Sources:
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2025/03/the-f-47-fighter-cost-problem-no-one-wants-to-touch/
https://defencesecurityasia.com/en/iran-shahed-drones-gulf-patriot-air-defence-cost-crisis/ (assuming 2 missiles to each drone and the lowest estimate of drone costs)
Open to discussion because I frankly don’t know what I’m talking about, but I have a growing suspicion, given the US’s recent performance, that the true purpose of the military budget is congressional pork.
Eisenhower described the problem in 1961. so for at least 65 years a significant factor of foreign policy has been rich executives of arms manufacturers and military contractors who profit from war making “donations” to politicians who decide when to go to war, and who and how much to award military contracts to. it’s called the military-industrial complex
Everything the US government (or really any government) does is dual purpose. Pork + Function.
NASA launches are obscenely expensive (even as space programs go) because everything NASA does needs to create a job in the seats of 50 odd different senators.
Military procurement is super expensive, partially because modern military hardware is just an engineering marvel, but also because it needs to make the right jobs, hire the right contractors, meet ballooning requirements etc… Doesn’t mean they aren’t trying to get value for money, but if that’s all you focused on you’d buy all your military hardware from Temu.
So… basically a top-heavy jobs program?
When I was canvassing for a leftist candidate, I talked to a lot of people involved in the defense industry and they were all pretty much single issue voters–“keep giving me money.” I imagine they’re in every state.
People love money, what can I say?
Yeah, but if you proposed a jobs program to those people, they would be outraged. Because it’s military, it’s “good”, moral. I think that’s why the anti-war left is such a threat to the establishment, because the political system is built on military grift. If the military loses its sheen of holiness, the system collapses.
because a jobs program is for the poor, you know the people who actually need jobs, they dont want that. they want more money so they can buy their fourth rental property.
It always has been. They understood the assignment very well. Funnel money from the public to defense contractors.
Some of it is just good old industry subsidies from an unrelated (and overblown) budget.