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Talking defence
I’m curious to get a read of where people’s heads are at regarding defence - be it innovation, funding or working in it in general (in particular in Europe but please contextualise with your country if you’re commenting).
Still five years ago, most people’s view was rather negative on it. I’ve seen attitude change significantly but I’d love hear opinions.
I’m a pretty pacifist central European* individual.
As such, I’m pretty much both obliged to be against “traditional” defence manufacturers and for a strong Europe in the face of Russian, American, or other potential or real threats.
A few years ago (pre-Ukraine invasion even IIRC), a friend told me about this interesting and at the time very young startup he was considering applying to in the defence sector (Helsing), which by now has seemingly almost become something of a household name in the space.
In the end he didn’t apply with them; not because of “moral” issues but rather due to different career paths opening up for him at the time – but this was definitely a topic in our friend group back then, and something he didn’t tread lightly with either.
Questions like “how do you ensure you only ever supply the good guys?” and “are you sure your work there would be a net positive contribution or change to the world?” were on our minds in the weekly get-togethers.
Personally, after coming up on >3.5 years of war in just two days’ worth of driving distance away from my doorstep, I more than ever see defence spending as the necessary evil it’s probably always been: in an ideal world, mankind wouldn’t need it, and it could be better spent on other things.
*southern Germany, aka the mountain kind
In the USA, at this specific moment I would not want to be working in a defense related industry, and I am generally not (technically some stuff I do is useful for spy satellites, but those don't directly shoot anyone).
But I'll probably be in the minority here that thinks the US hegemony which began to emerge in 1945 and fully established itself after the fall of the USSR was a net positive despite all the downsides, and that spending money to ensure it remained dominant was a price worth paying.
If anything has changed recently, its that the USA no longer seems to have a coherent foreign policy which demands such a large military. And as a result of this, European powers and really every other nation that previously depended on the US for security now should probably start taking domestic defense a little more seriously. Obviously there's a limit to how much funding is available and how quickly it can be spent, Japan can't just print a few supercarriers to make up for the loss of American support, and Europe can't just magic together a replacement for the USAF overnight, but given the consequences of losing a war democracies need to be preparing themselves.
Funding defense is good in the context of most countries in my opinion. Not only does it help keep countries safer, it creates a ton of jobs (one of the few areas where the wider public doesn't consider state investment in industry 'socialism',) and so many transformative technologies were developed along the way by the two biggest military spenders of the last century in the US and USSR: Satellites, ARPANet, GPS, etc.
Unfortunately in the context of the US specifically, I believe that for every justifiable use of the defense industry like Ukraine, there are more war-profiteering atrocities for which the public is largely apathetic towards, Gaza being a very surprising exception but one of many.
So, idk. I don't think I'd work for a US defense contractor but I think it's naive to be against defense spending altogether.
Context: USA, recently have been playing a lot of Itadaki Street so I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what war is like
People need to feel safe. The primary purpose of the militaries of the world is to fight other humans--and in many cases people fight for or against ideas. It can be a rather sophisticated and expensive process. That is pretty astonishing isn't it? If we didn't have mad charismatic men and large-scale organized crime would we even need the nation-state? Maybe not but we don't live in that world.
Unfortunately, as long as more than one group of people exists there will always be a need for mediation. Physical force is not always the best tool to use and it is nice when armed forces recognize that and choose alternative methods. If humanity acted like one people it would still be useful to have something similar to the military--but maybe instead of allocating resources on munitions we would allocate more on military engineering, large-scale aid, and filling local community needs.
I think we could do more sticks & stones. Well maybe it's not going all that great but it is still funny to watch, right? I think we humans largely do a pretty good job at not fighting--especially when it really doesn't need to happen.
But some fighting is unavoidable. You want to let out pressure from the seismic plates--a few hundred dead is better than millions by starvation and radiation sickness. But who decides who dies? That is a big reason why militaries fight so that the people in charge can maintain control over deciding who lives and dies.
The military-industrial complex type of thing could happen to any industry but especially those where people can't really say no and they continue to over-invest just to be safe... It is pretty telling that the USA is spending 16x on military compared to Ukraine: a country that has active warzone.
This problem of military-industrial complex must not be very different to the medical-industrial complex. The one that is making the USA a curious place to grow old... I wonder what industries are next? Perhaps local police and public safety--it is already a large line-item in most US cities but they could shut down a few more schools--we could always build a few more prisons...
Per capita, Ukraine is the sixth highest spender in the world and only four places behind the US. (The US is number two, after Israel). And it's worth keeping in mind that the US is basically singlehandedly responsible for maintaining freedom of navigation globally. That requires a navy, and navies are expensive.
Ehh... I'm not too convinced about weighing by population in this case (and even so why not include the population of all combatants as well? Wars are not one-sided). Even GDP is often a poor predictor of the necessity of military spending. It largely depends on what and where are the threats and potential threats.
I'm not really sure what you're arguing and I don't want to attack strawmen. Can you expand for me please?
The military-industrial complex leads to spending in excess of what would be necessary for the current situation. The military-industrial complex exists largely due to perverse incentives like needing to over-allocate or lose the budget next year. There are plenty of large population countries that don't spend nearly as much on the military. Civil population is not a very good factor for predicting military spending.
Would we spend less globally if there wasn't one country trying to out-spend everyone else? Probably. A large part of the waste are the threat actors that are created from the instability.
That's not to say that the US was wrong for taking that stance historically nor that they would be wrong to continue it. It would be wrong to suddenly stop the stance without some kind of transition plan for the areas where the US involvement makes a difference.
Got it. Those are generally reasonable points. Two areas of diagreement -- I'd say that part of (vs. "largely") the reason for the military industrial complex is perverse incentives. A lot more is due to things like complicated manufacturing base requirements. (If you get in a war, you need tanks and ships. You can't just create new tank and ship factories overnight.)
And second, I think it's overstating things to assert that a lot of the waste is due to instability created by the US trying to outspend everyone else. There are just too many complicating factors there.
UK.
I agree attitudes have changed including mine. 5 years ago I was against more defence spending and against working or investing in the area. Now I see the west’s dominance of the world dropping. Economic power with back up secondary military is no longer enough to defend our own security.
The world is becoming more multipolar and unstable. Unfortunately for now I think a greater amount of defence spending is probably needed, and I have no issue investing in the area.
I think ultimately free and democratic values need to be underwritten by a strong ability to deter another entity suppressing it.
Of course this needs to be balanced to ensure a there is no positive reinforcement cycle, and measures put in place to limit the ability to use it in an unprovoked offensive manner, and these are hard unsolved problems at the end of the day.
But from where Europe is now, more defence is a good thing in my view. I am skeptical that we can afford and maintain an overly aggressive defence force which will provide a countering force.
Canada - were woefully behind on all things defense and it's affecting our ability to lead on a world stage. It also affects our ability to defend our own country now that America isn't a reliable backstop anymore.
Because our leaders stopped funding defence and housing for the previous 30 years, we're going to have to make up the difference on gear, strategy and recruitment in short order.
For the Canadian public, this will be an incredibly hard pill to swallow.