47 pointsby ParentiSoundSys5 hours ago9 comments
  • ZunarJ53 hours ago
    We could have had healthcare.
    • moogly3 hours ago
      You are paying for universal healthcare. For Israelis, that is.
      • glob_roman19 minutes ago
        Ah, right in the spirit of Paul Graham, antisemitism in HN.

        If Israel gets $3B support, yet invested more than $15B in this joint attack, then how this calculus works?

        If Israel gets $3B, yet Ukraine got >$150B, then are Ukrainians at fault too?

        Or maybe the US should just give up, and let China control the world order?

    • 486sx332 hours ago
      [dead]
    • onlyrealcuzzo3 hours ago
      US healthcare costs on the order of $3T per year.

      The Iraq war cost about $2T over a decade.

      You could have about 10% subsidized healthcare, which I would obviously argue is better than pointless war killing tons of people.

      But you couldn't just "have healthcare".

      • eqvinox3 hours ago
        You're forgetting that U.S. healthcare costs are also massively overblown compared to other western countries, due to the absence of proper collective bargaining. (And possibly even collusion between insurers and healthcare providers to rip off citizens and the government.)
        • onlyrealcuzzo3 hours ago
          That has nothing to do with the Department of Defense / War, or its budget.
          • eqvinox3 hours ago
            It does with the root comment though, it's all just piss poor politics :-)
      • shermozle3 hours ago
        Yep just like many things Americans are sure can't be done, universal healthcare has never been done anywhere in the world, ever. And healthcare everywhere costs what Americans are willing to pay (public and private money).

        See also: not having daily mass shootings.

      • fma3 hours ago
        I don't think OP is talking about a specific war, but the overall cost to maintain such a capability and project force all over the world. At least that is what I perceive when people lament about lack of healthcare.

        The United States military budget is now 1.5 trillion dollars per year.

        • onlyrealcuzzo3 hours ago
          Sure, we could just not have a military and hold hands with Russia and China and everyone else.

          We wouldn't need healthcare.

          We'd just be dead.

          • ParentiSoundSysan hour ago
            Of course it might cost a lot less if we didn't need to pay for unprovoked attacks on countries like Venezuela and Iran.
      • dcel3 hours ago
        The UK spends around £200bn a year on public healthcare that covers everyone, for a population around 1/5th the size. Scale that up and convert to USD and you’re still well under half the $3tn figure you quoted.
        • onlyrealcuzzo3 hours ago
          You also can't see a doctor in the UK unless you're effectively dying, and doctors make about 1/5th what they do in the US after taxes.

          You could get similar costs in the US for a similar system.

          Doctors in the US aren't going to just accept making way less money.

          Good luck getting it done.

          • NegativeK3 hours ago
            > You also can't see a doctor in the UK unless you're effectively dying

            This is not true.

            • yunnpp3 hours ago
              I don't know where that narrative comes from, but man, is it getting old.
          • davidguetta2 hours ago
            You have no idea of what you are talking about.

            Universal healthcare is the norm in all of west / central europe, it's good quality, accessible for EVERYBODY (including the poors), and doctors still have great quality of life and are rich.

            You guys are just getting f** by a mafia in the US and defending it for no factual reasons. Both by the military industrial complex AND the medical field btw.

  • eqvinox4 hours ago
    Interesting aspect: if the ammo is all used up in Iran, it can't be sold or given to Ukraine.

    Tinfoil hat time?

    • onlyrealcuzzo3 hours ago
      You know who exports a lot of oil and gas NOT through the straight of hormuz?
      • eqvinox3 hours ago
        Doesn't even matter if it's a direct effect, the increase in oil prices is/will be enough.
      • slater3 hours ago
        Brunei?
      • ParentiSoundSysan hour ago
        It's just funny that people can't stomach that their own ruling class is leading them down the primrose path so they have to go casting about for a foreign bogeyman who's making it happen, despite the fact that every major Western power has bent the knee to this action against Iran.
  • aftbit3 hours ago
    This is reminding us something that we should never have forgotten - modern war has an insatiable demand for munitions.

    To take just one example out of dozens, the US fired somewhere from 100 to 150 THAAD interceptors - about ¼ of the stockpile - during the 12 days war in 2025. We produce just under 100 per year. There are plans to raise that number to 400 per year.

    The Ukrainians were expending somewhere around 10,000 drones per day in mid 2025. Russian numbers are likely broadly similar.

    Many historical conflicts have featured a substantial bottleneck on multiple munitions during ramp up. World War 1 had artillery shell crises across Britain, France, Russia, and Germany. World War II had similar, especially for the Russians and Germans. The US was short on ammo early in the Korean war.

    Modern mechanized combat demands an insane manufacturing and logistics chain. It can burn through stockpiles incredibly fast, especially of high capability expensive munitions. War production levels are utterly unsustainable during peace time.

    This is why peer and near-peer conflict is as much an economic and productive game as it is a military one. Shock and awe takes a tremendous amount of resources to accomplish at all, let alone sustain.

    • kaycey20222 minutes ago
      You’re saying the enemy doesn’t care about the Dow?
    • ParentiSoundSysan hour ago
      If you don't have an industrial base, you don't have a military. Good thing we hollowed ours out to juice the S&P to 7000!
  • duxup3 hours ago
    Lets say I'm on team regime change... aren't I also hoping someone we like somehow rises up and takes over that whole country too?

    That seems unlikely.

  • panny4 hours ago
  • lupire3 hours ago
    If this is true, the real problem is why the US was so undersupplied in core munitions.
    • spaghetdefects3 hours ago
      I think the real problem is that the US keeps attacking people at the behest of Israel and to the determent of US citizens.
      • ParentiSoundSysan hour ago
        It's not to the detriment of our ruling classes who have their hands on the actual levers of power.
  • righthand3 hours ago
    Lol no support here for these troops or military operations. Go ahead run out of ammo, I asked for healthcare. If it means a pedophile doesn’t get prosecuted and more innocents die as we bomb cities, I surely do not care just like they don’t care about healthcare. I only have support for those that defend our people, not those that attack others for “reasons”. See you in the afterlife or lack their of. Enjoy your propaganda.
  • SilverElfin4 hours ago
    They used up a lot of the remaining tomahawk inventory apparently. These operations, done without congressional approval, are wasting literal billions. Repositioning multiple carrier groups and spending lots of munitions isn’t cheap. And yet the administration thinks some alleged small scale Somalian fraud deserves all our attention.
    • lumost4 hours ago
      If China was to attack Taiwan, now would be the time. The current world order is at least in part based around the notion of the US (and allies) having the military capacity to fight any plausible combination of foes at all times. That this military capacity was used in accordance to a set of rules with input from allies and partners made the system tolerable.

      If the US lacks the munitions to fight all of these conflicts, and is unreliable to allies or foes leads to a high likelihood of conflict.

      • tim-tday4 hours ago
        Pretty sure they’ll wait about 9 months. They have a schedule after all.
      • koolala4 hours ago
        Would allies give the US munitions to stop that possible outcome?
        • lumostan hour ago
          Why give munitions to an unreliable partner? why rely on an unreliable partner for munitions? the Japan/Australia/SK-US-EU/NATO alliance depends on the US being sensible and broadly aligned with the goals of the other countries.

          Granted, patriot missiles are still manufactured across the alliance and I'm sure arms will be available for purchase.

        • an hour ago
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      • CyanLite24 hours ago
        Fortunately, China just decided to fire most of their military leadership and replaced them with inexperienced, but loyal grunts.
        • an hour ago
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        • Eddy_Viscosity23 hours ago
          Isn't that what the US did too?
      • fma3 hours ago
        I think this is only true if the United States takes armaments from the Pacific theater.
      • nebula88043 hours ago
        There is so much BS on both sides of the aisle so it seems impossible to get a clear picture but didn't Iran prepare better than Venezuela in terms of deployment of Chinese radar and other security defenses? Seems like there has been no conversation whatsoever about Chinese defenses, were they bypassed again? If so, then China must be reassessing. (Again dont know whats real and whats fake anymore)
        • nathanlied3 hours ago
          China is being very careful to provide enough support not to be seen as abandoning their trading partners/allies, while keeping the support at a low enough level to not get entangled in conflict or create expectations for future conflicts. They want to be able to paint this as "just business", in spite of any rhetoric they may publicly have. In some cases they'll help more in covert ways (Russia), while others they'll do the bare minimum (Venezuela).

          So yes, China did give (note: sell) Iran some hardware, but it's not the most cutting edge tech China has, and it's not in sufficient quantity to make much of a difference.

          The US is still ahead of China in a lot of military tech, even if the gap keeps getting narrower.

          • nebula880420 minutes ago
            This sounds like a cop out. The second biggest loser of Iran being invaded is China. The US already took out Venezuela and now Iran. I know China has made excellent strides in renewables but they still depend on oil to fuel their over capacitized factories. Now they have lost their number 1 and number 2 supplier.

            Combined with 25% youth unemployment things are looking more grim for China.

            If any of this tech had any value it should have done something. Now people aren't even bashing it like they did in venezuela they just seem to be accepting that it is not worth talking about.

            Like I said there is so much BS on both sides and well your argument isn't convincing: There is this cutting edge tech that no one has seen and no one knows anything about but just trust me China is saving it for the perfect moment. :/

            >The US is still ahead of China in a lot of military tech, even if the gap keeps getting narrower.

            We need to take a step back and reassess: is the hardware effective against the US or is it not? If it is not, then it is no better than a paperweight. Second place finishers are not with us any longer as the victor wrote the history books.

            I'm starting to think maybe WW3 has already started and we are so bogged down in the day to day nonsense that many don't realize it yet.

      • 4 hours ago
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      • Ajakks3 hours ago
        [flagged]
        • lumostan hour ago
          All limited exchanges end in annihilation, parties are required to tit for tat the exchange and it's really easy to run out of targets when you are using nukes - forcing an escalation.

          If Taiwan was invaded, the only military targets for the US are in close proximity to major population centers. The response would be nukes on US Naval bases (in close proximity to US population centers). This would rapidly escalate to a full exchange. Or China would just use their nukes to achieve all military objectives in Taiwan.

          Neither China nor the US plan to invade each other, or engage in any non-limited conflict. There is no rational reason for either to ever use nukes.

        • markus_zhang3 hours ago
          Ah, such good thought to talk about nukes so lightly. Do not underestimate the number of nukes needed to obliterate a country with 1.3 billion people.
  • rurban3 hours ago
    4 weeks, Trump said. And the stockpile crisis looks like a hoax