The US Military Is Getting Smaller, Cheaper and Smarter

For those reading just the headline and not the article, it&#x27;s not talking about the U.S. military downsizing budget-wise, but how they&#x27;re investing more in smaller-size combat drones, which per-unit might be considered cheap, cheaper than a tank or UAV at least.<p>There&#x27;s a lot of sci-fi speculating, and in theory, swarms of thousands of small drones sounds like it has a lot of potential, but as far as I can tell, still just seems like a lot of speculation.<p>Larger drones have played a role in modern warfare for decades, and we&#x27;ve seen homespun videos of Ukrainian consumer drones dropping simple explosives on sleeping Russian soldiers, but the efficacy of tiny drones seems questionable.<p>I&#x27;d be interested in what someone who actually understands modern warfare thinks about these tiny drones and the role they&#x27;ll fill.

This sounds great but you still need tanks, humvees, missiles, artillery shells, anti-rocket systems, helicopters, etc. to fight wars. (Lots of them, too.) Adding drones does not address that need any more than the introduction of breech-loading rifles changed the need for other types of military equipment.<p>And before we get too excited about eliminating carrier-like warships and transport aircraft...How does everyone think the drones will get onto the battlefield?<p>Drones are another component of combined arms but you need the rest of the stack to use them effectively, plus boots on the ground to hold territory.

You can measure in nominal dollars, inflation-adjusted dollars, percentage of GDP … or in the only way that matters in war: in comparison to your adversaries<p>Surprise! It’s neither getting smaller nor cheaper. Smarter? Well, war is pretty dumb … again, it ought to be compared to what we could be doing instead.

I’m not well versed on the current state of military procurement, but this kind of vaguely resembles the NGAD idea&#x2F;programme that’s been going on for many years now.<p>The article is also incredibly light on details.<p>&gt; How would Replicator work on the battlefield? The initial step might be mobilizing two separate swarms of small, unmanned vehicles. The first group, numbering in the tens of thousands, would be focused on surveillance and reconnaissance, sending back uncountable millions of data bits to form a precise targeting picture. Second, the battlespace would be turned over to hundreds or thousands of vehicles large enough to accommodate payloads of explosives. Working alongside them would be drones carrying out cyberattacks to blind the enemy, effectively “cloaking” our own forces while destroying an enemy’s fighting ability.<p>Isn’t this already how the US mostly conducts operations, but without the tiny drones part? Take advantage of overwhelming air, intelligence, and logistical superiority to quickly neutralise enemy targets. I believe it’s literally in the latest edition of the released doctrine documents: use the clear superiority of US combined arms to coordinate multi domain operations.<p>This really feels like a mostly fluff piece without any real substance. I haven’t seen any major evidence of a doctrinal change to smaller drones and platforms; NGAD seems alive and well, leaning in traditional American technological and organisational capacity as a core part of doctrine.

Meaning weaker and ineffective. The last great battle they fought in Afghan was absolute humiliation. With peak of 400K troops station in Afghan for near 2 decades with near 10T spent with 1 single objective to remove Taleban. They return home fleeing in great Kabul flee incident gifting countless high tech weapons there to Talebans (to resold to Russians and Chinese). Trained 10K Afghanis commandos to join as mercs worldwide or seeded next round of 911 2.0 in USA. Tactics and weapon severely destroyed by Russians shovels (some American troops got slaughtered there as well under the guise of mercs). Talk about Syria, even more humiliating. The ops there when needed, actually had to request permissions with Wagners general there (not even Russian MoD). Cheaper? They win a war first, then we see and evaluate. As current standing, they are at best 3rd or 4th army in the world in actual combat.

No, it’s not:<p>&gt; <i>The FY 2023 DoD Budget request of $773.0 billion is a $30.7 billion, or 4.1% increase, from the FY 2022 enacted amount.</i><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.defense.gov&#x2F;News&#x2F;Releases&#x2F;Release&#x2F;Article&#x2F;2980014&#x2F;the-department-of-defense-releases-the-presidents-fiscal-year-2023-defense-budg&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.defense.gov&#x2F;News&#x2F;Releases&#x2F;Release&#x2F;Article&#x2F;298001...</a>

I would guess that not being in hot conflict has decent effect... You burn less money when you don&#x27;t do anything yourself.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;OuQOY" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;OuQOY</a>

US MIL also needs to get more lethal. Smaller, cheaper (relative), and smarter are good measures moving in a good direction, but lethality a critical factor for winning wars.

no it is not getting cheaper, much propaganda bloomberg loves it

alright. let&#x27;s talk the number. how much would it cost to kill a sand dweller or amazon swinger? how high is the return of investment to get some oil?

I always suggest that the best way to reduce military spending, in particular for the US, would be to focus on soft power. Build schools and hospitals, turn the country into a role-model for others (make it look the country is seriously into being a democracy, improve living standards, reduce inequality, etc), and so many other relatively low-cost measures that would prevent a non-trivial amount of friction that ends up in direct offensive military action.<p>Making more lethal and cheaper weapons is one way, sure, but one key goal of a standing military in peacetime is to maintain peace, and that can be achieved in many ways cheaper than that.