US to spend $350 Billion to upgrade nukes

Score check please;

Military Industrial Complex; Millions upon millions upon millions(of dead people)
People: 0

I don't even know why we play this game anymore, we never win.

 

Like we don't already have the best nukes that can wipe out the whole planet. Idiots...

 

What the money is being spent on has little to do with Government spending or justification for that matter.

Regardless, it's rather pointless to have a more "open" Government there Obama, when there still isn't jack shit we can say or do about the excessive spending on bullshit like this.

If we spent any money on nukes, the only logical option would be to dismantle it. That whole finger on the button cold war threat is a weak argument at best, and certainly isn't $350 billion worth of an argument, but we gotta "create jobs"...

Next will be a 2-trillion dollar program to eliminate every computer in Government, to be replaced by typewriters. They want to be "hack-proof"...

 

We have $350 billion?

 

[quote name='"Flemian"']We have $350 billion?[/quote]

No, but the fed could pry print some more up in the next week if they had to. Hell, we're this deep in the hole, why not, lets just spend every frickin dime we can? Not like we'll ever pay it back anyways, just go to war over it.

 

Its all good. The faster the dollar collapses. Just aslong as they dont finish upgrading the nukes.

 

yes. we have fractional reserve banking

 

Hyperinflation for everybody!

 

The thing is, the US isn't the only country who got nukes. The US is however the only country who by military weight keep the trade-lanes open for everyone and works as a guaranteer of security for a host of countries who got less than friendly neighbours.

Part of the equation is nukes, unfortunatly. Without the US nuclear umbrella, proliferation of nukes would increase very rapidly. Japan and Taiwan would get their own to deter China. South Korea would get theirs to keep the North-Koreans in check. The Australians and Germans would probably get theirs to. And so on.

The nuclear chessboard would get very crowded very fast. And the more players you got, the greater the risk of something going south.

Ofcourse, how many nukes one need is another matter. What is the current arsenal, about 3000 warheads in the US stockpile? That is obviously plenty more than actually needed. But thing is there can't be to much disparity between the major players. So any unilateral reduction will be modest. To cut deep into the nuclear arsenals, you'd need the US, Russia and to a degree China to sit down and agree upon a new balance of nuclear power.

But you won't save any money on it. If quantity goes down, quality will go up. Your military and politicians will demand more precise and more robust weapon-systems to compensate for the loss of ability to saturate a given target. That means more advanced missiles, more advanced warheads, more advanced nuclear submarines, more advanced stealth-bombers and so on and so forth.

 

Right but - Here's to the meme with a drone missle in the air


"1 million dollar bomb"

"10 dollar tent"

 

Here's another: "You fight your war with the army you got, not the army you want!"

So if sending expensive drones to take out a target is more efficient and less costly in terms of exposing ones own soldiers to risk, then that is what one do. The good news is that drones and their weapon-systems are becoming smaller, more precise and cheaper. Using a Hellfire missile to take out your average terrorist-encampment is a bit like shooting sparrows with cannons. It will get the job done, but it is very messy.

 

I don't mean to try and define our Military members as expendable, but they certainly cannot simply dismiss their primary function. It is been the function of armies and those who serve in them for thousands of years.

And replacing them with "expensive drones" questions which one truly costs more. Give a politician a way, and I promise they'll make it 10x more expensive.

We must also never forget there is no substitute for the human mind when it comes to warfare...and we're a long way off from AI even remotely touching that level.