Two days ago I made the mistake of buying a few things to read. In my defense I had a reason (need info about truck mods)...but still.
Picked up the reading habit when I was little, so you know I'm incorrigible at this point. I'll try not to make the textwall too high...
Got a most interesting article in American Affairs...morbidly interesting, to a confirmed declinist like myself. It is about the US military, specifically the ingrained problems that plague it. I already knew a few things about the situation, i.e. the consistent failure to meet recruiting goals & the inability to procure major equipment (ships, fighter planes, etc.) while staying under budget. But the article goes into some depth, & I gotta be honest: I knew things were bad, but I had no idea they were this bad.
A few quotes (edited for brevity):
- "The most striking aspect of this situation is that every major branch of the U.S. military is in crisis at the same time. ...All major branches have serious sustainment & maintenance issues due to a combination of aging equipment & general rust inside the industrial base. All major branches are arguably also facing real problems trying to adapt & update institutionalized twentieth-century thinking to experiences from twenty-first century battlefields..."
- "Though it's a common refrain to bemoan waste & fraud inside the DoD budget, the simple reality is that a fifty-plus-year-old aircraft carrier hull like the USS Nimitz cannot be maintained forever. The carrier, just like every other military platform, requires somewhat regular replacement due to...wear over time. The U.S. military now has a massive backlog of such aging platforms, & there is simply not enough money to replace them."
- "...a costly, sprawling 'solutions industry' of nongovernmental organizations dedicated to servicing it. Inside this industry, 'policy wonks' of all kinds find ample opportunity to hone their craft: writing proposals for reforming submarine depot maintenance here, or reducing cruise missile overhead costs there. Though all of this activity is...impressive, the...reality today is that this 'solutions industry' inside D.C. is doing about as well at tackling the military crisis as California's sprawling NGO ecosystem is at ending that state's homelessness problem."
- "The underlying issue that Navy leadership has to deal with is that the main scenario the Navy is supposed to prepare for--a kinetic war against China--is actually completely nonsensical... The Pentagon itself estimates that China's shipbuilding capacity today is roughly 230 times greater than America's. Many Japanese...most notably Adm. Yamamoto himself, were skeptical that any...tactics & strategy could make up for the gulf in industrial potential between Imperial Japan & America, & yet that advantage was an order of magnitude less than the advantage enjoyed by China today; it was far closer to ten to one than a hundred to one."
- "Today, the Navy is fairly candid about the fact that it lacks enough vessels to escort sealift ships across the Pacific. For its part, Military Sealift Command is equally candid...that there aren't enough ships to actually resupply American forces anyway. ...Pacific wargame scenarios regularly have the American side running out of precision weapons weeks or days into the fighting, with almost no capacity to replenish stocks."
- "If one considers that the stated purpose of the Navy today is to build ships & win wars, the Constellation program is a disaster in the making. If, however, one considers that the actual purpose of the Navy is to project an image of credibility, then non-finalized, concurrent, ever-shifting designs that never get done & always seem to be just around the corner, just waiting for the inclusion of some 'game changer' bit of technology, is actually rational & reasonable."
- "...the entire U.S. military today is mired in the same deadlock between an...unfeasible 'official' institutional purpose & the implicit demands placed on these institutions: the need to maintain ideological credibility, projecting an image of strength vis-a-vis any peer competitor. The suicide epidemic inside the U.S. Army is [an example] among many with regard to the costs of maintaining this front: it is no coincidence that the most suicide-prone units inside the Army today are the armor units. ... Using increasingly ancient equipment that is prone to...breakdown, with spotty & sometimes insufficient supplies of spare parts, the soldiers inside armor units work truly nightmarish hours. This has...effects on these soldiers' families, as well as their own mental & physical health."
- "The Air Force is saddled with maintaining bomber airframes whose production lines ended decades ago; the Army is cannibalizing its own motor pools & driving its own soldiers to quit the service or take their own lives in order to keep appearances going. The Navy now has fewer than 300 total vessels in the fleet, but it is still being given the same amount of forward presence missions as when it had twice that number."
I could've included quite a bit more, but you get the idea. I knew our armed forces were SNAFU...I did not know they were at TARFU level. They may not have gone FUBAR but if the article is legit--I'm pretty sure it is--then they will degrade to that level, soon enough.
Now here's the problem: I've learned all of the above (&, previously, a few related factoids) while being in intermittent contact with a friend of mine. He's in the service, is a mechanic of some sort, & will be sent to a region that isn't hot but probably will get hot within the next two years. That much I can reveal here. My friend is not stupid; he knows any weaknesses within his department (for lack of a better word). However with all due respect to him, I don't think he is aware of most of the above info. Until I started with my move, I had time to research these things here & there. He doesn't have that luxury; in the military you usually have a job to do. My first instinct was to xerox the article & send the copy to him, but then I had second thoughts. This intel may affect his chances of survival if war should break out...but if I give it to him it could increase his stress, which could impact his ability to function while in an already stressful situation. So:
Should I give my friend the info, or should I keep silent?
I welcome any & all constructive replies. Please explain the reasoning behind your answer, & thank you for reading.
