The Defence Budget [superthread]

[KevinB]

Pentagon unveils $850 billion budget request amid spending uncertainty

The FY25 budget trims the Pentagon's procurement accounts to fit inside spending caps required in last year's debt-ceiling deal.

www.defensenews.com

 

[Rifleman62]

Matt Gurney - The Line - 11 Mar 24

A few semi-disjointed (semi-jointed?) thoughts on Bill Blair’s comments on the state of Canadian military readiness (it’s very, very, very bad).

1. I wrote a column a few months ago about how the military was a disaster. Absolute shitshow. I acknowledged that there had been some major investments in new equipment, but most of it would be available/ready only years from now. I also said that these purchases would be used to deflect criticism of the state of the CAF today, which is, to be blunt, basically non-functional. And indeed, the usual suspects on the other website seized upon the recent purchases to dismiss what I had to say. Now Blair is saying it himself. I wonder if anyone will care now. Probably not. My priority isn’t scoring a partisan hit against anyone, which is why I also savaged the CPC on this: the only thing I care about is having a military that can defend us. Most people, alas, have those priorities reversed.
2. Blair’s comments are unusually blunt. And I feel, to give him credit, that he is being honest. Open, honest transparency, delivered plainly and without spin, from Canadian officialdom is rare enough to be worth noting and lauding. So consider it so noted and lauded.
3. Re: the above, some people seem to think this heralds some kind of pivot in Canadian federal priorities. I wouldn’t be shocked to see a gradual pivot — this government can’t move fast on ANYTHING, as a near-universal rule (see my last TVO column), so I don’t expect much. But I wouldn’t be shocked to see something.
4. Mainly, though, I think people forget that Blair was a cop, and talks like a cop. Blair is one of the government’s blunter communicators. This is less true as the years go on and he becomes ever-more the politician, but he can still sound like the career cop when he wants to. I don’t read much about a possible policy shift into that.
5. Even if we DO want to read a lot into Blair’s tone, until I hear that shift in tone matched by the PM, it’s all meaningless anyway. And the PM’s tone, as recently as this week, remains notably unshifted.

So yeah. The military is fucked, and is set to remain so. Blair referred to a death spiral. That’s correct. And I think it’s too late to stop it.

 

[NavyShooter]

The problem isn't just money.

It's old hardware, old infrastructure, not enough people, and overworking the people you have left.

How do you fix it?

How do you get new hardware without the people to push the procurement?

How do you get new infrastructure without the money?

How do you get new people without good infrastructure, good equipment, and good working conditions?

How do you stop over-working your people to the point that they would encourage friends/family to join while their excess workload is the only thing holding the infrastructure together and knitting the hardware together enough to 'work'?

My suggestion? Take the concept of 'reconstitution' seriously. STOP doing things we don't really need to do. Create a 'hiring bonus' for existing members if they convince someone to join, and another bonus paid when that person hit's OFP. Stop bandaging hardware, and buy some new stuff - COTS even, just to get past the maintenance hardships. Need new trucks? Let's go 'HILUX' - good enough for most of the world, should be good enough for us - call Toyota, tell them we need XXXX new Tacomas, painted Green/Blue/Gray for military use. Deliver a couple hundred a month and use those for everything domestic that we can. Reduce the use of anything green fleet that's not for actual work-up training or deployed operations. Tell the Navy to park all but one ship for at least a year - let the NEP bring some fruit to the fleet. Let the FMF's focus on fixing instead of pushing ships out the door.

If we keep going as we are, the good folks are going to hang it up, the experience will walk away, and those left will be truly screwed.

 

[CBH99]

Pentagon unveils $850 billion budget request amid spending uncertainty

The FY25 budget trims the Pentagon's procurement accounts to fit inside spending caps required in last year's debt-ceiling deal.

www.defensenews.com

Holy cow Batman...

 

[WinnipegFella]

Holy cow Batman...

An American defence budget cut? Hell just really be freezing over.

 

[Kirkhill]

I wonder how long Poland can keep it at 4%, and perhaps that cost to themselves is the motivator for an increase to 3%.

I still don’t think we’ll ever make 2%.

To echo @KevinB :
Long enough.

Even Canada managed 4% for a decade or so.

It is possible to pump up the volume for a surge and then settle back a bit. Given that the target has been 2% for a while and we have only been at 1% there is a sound mathematical, if not political case, to drive to 3% for a couple or three years.

Related would be an effort to reach the capital allowance of 20% of the budget.
We would also benefit for relaxing all of the Canadianization and Industrial Benefits rules for a couple of years and just buy what is available straight off of hot foreign production lines.
Charge the department the ex-Works price from the manufacturer and not the Supply Chain price.

 

[CBH99]

An American defence budget cut? Hell just really be freezing over.

I wonder how much the military assistance packages are affecting the upcoming budget.

Take Ukraine for example...send them $10B worth of kit & munitions here, another $15B there...

All taken out of US military stocks. Shipped over to Ukraine to be delivered and used. Then a contract signed with one of the big defense companies to replenish the donated stocks, usually resulting in more modern kit being acquired to replace the donated stuff.



I imagine that has to have a fairly noticeable impact on some vehicle fleets & weapon systems, so I wonder what that really tangibly looks like.

(Maybe cutting from the procurement budget is okay because various pieces of kit has been replaced recently over the last year or so as it was donated? I have no idea...)



One thing that does concern me is the reduction to only 1 Virgjnia class boat coming online...

With Chinese naval shipbuilding estimated to currently be producing 6 or 7 ships to every 1 that the US is building, reducing the submarine program seems like the costliest in terms of real strategic power being diminished...not to mention it was only a year or two ago that they were looking for ways to increase annual submarine production from 2 boats to 3, in fears they weren't keeping pace. So reducing to 1 seems concerning.



Also, reducing the 'one time buy' of F-15EX from 104 jets to 98. With how crisp these new jets are with brand new airframes, manufactured with different alloys to give them an even longer lifespan, leading edge ASEA radars, etc etc - plus the new purpose built long range air-to-air missile (AIM-260?) coming online...this fleet has a lot of promise & I guarantee will end up being an absolute workhorse.

I know the USAF loves their sexy fighters, and an all 5th generation fleet is their goal - but having some less high tech (yet still extremely deadly) kit is probably a good arrow to have in the quiver in the event of some cyber f**kery by an adversary...



Anyways those are my random 2 cents

 

[Kirkhill]

The problem isn't just money.

It's old hardware, old infrastructure, not enough people, and overworking the people you have left.

How do you fix it?

How do you get new hardware without the people to push the procurement?

How do you get new infrastructure without the money?

How do you get new people without good infrastructure, good equipment, and good working conditions?

How do you stop over-working your people to the point that they would encourage friends/family to join while their excess workload is the only thing holding the infrastructure together and knitting the hardware together enough to 'work'?

My suggestion? Take the concept of 'reconstitution' seriously. STOP doing things we don't really need to do. Create a 'hiring bonus' for existing members if they convince someone to join, and another bonus paid when that person hit's OFP. Stop bandaging hardware, and buy some new stuff - COTS even, just to get past the maintenance hardships. Need new trucks? Let's go 'HILUX' - good enough for most of the world, should be good enough for us - call Toyota, tell them we need XXXX new Tacomas, painted Green/Blue/Gray for military use. Deliver a couple hundred a month and use those for everything domestic that we can. Reduce the use of anything green fleet that's not for actual work-up training or deployed operations. Tell the Navy to park all but one ship for at least a year - let the NEP bring some fruit to the fleet. Let the FMF's focus on fixing instead of pushing ships out the door.

If we keep going as we are, the good folks are going to hang it up, the experience will walk away, and those left will be truly screwed.

Particularly like the highlighted bit.

I would go further. I would prioritise army hardware over infrastructure. We can find enough roofs in this country to keep whatever it is we decide to buy warm and dry and secure until we can build "the right" infrastructure, whatever that might be. Most of the army's kit, its vehicles, including things like HILUXes are designed to spend most of their lives outside in any case.

 

[dapaterson]

I would go further. I would prioritise army hardware over infrastructure.

Your knowledge of the CAF infra status is "interesting".

There are multiple infra projects that are strategic in nature that are lower priority than Army acquisitions.

 

[Edward Campbell]

To echo @KevinB :
Long enough.

Even Canada managed 4% for a decade or so.

It is possible to pump up the volume for a surge and then settle back a bit. Given that the target has been 2% for a while and we have only been at 1% there is a sound mathematical, if not political case, to drive to 3% for a couple or three years.

Related would be an effort to reach the capital allowance of 20% of the budget.
We would also benefit for relaxing all of the Canadianization and Industrial Benefits rules for a couple of years and just buy what is available straight off of hot foreign production lines.
Charge the department the ex-Works price from the manufacturer and not the Supply Chain price.

When we managed 4%, and more, the public attitude was much, much different. In the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s Canada was, overwhelmingly pro-American and anti-communist - the Berlin Blockade and Korean War had shown us, clearly, that Stalin was a real, measurable threat to our own peace and security.

That began to change in the 1960s - first, the information universe grew, we heard and saw more and more diverse "voices." The Vietnam War had a HUGE impact. By the mid 1960s Canadian young people were out marching, shouting "Hey, Hey LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?" We had no stake in the war but our public attitudes were very largely shaped by the US media and by 1968 even "old school" Walter Cronkite had tureens against the war.

In Canada, Pierre Trudeau told us that America was, at least, as big a threat to world peace and security as was the USSR; his 1970 Foreign Policy White Paper almost totally ignored the USA and said that Canada's domestic problems (Quebec, language, the environment) were our only really important concerns. His message was enticing; he said, de facto, the USA must, for its own strategic reasons defend us, we ned not bother. He had already cut our NATO commitment and the country was with him. All of Brian Mulroney, Paul Martin Jr and Stephen Harper wanted to turn Canada round but none, not even Mulroney after his landslide 1984 election victory (50%+ of the popular vote), had enough political capital.

 

[Kirkhill]

When we managed 4%, and more, the public attitude was much, much different. In the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s Canada was, overwhelmingly pro-American and anti-communist - the Berlin Blockade and Korean War had shown us, clearly, that Stalin was a real, measurable threat to our own peace and security.

That began to change in the 1960s - first, the information universe grew, we heard and saw more and more diverse "voices." The Vietnam War had a HUGE impact. By the mid 1960s Canadian young people were out marching, shouting "Hey, Hey LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?" We had no stake in the war but our public attitudes were very largely shaped by the US media and by 1968 even "old school" Walter Cronkite had tureens against the war.

In Canada, Pierre Trudeau told us that America was, at least, as big a threat to world peace and security as was the USSR; his 1970 Foreign Policy White Paper almost totally ignored the USA and said that Canada's domestic problems (Quebec, language, the environment) were our only really important concerns. His message was enticing; he said, de facto, the USA must, for its own strategic reasons defend us, we ned not bother. He had already cut our NATO commitment and the country was with him. All of Brian Mulroney, Paul Martin Jr and Stephen Harper wanted to turn Canada round but none, not even Mulroney after his landslide 1984 election victory (50%+ of the popular vote), had enough political capital.

Why do you make me agree with you?

 

[Kirkhill]

Your knowledge of the CAF infra status is "interesting".

There are multiple infra projects that are strategic in nature that are lower priority than Army acquisitions.

I guess I am starting from the bottom up.

Soldiers with guns and radios in the armouries.
Jeeps and trucks in the parking lots.
Clothes on soldiers backs.

UGVs and mUAVs/Quadcopters could also be stored in local armouries.

Training on local public lands and the economy.

Commercial warehouses and hangars would handle a lot of supplies.

...

What does the top down picture look like?

And how do you get the two halves to meet in the middle?

 

[KevinB]

I guess I am starting from the bottom up.

Soldiers with guns and radios in the armouries.
Jeeps and trucks in the parking lots.
Clothes on soldiers backs.

UGVs and mUAVs/Quadcopters could also be stored in local armouries.

Training on local public lands and the economy.

Commercial warehouses and hangars would handle a lot of supplies.

...

What does the top down picture look like?

And how do you get the two halves to meet in the middle?

Depends what you call Infrastructure -- some might consider a secure digital backbone to be a significant priority as well as satellite navigation and communications...

 

[GR66]

Depends what you call Infrastructure -- some might consider a secure digital backbone to be a significant priority as well as satellite navigation and communications...

But you can't put a picture of bandwidth or encryption on a glossy powerpoint so who's going to support that kind of project???

 

[childs56]

Matt Gurney - The Line - 11 Mar 24

A few semi-disjointed (semi-jointed?) thoughts on Bill Blair’s comments on the state of Canadian military readiness (it’s very, very, very bad).

1. I wrote a column a few months ago about how the military was a disaster. Absolute shitshow. I acknowledged that there had been some major investments in new equipment, but most of it would be available/ready only years from now. I also said that these purchases would be used to deflect criticism of the state of the CAF today, which is, to be blunt, basically non-functional. And indeed, the usual suspects on the other website seized upon the recent purchases to dismiss what I had to say. Now Blair is saying it himself. I wonder if anyone will care now. Probably not. My priority isn’t scoring a partisan hit against anyone, which is why I also savaged the CPC on this: the only thing I care about is having a military that can defend us. Most people, alas, have those priorities reversed.
2. Blair’s comments are unusually blunt. And I feel, to give him credit, that he is being honest. Open, honest transparency, delivered plainly and without spin, from Canadian officialdom is rare enough to be worth noting and lauding. So consider it so noted and lauded.
3. Re: the above, some people seem to think this heralds some kind of pivot in Canadian federal priorities. I wouldn’t be shocked to see a gradual pivot — this government can’t move fast on ANYTHING, as a near-universal rule (see my last TVO column), so I don’t expect much. But I wouldn’t be shocked to see something.
4. Mainly, though, I think people forget that Blair was a cop, and talks like a cop. Blair is one of the government’s blunter communicators. This is less true as the years go on and he becomes ever-more the politician, but he can still sound like the career cop when he wants to. I don’t read much about a possible policy shift into that.
5. Even if we DO want to read a lot into Blair’s tone, until I hear that shift in tone matched by the PM, it’s all meaningless anyway. And the PM’s tone, as recently as this week, remains notably unshifted.

So yeah. The military is fucked, and is set to remain so. Blair referred to a death spiral. That’s correct. And I think it’s too late to stop it.

The only credit I would give to Blair is that he spoke.
Right now he is in defensive mode telling us what has already been spoken by those who are the experts. He is trying to appear to actually care.
In order to try and get votes for the next election. Nothing more and nothing less.

He has proven to be a inept, lying sack of dung. For me to believe he has any good will towards the Defense of Canada or our Military will allow me to be fooled by him. Which I am not.

If you need proof on where his words go and what they mean, just look at how he voted in the various Parliamentary bills in the current past.

 

[KevinB]

But you can't put a picture of bandwidth or encryption on a glossy powerpoint so who's going to support that kind of project???

People who think...
Yeah the CAF is screwed...

 

[Kirkhill]

Depends what you call Infrastructure -- some might consider a secure digital backbone to be a significant priority as well as satellite navigation and communications...

That I can understand. Point taken.

 

[Cloud Cover]

When we managed 4%, and more, the public attitude was much, much different. In the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s Canada was, overwhelmingly pro-American and anti-communist - the Berlin Blockade and Korean War had shown us, clearly, that Stalin was a real, measurable threat to our own peace and security.

That began to change in the 1960s - first, the information universe grew, we heard and saw more and more diverse "voices." The Vietnam War had a HUGE impact. By the mid 1960s Canadian young people were out marching, shouting "Hey, Hey LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?" We had no stake in the war but our public attitudes were very largely shaped by the US media and by 1968 even "old school" Walter Cronkite had tureens against the war.

In Canada, Pierre Trudeau told us that America was, at least, as big a threat to world peace and security as was the USSR; his 1970 Foreign Policy White Paper almost totally ignored the USA and said that Canada's domestic problems (Quebec, language, the environment) were our only really important concerns. His message was enticing; he said, de facto, the USA must, for its own strategic reasons defend us, we ned not bother. He had already cut our NATO commitment and the country was with him. All of Brian Mulroney, Paul Martin Jr and Stephen Harper wanted to turn Canada round but none, not even Mulroney after his landslide 1984 election victory (50%+ of the popular vote), had enough political capital.

The only way Canada will get to 2%, (and for what’s it’s worth 2% may as well be 10% because this is all not going to happen), is if a government does so by mistake or simply spending without announcing. This is called “getting things done”, quietly, competently, without fanfare or acrimony. For that, one needs a plan and a ship load of ball gags.

 

[Spencer100]

The only way Canada will get to 2%, (and for what’s it’s worth 2% may as well be 10% because this is all not going to happen), is if a government does so by mistake or simply spending without announcing. This is called “getting things done”, quietly, competently, without fanfare or acrimony. For that, one needs a plan and a ship load of ball gags.

Well there is another way. Just shrink the total economy! Its the seems to be the current plan.