US needs more subs to counter China ...

[Surlethe]

So, if I gleaned this correctly, the reason the US' military spending is disproportionate to the rest of the world (yes, DEATH, that is what I meant) is because the US conducts a disproportionate amount of world policing. That is, the policing that is considered necessary to maintain relatively safe sealanes.

Funny how Stuart easily applies this idea to the US, thinking that it's role as "world police" is desireable, but I doubt he'd be so eager to apply it to other nations.

How about colonial empires, were those also "good policemen" and their absence is a "much less desireable situation"?

I think "desirable" is shorthand for "desirable for the United States of America".

[K. A. Pital]

I think "desirable" is shorthand for "desirable for the United States of America".

I thought he actually meant US world policing is desireable for everybody because it "protects other people" and "allows them to spend less". Somehow, I do not find this to be the case, neither in the Cold War times, nor now.

[Darth Wong]

The problem with the concept of Team America: World Police is that America is not really interested in playing world police. They say they are, and they can point to certain countries which benefit from their military activities (Canada is a good example, and Stuart cited Japan earlier).

However, a police force is interested in security for the entire community, while America is only interested in security for itself. When and where this interest happens to coincide with other nations' security interests, that's great for those countries. For example, Canada does not have to worry about being invaded by some foreign power because the United States would never tolerate a hostile incursion so close to its own territory, for its own security reasons. Similarly, American fear of communist ideology spreading throughout the world prompted them to take extraordinary measures all around the world in order to limit that spread.

However, regional issues which do not seriously affect America's own security interests are treated accordingly. America might not interfere at all, and if America does choose to interfere, it can be easily dissuaded (see Somalia). Worse yet, if it is in America's interests to destabilize a region or nation, then it will do so, and has done so on numerous occasions in the past.

To take the police analogy to its logical conclusion, this would be like a police force that is only interested in protecting the homes of members of the police department and their friends and relatives. That's great if you're in that circle, but if you're not, then this is a truly shitty police force.

[Surlethe]

To take the police analogy to its logical conclusion, this would be like a police force that is only interested in protecting the homes of members of the police department and their friends and relatives. That's great if you're in that circle, but if you're not, then this is a truly shitty police force.

Or those who pay them enough, like the Saudis. So basically, US protection goes to family, friends, and the highest bidders, sort of like a free market. Hmm ... this sounds familiar .... .

[Lusankya]

The argument seems to be that "many nations rely on America for their security". Thing is, for most countries (yes - there are exceptions, big whoop), we're friends with America now because America's powerful. If China became the world's dominant miliatry force, we'd just become friends with them. As has been said, America's not doing anything because they're nice and the world knows it.

I don't view Chinese subs as a threat to my country. We have a reasonably amicable relationship with them: we dig up metal and stuff, sell it to China, and then they turn it into goods and sell it back to us at a profit. Why would they want to damage our economy when it won't help them, and will probably hurt them. Some people seem to be making an incredible leap from Chinese and Russian navies to PIRATES! yarrr!

[thejester]

I think "desirable" is shorthand for "desirable for the United States of America".

I thought he actually meant US world policing is desireable for everybody because it "protects other people" and "allows them to spend less". Somehow, I do not find this to be the case, neither in the Cold War times, nor now.

It's not desirable for everyone, but that's not what he's arguing. Japan and South Korea, for example, can spend only 1-2% of their GDP on defence because they are in an American lake. If you removed that presence you would see an explosion in their defence budgets so that they could guarantee some measure of security for their sealanes - which as Stuart has already pointed out totally underpin their economies.

You could make the same argument about intervention in the Middle East - the Western world has relied upon cheap oil for half a century, but European nations don't have to lose a lot of sleep over it (or money) when they know that any disruption of supply is going to addressed by the US.

[K. A. Pital]

It's not desirable for everyone, but that's not what he's arguing.

His "policeman" analogy was flawed; if the protection only extends to "people the US likes, or who pay the US with valuable resource", that looks more like a mafia protection than a policeman.

And thanks for explaning his example, which I understood perfectly from the very start - "desireable" for some nations which fall into US protection groups, but totally undesirable for others, who are designated potential targets and thus forces to boost up defense spending enormously even when they lack funds to do so.

Of course, if US+Europe+Japan are the only nations you care about, it generally seems all right - the US is the mafiosi protector of the First World interests with brute force, allowing other First World nations to remain cute and cuddly when the US will do the dirty job for them.

But don't call that "police" then.

[Vympel]

Doesn't really matter, she's on her way to the Indian Navy. Her Indian crew are already in Russia training to take her over. One of her sister-ships is suppiosed to be going as well (probably Nepr) but that's still up in the air.

I don't know if I buy that whole Indian Navy story. It's constantly brought up as being what will happen by the press, but everytime they ask any one in the military or the government (on either side) they deny it. The most recent news reports I've seen say it's intended for the Russian Navy. Unless they're referring to another in-progress Akula. I don't know why they're bothering to deny it if it's true. Probably just being obtuse.

[Starglider]

A simple analogy can be drawn with a residential neighborhood. It's well-policed with police cruisers doing the rounds every hour or so and the odd police officer doinga foot patrol and saying "Hi" to the residents. Nice and peaceful. Then the budget gets cut, because somebody points out that the police spend far more on guns than any single resident in the neighborhood, the police stop patrolling. The neighborhood goes to hell, crime soars and the residents start buying guns of their own. That's a much less desirable situation.

That's a bizarre analogy for you to use, since I usually see you arguing for minimal gun control and advocating aquisition and concealed carry of a sidearm for every competent adult.

[Stuart]

I don't know if I buy that whole Indian Navy story. It's constantly brought up as being what will happen by the press, but everytime they ask any one in the military or the government (on either side) they deny it. The most recent news reports I've seen say it's intended for the Russian Navy. Unless they're referring to another in-progress Akula. I don't know why they're bothering to deny it if it's true. Probably just being obtuse.

The Indian navy has stopped denying it now; the latest piece on the story was in Bharat Rakshak a few weeks ago. The dispute now is over numbers and time; one account says two submarines (Nepr and Kuguar)for five years, the other says one (Nepr) for ten years. Story went

The lease on the two submarines was signed in January 2007. This specified that the Indian Navy could lease the two Project 971 boats for $350 million for a total of five years, the submarines being delivered in 2008. However, this does not seem to have been the final word on this long-delayed transaction. By December 2007, Indian media were reporting the terms of the lease had changed such that only one boat would be transferred to the Indian Navy, but for a period of 10 years.

If one prefers the mafia protection racket imagery I'm easy with that although it is less accurate. We don't (usually) charge other nations for the fact that the U.S. Navy protects the sealanes or delivers aid in the case of disaster, the benefits of those actions are simply by-products of things we would be doing anyway because they suit us. Say again, we're not some universal benefactor who goes around doing good for the world, we do what suits us. However, those acts do have beneficial side-products for other countries (they have some adverse ones as well).

Specifically, the fact that we do a lot of power projection stuff and protect the sea lanes etc means that other nations don't have to do that and so don't have to include the cost in their defense budgets. That alone makes the comparison between the US budgets and those of the rest of the world inappropriate which is the sole point I'm making here. Again, take Japan as an example; if they had to pay the full cost of protecting their sea lanes, their defense budget would be a lot higher. Same applies to other countries that have to import materials that come by sea. We don't do that because we love people, we do it because we need to for our own benefit but the benefits others gain as a by-blow are real and measurable.

And yes, we deliberately bankrupted the Soviet Union by playing a different version of the same game. So what? They were the enemy and it was a cost-effective alternative to the other possibilities. we did it before and we can do it again. It's an irrelevent comparison though because that was war, we're talking about what happens in more-or-less peace.

As Spc Brungardt pointed out, there are other aspects to this quite apart from the sea lanes and maritime policing question. The U.S. maintains large stockpiles of munitions and equipment, far more than most countries. For example, take a look at most non US fleets. Those frigates that have eight anti-ship missiles each. What the books don't tell you is that the eight missiles on those ships are all that particular Navy has. They've almost certainly never fired one - I've been on a warship from a NATO country thatw as armed with eight Exocets. I looked at the little label that gives the manufacture date of those missiles - November 1968 - the year the ship commissioned. In twenty five years, that ship had never fired a single missile. I VERY much doubt if those missiles were still usable.

So, because we maintain stocks, guess who nations run to when they need goodies for some reason. Wer'e the supplier of last resort - or more likely of first resort. In the Falklands, the second thing the British did (after deciding to send the fleet) was to send a shopping list to Uncle Sugar. If we didn't maintain those stockpiles, other nations would have to address the problem of maintaining them themselves - and that is indeed a very expensive business.

Are we a shitty police force? Probably although we're better than none. All nations (not just our friends) do benefit from what we do on our own behalf although (say again) that's not why we do it. That doesn't change the fact that if we didn;t do those things, other nations would have to bear the cost of doing them.

It's quite plausible (even likely) that one day we'll hand over the baton to somebody else, just as the British handed it over to us and the Dutch handed it over to the British. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the new hegemon is China. They'll find themselves doing much the same things as we're doing only they probably won't be as friendly about it (a lot more honest but not as friendly). We like to wrap up our self-interests in a lot of fuzzy feel-good words. Our successors may not be so considerate.

[Stuart]

That's a bizarre analogy for you to use, since I usually see you arguing for minimal gun control and advocating aquisition and concealed carry of a sidearm for every competent adult.

Not at all; the ideal situation is for every area to be heavily policed to a level that prevents crime. In such a case, there is no need for citizens to be armed. However, the ideal situation is not attainable so a less-than-deal situation has to be accepted. My analogy dealt with an ideal world, my support for minimal gun control and extensive carry is based on the recognition that this is not an ideal world.

However, let's not get off-track here....

[Darth Wong]

Stuart, I have to question the assertion that all nations benefit from American self-interest. How does that apply to (for example) nations that America deliberately destabilized in the past for its own purposes, like Iran? Or Vietnam, which suffered millions of casualties as a result of the American invasion to stop the spread of communism, and ended up going communist anyway?

It seems a lot like the underlying premise for laissez-faire capitalism, which is that all people in a society will benefit if everyone thinks only of their own self-interest: a premise which has been repeatedly disproven through experience.

[Stuart]

Stuart, I have to question the assertion that all nations benefit from American self-interest. How does that apply to (for example) nations that America deliberately destabilized in the past for its own purposes, like Iran? Or Vietnam, which suffered millions of casualties as a result of the American invasion to stop the spread of communism, and ended up going communist anyway?

I'd separate the two classes of action. There are some things that the US does around the world that benefits everybody. For example, teh suppression of piracy, oceanographic mapping and hydrographic studies, prosecution of slave trading, surveillance of economic zones, suppression of terrorism at sea, which benefit everybody regardless of their orientation. If we didn't do them, somebody eklse would have to. For example, somebody has to make sure that maritime charts are up-to-date (the British did that for centuries which is why they are still called Admiralty Charts). the US does most of the hard work in keeping air navigation maps up to date. We do these things because we need them for our own purposes and everybody else benefits from the work.

The other class that of things that we do are strictly for our own benefit and don't benefit others - and usually result in their extreme discomfiture. Then, there are the actions that fall in between the two, where some people benefit and others do not.

I'm not claiming that all US actions benefit everybody - such a claim would be obviously ludicrous - nor do I claim that we're a beneficient and genial pater familis to the rest of the world - we're not, we're nasty and ruthless and good at wrapping up that ruthlessness in a candy-floss wrapping of glurge.

I'm simply saying that there is a category of our actions (not an all-inclusive category) that, regardless of their primary purpose, do benefit the international community as a whole. We pay for them and if we don't, somebody else would have to. that makes direct comparisons between our defense budget and everybody else's misleading.

[K. A. Pital]

It's an irrelevent comparison though because that was war, we're talking about what happens in more-or-less peace.

I didn't recall my nation ever declaring war on the United States, or directly engaging the United States of America in combat. The same applies to most other nations; the "proxy wars" are not unique to US-Soviet relations, same could be said of US-China relations, and so on and so forth. However, any reasonably powerful nation nowadays is forced to spend outrageous amounts of money to devise military systems that would protect itself from the US in case of a war. That is a "byproduct" of the all-beneficial US militarization.

I VERY much doubt if those missiles were still usable.

So you're essentially saying that NATO is a worthless combat force without the US. Which means it's heavily dependent on the US, again reinforcing the US world domination. Is that "beneficial" to NATO nations? Is it beneficial for NATO nations to be dragged into mind-boggling clusterfucks like Iraq alongside the US, because the US has so much influence over the NATO, and yet acts as a spoiled brat?

We like to wrap up our self-interests in a lot of fuzzy feel-good words. Our successors may not be so considerate.

Holy shit, I can't believe feelgood words are used as an argument.

"These other folks, they may be more honest about their goals. We in America use bullshit speak to cover our true goals up and lie to people. So we're nice. They are not".

Seriously...

There are some things that the US does around the world that benefits everybody. For example, teh suppression of piracy, oceanographic mapping and hydrographic studies, prosecution of slave trading, surveillance of economic zones, suppression of terrorism at sea, which benefit everybody regardless of their orientation. If we didn't do them, somebody eklse would have to. For example, somebody has to make sure that maritime charts are up-to-date (the British did that for centuries which is why they are still called Admiralty Charts). the US does most of the hard work in keeping air navigation maps up to date. We do these things because we need them for our own purposes and everybody else benefits from the work.

Let us see. Supression of piracy requires a miniscule fraction of US military spending. In fact, any reasonably armed ship sailing around the coast of Somalia or in Indonesia would bring a swift retribution to pirates. Far smaller Navies than the US NAvy, and less expensive ones - like the Russian/soviet navy or the PLAN, can also supress piracy and by the same amount of operations also keep their ships battle-worthy and tested in open sea.

Oceanographic mapping? Many other nations are doing it, and also what the fuck does that have to do with the 500 billion budget? How many billions yearly the US spends on oceanography? I doubt it's so extreme a spending that the rest of the world would feel bad without it, or that it constitutes a large part of US military expenditures.

Prosecution of slave trading? How conveniently you forget about zero attention to the massive slave industry rising in the former USSR, and a failure to stem it, which also constitutes a failure in international border control.

And please, all those things you listed, I'd ask for the percentage of US military expense that it requires. I think it's miniscule. A carrier force alone costs billions in maintenance yearly; whereas scientific actions of the US that you claim benefit all, may not be even in the military budget proper.

[K. A. Pital]

Just as I expected, oceanography is not a military discipline, it's administered by the NOAA. I doubt it's included in the US military budget 500 billion figure; I think it has a budget of it's own. NOAA spending (in entirety) is around $4-5 billion.

But thanks, I had fun shooting that claim down.

[Stuart]

But thanks, I had fun shooting that claim down.

NOAA is funded by the Department of Commerce. However, if you look through the tasking of the U.S. submarine fleet, you will find 'maritime and oceanographic research' is listed quite prominently. So you didn;t shoot it down, you missed.

[Surlethe]

I'm interested in some numbers. Just how much of the US' military spending is on keeping the sealanes protected, oceanographic research, maritime and aerospace charting, etc., and how much is solely for ensuring that the US can curbstomp anyone it wants any day of the week?

[Stuart]

So you're essentially saying that NATO is a worthless combat force without the US. Which means it's heavily dependent on the US, again reinforcing the US world domination. Is that "beneficial" to NATO nations? Is it beneficial for NATO nations to be dragged into mind-boggling clusterfucks like Iraq alongside the US, because the US has so much influence over the NATO, and yet acts as a spoiled brat?

Not worthless, no. The NATO nations could keep going for a few days on their weapons stockpiles in the event of a full-scale war. Not very long though, then they'd need resupply from the U.S. That's why the North Atlantic convoys were such an important part of NATO strategy and why teh Red Banner Northern Fleet made such an effort to plan stopping them. We maintained those stockpiles in teh U.S. at our expense. No matter what you may think of it, that increased the U.S. defense budget commitment and decreased that of the European countries (thus enhancing their economic growth). Hence it made direct comparison between the two sets of budgets inappropriate which is my sole point here.

Holy shit, I can't believe feelgood words are used as an argument. "These other folks, they may be more honest about their goals. We in America use bullshit speak to cover our true goals up and lie to people. So we're nice. They are not".

I have quite emphatically stated that we're not nice people. But the dressing up of national objectives in sickly-sweet words didn't start with us. The Spanish called it "Spreading the word of God", the British "bringing civilization to the natives", we call it "bringing democracy to the people". What is unsual about the US version of that habit is the sickly air of bogus sentimentality that runs through the verbiage. I don't like it and never have; I'd prefer it if we just said quite bluntly what we're up to. But, that's politically impossible I guess. Perhaps the next nation to be in our position will be a little more honest about its objectives; I do hope so. it would be a step forward.

Seriously...

Let us see. Supression of piracy requires a miniscule fraction of US military spending. In fact, any reasonably armed ship sailing around the coast of Somalia or in Indonesia would bring a swift retribution to pirates. Far smaller Navies than the US Navy, and less expensive ones - like the Russian/soviet navy or the PLAN, can also supress piracy and by the same amount of operations also keep their ships battle-worthy and tested in open sea.

All of which would be very good if true and to a certain extent is done. The problem is that it isn't done everywhere. For example the Indonesian Navy is deeply implicated in piracy within Indonesian waters. The national approach has been tried and some nations did quite well at it. The New Zealand Navy, for example, did an epic 31 day chase of a ship suspected of various illegal actions and eventually brought it and its crew to justice. But, the trend now is towards multi-national approaches because they simply work better. Most times, the ships called on to help are American simply because they are the ones that are available. Again, that's not us being altruistic, it suits us to have the sea lanes nice and quiet but the function is there nonetheless. Simply put, if U.S. warships weren't there, somebody elses would have to be.

Oceanographic mapping? Many other nations are doing it, and also what does that have to do with the 500 billion budget? How many billions yearly the US spends on oceanography? I doubt it's so extreme a spending that the rest of the world would feel bad without it, or that it constitutes a large part of US military expenditures.

About six to eight billion, with the costs spread between Commerce, Treasury and Defense. Some nations do their own territorial waters but only the U.S. and British do it worldwide. You can check that in Jane's Frightening Slips, see how many countries have maritime survey ships.

Prosecution of slave trading? How conveniently you forget about zero attention to the massive slave industry rising in the former USSR, and a failure to stem it, which also constitutes a failure in international border control.

Not relevent.

And please, all those things you listed, I'd ask for the percentage of US military expense that it requires. I think it's miniscule. A carrier force alone costs billions in maintenance yearly; whereas scientific actions of the US that you claim benefit all, may not be even in the military budget proper.

That;'s not the point; the situation is that none of the things the U.S. does are orientated specifically towards helping other people. They are offshoots of things we would be doing anyway. I was quite specific on that point. The problem is that if we didn't do these things, teh cost would fall on to other people's budgets and while a few billion here or there doesn't worry us too much, it would break the bank of a small local power. I have been quite specific all along that we don;t do these things out of altruism, we do them because it suits us. That doesn't change the fact that if we didn't do them, other nations would have to and the cost would fall on them. That's a very simple concept to grasp. Somebody has to do these things and if not us, people with fewer resources would have to take on the role.

[Stuart]

I'm interested in some numbers. Just how much of the US' military spending is on keeping the sealanes protected, oceanographic research, maritime and aerospace charting, etc., and how much is solely for ensuring that the US can curbstomp anyone it wants any day of the week?

Unfortunately, that's a division that's impossible to make because the ability to kerb-stomp anybody we choose automatically brings with it all the other goodies.

However, its not the relevent number. The relevent number is, if one or more of our ships weren't doing the job, how much would it cost the relevent country to do it? Take a simple example, one of our subs does a hydrographic survey of water conditions, currents etc at varying depths off a specific country, That data gets sanitized, the bits that are specific to our needs (for example the depth of the inversion layer) get taken out then the rest of the results go out as a notice to mariners. We do it because we need that data to operate our SSNs satisfactorly. The added cost of distributing the data is indeed negligible (and its borne by Treasury and Commerce). The problem is, if the country had to gather that data for itself (and its needed for climatological and maritime safety reasons), how much would it cost them? They'd have to buy a measuring platform, the required sensors, the crews to operate them, pay the operating costs of the ship etc etc etc. On the sort of defense budget available to a small country that finds itself hard-pushed to operate a frigate or two, that sort of thing could double their naval expenditure.

As I've said all along, the performance of such things falls out of what we are doing anyway so the added cost is pretty small. But, if we stopped doing them as part of pulling back into our shell and cutting back our defense budget, other people would have to take up the load and they would find it much less absorbable.

[Surlethe]

I'm interested in some numbers. Just how much of the US' military spending is on keeping the sealanes protected, oceanographic research, maritime and aerospace charting, etc., and how much is solely for ensuring that the US can curbstomp anyone it wants any day of the week?

Unfortunately, that's a division that's impossible to make because the ability to kerb-stomp anybody we choose automatically brings with it all the other goodies.

Are you sure? I realize that we bear a disproportionate amount of the collective research/defense responsibilities because we orient our military spending toward curbstomping anybody anywhere. What I'm trying to see is how much we spend only on being the top dog (as opposed to spending on research for the sake of knowledge as well as being number one), because that will generate a valid proportional-spending comparison with other countries who don't spend extra on research.

To use your example, the number I'm looking for in the operation of the sub is the total operating and purchasing expense minus the operating expense of running the hydrographic equipment and purchasing expense of buying the hydrographic equipment.

However, its not the relevent number. The relevent number is, if one or more of our ships weren't doing the job, how much would it cost the relevent country to do it?

That is important to the question of who should be doing the research, but it's not important to the question of who spends more on purely military expenditures, which is what I'm asking.

As I've said all along, the performance of such things falls out of what we are doing anyway so the added cost is pretty small. But, if we stopped doing them as part of pulling back into our shell and cutting back our defense budget, other people would have to take up the load and they would find it much less absorbable.

In terms of pulling back into our shell and cutting the defense budget, I have a suspicion that we could cut a large portion of our defense budget without seriously cutting the research expenditures.

[Stuart]

To use your example, the number I'm looking for in the operation of the sub is the total operating and purchasing expense minus the operating expense of running the hydrographic equipment and purchasing expense of buying the hydrographic equipment.

The problem is that the submarine has to have that equipment anyway; its essential for a submarine to operate effectively. So the public-service data that comes out of it is a free bonus. If we didn;t have the submarines that carried the equipment (lets say we had a coastal defense fleet of small SSKs), then somebody else would have to purchase and equip the platforms then operate them. They may not use SSNs for the job although SSNs are a very cost-effective way of doing things but they would have to do something.

Probably the most striking example of this effect is GPS. We created GPS for purely military purposes, to navigate military assets and deliver munitions more accurately. GPS now has a vast horde of civilian applications that are becoming indispensible. If we decommissioned GPS, other nations would have to replace it if they want to maintain those services. (There are two GPS-like systems, GLONASS and Galileo but neither come close to GPS's overall value).

That is important to the question of who should be doing the research, but it's not important to the question of who spends more on purely military expenditures, which is what I'm asking.

The U.S. spends about 80 percent of the world total military R&D as far as we know. Obviously an exact answer is pretty much impossible since highly classified R&D is, well, secret. Most of that feeds back to the civilian sector sooner or later, even the most esoteric usually finds an unexpected civilian application.

In terms of pulling back into our shell and cutting the defense budget, I have a suspicion that we could cut a large portion of our defense budget without seriously cutting the research expenditures.

Lord yes. If we decided to pull back into our shell, we could scrap the CVN and SSN fleets, in fact we could scrap most of the US Navy. We could operate the army from fixed coastal and border bases, we could scrap the Air Force transort fleet, if the US went isolationist we could make major reductions in our force structure. That would involve slashing R&D because without the deployability concern, the need for R&D goes away. No need, no R&D. The point then becomes that a lot of things we do as a by-product of our worldwide deployment then will have to be taken up by other people. Will they do it? How much will they actually invest?

[Stuart Mackey]

All of which would be very good if true and to a certain extent is done. The problem is that it isn't done everywhere. For example the Indonesian Navy is deeply implicated in piracy within Indonesian waters. The national approach has been tried and some nations did quite well at it. The New Zealand Navy, for example, did an epic 31 day chase of a ship suspected of various illegal actions and eventually brought it and its crew to justice. But, the trend now is towards multi-national approaches because they simply work better.

New Zealand? I don't recall that, sure it wasn't South African's or the Aussies?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

A lot of piracy news in SEA doesn't get reported in the papers. Likewise, even if it did happen, I won't be surprised if it didn't turn up in NZ papers.

As for Indonesia's navy involved in piracy, well that doesn't surprise me. The Indonesians' military has so many rogues that the only reason why they are still around, is because the military is afraid of losing any more power. It has lost quite a lot of prestige as it is.

[Stuart Mackey]

A lot of piracy news in SEA doesn't get reported in the papers. Likewise, even if it did happen, I won't be surprised if it didn't turn up in NZ papers.

Given that NZ has only two frigates, I would say that a 31 day chase would make the papers here

As for Indonesia's navy involved in piracy, well that doesn't surprise me. The Indonesians' military has so many rogues that the only reason why they are still around, is because the military is afraid of losing any more power. It has lost quite a lot of prestige as it is.

Their army is just as bad, or so my step-brother tells me from his time there.

[Surlethe]

To use your example, the number I'm looking for in the operation of the sub is the total operating and purchasing expense minus the operating expense of running the hydrographic equipment and purchasing expense of buying the hydrographic equipment.

The problem is that the submarine has to have that equipment anyway; its essential for a submarine to operate effectively. So the public-service data that comes out of it is a free bonus. If we didn;t have the submarines that carried the equipment (lets say we had a coastal defense fleet of small SSKs), then somebody else would have to purchase and equip the platforms then operate them. They may not use SSNs for the job although SSNs are a very cost-effective way of doing things but they would have to do something.

My lack of knowledge about submarines made the example ineffective. I'm looking for the expenditure above and beyond the basic research costs -- I suppose in this example, it would be the sub's armament.

That is important to the question of who should be doing the research, but it's not important to the question of who spends more on purely military expenditures, which is what I'm asking.

The U.S. spends about 80 percent of the world total military R&D as far as we know. Obviously an exact answer is pretty much impossible since highly classified R&D is, well, secret. Most of that feeds back to the civilian sector sooner or later, even the most esoteric usually finds an unexpected civilian application.

Here's a thought: is R&D spending proportional to military spending? It would seem so, because military spending is going to be proportional to amount of force projection desired, and R&D will be similarly proportional to the 'globality' of the military force.

In terms of pulling back into our shell and cutting the defense budget, I have a suspicion that we could cut a large portion of our defense budget without seriously cutting the research expenditures.

Lord yes. If we decided to pull back into our shell, we could scrap the CVN and SSN fleets, in fact we could scrap most of the US Navy. We could operate the army from fixed coastal and border bases, we could scrap the Air Force transort fleet, if the US went isolationist we could make major reductions in our force structure. That would involve slashing R&D because without the deployability concern, the need for R&D goes away. No need, no R&D. The point then becomes that a lot of things we do as a by-product of our worldwide deployment then will have to be taken up by other people. Will they do it? How much will they actually invest?

I don't know that not needing R&D necessarily means the US will cease to invest in R&D -- it certainly does mean that the US military will stop, but whether the spending itself ceases is another question. Anyway, that's not particularly relevant to comparing "pure" military expenditures, which is what I'm trying to get at.