the public in democracies, at least historically there has been, and I see no reason why we should live in a time free from it.
The ignorance in this post and comments tells me I needn't bother coming back here.
ReplyDeleteHint, child, Hawaii is a _state_ of the United States. Hence covered by the NATO treaty. Guam, as a territory, is as well.
Now get an education, grow up & stop listening to the libertarian morons who are out to destroy America.
"The ignorance in this post and comments tells me I needn't bother coming back here. "
DeleteThen die stupid. :-)
Guam will be a smoking ruin within hours of conflict with China. Not sure what Europe NATO can provide in defence of Hawaii that can't be done 10 times from mainland USA without even stretching US military resources. If you're fighting over Hawaii with China, then the whole US military industry political complex has seriously screwed up. A 2% military from Europe with the inefficiencies the author comments on will not turn the tide of the war. Next stop - Nuclear or surrender.
DeleteLet's face it, US <> China war is not happening directly (nuclear will happen in that case as losing side presses the button) so will only happen through proxies.
You could argue this is happening now with Ukraine as US proxy and Russian becoming China's proxy.
As for the UK, it needs increase in budget (or more efficiency) to replace the Soldier's marries quarter housing otherwise there'll be no troops to operate all the gold placed shiny equipment. And that's after we address the 'payday loans' nearly all lower ranks are taking out.