Comment on The M.I.D. is mid by mrs_cms

mrs_cms · 3/10/2025, 1:23:20 PM · permalink

16 bumps

mr.t · 3/11/2025, 6:37:59 AM · permalink

Thank you for your questions!  
1\. The Texas National Security Review figures I cited were market rates. So 'official'.  
If you want some other figures...  
China's $333 Billion is equivalent to 1.78% of GDP. China's national budget deficit was 3% of GDP.  
The United State's $1319 Billion is equivalent to 4.52% of GDP. The US Federal budget deficit was 6.27% of GDP.  
  
2\. Yeah cost of living is pretty different and the benefits aren't as good with the PLA, and of course they don't have overseas logistics to fund, or recently wounded warriors to look out for. That budget reflects a much high proportion of acquisitions than the US budget does.  
  
3\. They added up Department of Defense, Veterans Affairs and Department of Homeland Security for the $1319 Billion figure.  
My understanding is that the National Intelligence Program (NIP) and the Military Intelligence Program (MIP) cover all US Intel (official) funding and they are in the DoD budget.  
For FY2025, funding requested for the NIP and MIP totaled $101.6 billion, including $73.4 billion for NIP and $28.2 billion for MIP.  
  
4\. That's a big question. The simple answer is no. The Congress doesn't know anything (atleast that lobbyists don't tell them), and they have the power of the purse.  
And the Pentagon... has problems.  
A reform of the Pentagon/DoD, acquisitions, and better congressional representation would go a long way.  
  
5\. Military power is a relative scale. America's military power since the end of the Cold War has declined enormously. America's power relative to Russia is probably similar to what it was relative to the USSR, since the USSR was a larger country with a larger fighting force.  
And Russia does not have a competitive domestic electronics industry, so they struggle with sourcing radars, computer systems, and the like.  
But China is different. Even a Pentagon spokesman said that the Chinese air force is "quickly approaching US standards".  
My opinion is that it would likely require a significant increasing in spending, perhaps a doubling of the defense budget, to turn the tables around and to really get a firm leg up over the PLA, or God forbid, the PLA + the Russians combined. Without that, "Full Spectrum Dominance" is already over and is never coming back.  
  
6\. The US is seriously considering fighting China. Perhaps not in the sense of dethroning Saddam Operation Iraqi Liberation-style, but in the sense of how the US was very concerned about the Soviet Union during the Cold War.  
It informs acquisitions in every branch of the service, from the Marines to the Space Force.  
In particular the problem is this obsession with 'defending Taiwan'.  
I think if you asked a PLA spokesman, even he would have to admit that the Chinese would stand no chance against the United States on the ground in Canada or even on the African continent. And I don't think any serious analysts are presently concerned about the ability of the PLA to seize Hawaii, Australia, or even Japan.  
When we talk about war with China, the default assumption is that it's going to be Taiwan, the South China Sea, or the Philippines. But it's Taiwan that is the sensitive issue for them.  
And Joe Biden said repeatedly that the US would go to war over Taiwan.  
Donald Trump has returned the US to its previous policy of 'Strategic Ambiguity', not wanting to say either way, while also shipping more weapons and removing language distancing the US from Taiwanese 'independence' in routine diplomatic correspondence, with Taiwan's formal, official, "independence" being a red line for the CPC.  
I am skeptical of the US Military's ability to win a war right off the Chinese shoreline, thousands of miles away from the continental US, and unclassified (and classified) Pentagon wargames have basically confirmed that it can't be done. But US policymakers can't stop thinking or talking about it.  
I think the only real solution is for us as citizens to continue talking about it, learning about it, and spreading the word, hoping that truth will prevail and WW3 doesn't blow up over it.  
  
Fun Fact: Taiwan spends 1.3% of GDP on defense - because it would be crazy for them to think they can militarily fend off China, half their population is sympathetic to China, defection is a large concern in their armed forces, and the general feeling is supposedly that either the United States will protect them and fight for them, or they will just give in to China.  
They certainly don't take their military defense against PLA invasion very seriously.

13 bumps

mrs_cms · 3/14/2025, 1:26:41 PM · permalink

5 bumps

mr.t · 3/15/2025, 7:33:16 AM · permalink

2 bumps

sacredcow · 3/11/2025, 8:47:46 AM · permalink

6 bumps

mr.t · 3/11/2025, 11:19:40 AM · permalink

5 bumps

Signature