The US military procurement is the opposite of this.
One reason procurement is slow is to avoid fraud.* Ukrainse hasn’t managed to eliminate that. Perhaps there is a balance, when you’re under fire at least.
* in the US, procurement fraud looks quite different (e.g. having anpart for your weapon made in every congressional district, a tactic developed for the B-1)
I think the issue is that you need different types of weapons for defence during peacetime and wartime (or when attacking).
For example, Stinger missiles are great for defending against the first wave of a drone attack or occasional rocket - they're effective and quick to use, but its immensely costly to maintain an arsenal of them that would last a year of sustained attack or even the production capability to replace used missiles. When you're under sustained attack it might be better to deploy more troops with lots of (previously warehoused) anti-aircraft cannon that can fill the sky with bullets for a few dollars to bring down drones and rockets and use your Stingers for those that get through.
History has shown that countries at war become about an order of magnitude better at producing weapons than countries in peacetime.
not really, the corruption is quite rampant in both warring armies and especially in drone manufacturers (look up national anti-corruption invesrigation into FirePoint as an example)
war and all matters adjacent are just the perfect ground for breeding corruption as there is too much entropy and handwaving opportunity at the same time
I don't know how people can have such a romantic view. Like read some fictional books on the matter. All quiet on the Western front or Catch 22.
Back cutting and corruption goes rampant and the worst kind of people profiteer while losers are slaughtered.
When the dust settles I think the precurment system will be seen as detrimental. Military power structures need to be boring such that it doesn't eat it self.
Also, consider VSL (value of a statistical life) which is around 5-10 million in most of developed world.
The US sees itself as a "policeman" not a "gangster", they are out to save the world, not conquer it.
And yet, the line between the two is very blurry. Kuwait was justified, Iraq contrived. Afghanistan meaningless. Iran is a solution looking for a problem (nooo they can't have nuclear weapons, but who trashed JPOA?)
The 20th century was no better. The righteous of WW2 allows any excess, Vietnam being a poster child.
For the US to change they first need to accept they are the bad guy. And that's a very difficult thing to accept. The shiny uniform for example is what the good guy wears.
But in the end the gangster and police can be hard to tell apart.
You can't police a multipolar world - you can when you're the sole superpower in a unipolar word where "policing" can be a euphemism.
I think there is now a general or at least generational attitude shift about world policeman type stuff vs smash, grab and bully in America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer_Blood#The_Blood_Telegra...
SpaceX does the whole rocket launch thing for a fraction of the cost of the space shuttle. GPS is not that complicated any more and all the processing power required fits in a chip the size of a cellphone.
But those things cost 2.5M a piece?
Plus low volume production volums and long times needed to manufacture it.
Could it be cheaper? Yeah I'm sure. But the US Gov is willing to pay for em so why drop the price?
That’s not to say that it should cost 2.5 million, but Ukraine doesn’t need storability and durability because I think they pretty much get driven from the factory to the launch site in a matter of days.
[1] https://ipdefenseforum.com/2026/01/taiwan-looks-to-partner-w...
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/order-limit-starshield-...
That Starshield was remotely limited is not in dispute, only whether it was just Elon's doing, or at Trump's behest.
There is a strong feeling on HN that because Trump is President, Musk holds zero responsibility.
This way the illuminati remain pure, when Trump eventually dies.
It has been the best, second to none for a long time. If you want the best castle, you buy it from the United States. Other countries may also sell castle technology... though as Norway noted it doesn't have to buy the best (and most expensive) from the United States, it just has to buy something better than Russia's. ( https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/norway-se... )
... And then with the conflicts in Ukraine and to a lesser extent Iran the world has realized that while we've had the best castles for a long time, they're big, expensive, expensive to maintain (and its own hasn't been maintained well) and has the possibility of a switch on the drawbridge that will let it down when the US wants in...
While Ukraine and Russia have rolled up to the battlefield with a cheap cannon that is demonstrating that expensive castles aren't all they're cracked up to be.
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Yes, you can probably build a cheaper Tomahawk missile today. However, can someone else build a cheaper drone that is even better for the battlefield theaters of the next several decades?
I heard the US produced knockoffs of the Iranian ~$10-50k drone and produces it for ~$35K and its a modular and an upgradable platform (ie. not just a dumb copy). If you ask me, that ability to not only produce castles but also 'cheap cannons' as per your analogy when needed for cheaper and then improve on top of it is a pretty darn good skill.
[1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-cost_Uncrewed_Combat_Attac...
Jungle warfare school was recently... reopened in Panama to the point that a conventional unit (one of the 10th mtn units) is there training. If that is where conventional units are training right now... that's a signal.
guns and cars kill a lot of americans. we've equipped so many americans with so many guns, they are doing a great job at killing each other in peacetime, it will be a slaughterhouse at wartime.
anduril's arsenal of weapons are more likely to be used against americans than anyone else. and for that matter, our imagined adversaries - the chinese and russian governments have killed way more chinese and russian people than any of their foreign adversaries. germans have killed lots of germans.
there are powerful VCs in my community, members of Y Combinator, who sincerely believe we should deploy advanced surveillance technologies - they're true believers of the article's broader, very soviet material product system, very IG Farben way of looking at things - despite talking on podcasts about their own families being slaughtered not by petty criminals or foreign adversaries but by their own countrymen, en masse.
americans have killed a lot of americans. not in some facetious sense either.
the best defense is strong representative politics and democratic institutions. the DoD's most powerful weapons are journalists, low interest rates, global shipping and a merciful immigration policy.
In the context of a potential civil war, isn't this basically just importing foreign combatants?
From 2005 to 2025, 730,000-760,000 Americans died from firearms related injuries, including police shootings, gang violence, and accidents, however suicide alone is between 55-60% of those total deaths.
From 2005 to 2025, in Europe, around 1,400,000 Europeans died from heat related deaths. Between 70-80% of that number could have been prevent by having air condition based on data from the National Bureau of Economic Research.