The Third World War & The Disruption of US Military Power

A Reddit user once remarked, “The most terrifying capability of the United States military remains the capacity to deploy a fully operational Burger King to any terrestrial theater of operations in under 24 hours.” While this is undoubtedly formidable, I maintain that the U.S. military cannot defend the United States.

Iran, the Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah, along with Russia’s information warfare tactics, significantly disrupt U.S. military power. There appears to be considerable complacency on the U.S. side regarding the actual threat posed by these entities. For instance, during a recent anti-Houthi effort, the U.S. Navy intercepted missiles but failed to substantially degrade the Houthis’ missile-launch capabilities, production capacity, or territorial control.

Operation Prosperity Guardian exemplifies this inefficiency, with operational costs of approximately $1.6 billion and an additional $2.4 billion spent on munitions. This makes the mission’s name arguably one of the most ironic in U.S. military history. We could have bought every single Houthi a Hilux and politely asked them to stop at these kinds of prices.

The War on Terror alone has cost $8 trillion—eight times the cost of the Vietnam War. For context, the Second World War, adjusted to 1996 dollars, cost $3.3 trillion. A useful way to comprehend a trillion: one million seconds equals roughly 11.5 days, one billion seconds spans about 32 years, and one trillion seconds corresponds to 32,000 years.

Consider the Manhattan Project, which cost $21 billion in 1996 dollars (or $30 billion in 2012 dollars), compared to the Joint Strike Fighter program, which has run $168 billion over budget, with projected program costs exceeding $2 trillion. These figures highlight both the astronomical expense and the questionable returns of modern military spending.

Chief Warrant Officer 2 Daniel Rodriguez, a maintenance officer with Combat Logistics Battalion 31, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, holds a 3-D printed plastic bumper for an F-35B Lightning II landing gear door aboard the USS Wasp (LHD-1) while underway in the Pacific Ocean.
Photo by Cpl. Stormy Mendez

The United States has grown so bulky that it can no longer act with agility. Overinflated prices from defense contractors now pose a mortal danger to the nation. The Pentagon’s wasteful procurement system has rendered the U.S. unable to wage war effectively. While the U.S. can engage in conflicts—such as the long-term engagement in Afghanistan—it cannot sustain an all-out, long-term, large-scale war across multiple fronts without risking financial ruin.

Currently, the U.S. allocates 13% of the federal budget to defense spending. In comparison, Vietnam War peak spending accounted for 9.8%, and during the Second World War, defense spending averaged a quarter of the federal budget, with peak years reaching 40%. These figures underscore the unsustainability of financing a prolonged and highly destructive war today. The nation would face financial collapse under such circumstances.

In prior discussions, we examined the squandered opportunities in defense spending and the notion that U.S. military power is being disrupted. Many argued that the U.S. could engineer its way out of these problems. However, continuing on the current trajectory makes this increasingly implausible. Solutions will require fundamentally rethinking and restructuring defense priorities and expenditures.

In a seminal article from Harvard Business Review, disruption in the business sense is defined as,

¨Disruption” describes a process whereby a smaller company with fewer resources is able to successfully challenge established incumbent businesses. Specifically, as incumbents focus on improving their products and services for their most demanding (and usually most profitable) customers, they exceed the needs of some segments and ignore the needs of others. Entrants that prove disruptive begin by successfully targeting those overlooked segments, gaining a foothold by delivering more-suitable functionality—frequently at a lower price. Incumbents, chasing higher profitability in more-demanding segments, tend not to respond vigorously. Entrants then move upmarket, delivering the performance that incumbents’ mainstream customers require, while preserving the advantages that drove their early success. When mainstream customers start adopting the entrants’ offerings in volume, disruption has occurred.¨

Given the cost outlay demands to make everything more amazing will actually be higher. Cost constrained, Iran focuses on speedboats, terrorists and IED like solutions. It also has a whole arsenal it essentially franchises out to partners such as the Houthis and Hezbollah. These terrorist groups are at a lower cost per kill and cost per movement than even Iran let alone the US. For far less money they are able to do more. If other countries purchase Iranian arms they can scale up production and innovation even further. Iran has shown that its weapons can not reach the latest frigates but they can hit unaccompanied tankers. Similarly its low tech drones have been used in Ukraine, there they are no match for even antiquated air defense systems, but can hit civilian apartment blocks. As a weapon of terror and to kill children is the Shahed´s work. Iran is a different asynchronous far peer.

In this Saturday, Feb. 20, 2016 file photo provided by U.S. Air Force, an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile launches during an operational test at Vandenberg Air Force Base,

It has none of the technology and innovative capacity that China has. But, it has a technology franchise model where it essentially encourages terrorist anti US acts by its franchise partners. I find this model to be wholly different than the proxies of old. This is not some roughly allied ¨your enemy is my enemy¨ situation. Increasingly it is clear that Iran has soldiers, technical staff and even generals on site directing operations and working in close conjunction with its franchisees. Their technology stack is dominated by Iranian weapons specifically designed to be assembled in caves, simply put together and operated by untrained people. Iran has a low tech franchise model that is very appealing to groups that are now almost completely controlled by it. Hezbollah has worked with Iran since 1985. The only constant amidst leadership changes and off boarding efforts by the Israelis has been Iran, for generations of operatives now. Iran gives around $1 billion a year to Hezbollah and around $350 million to Hamas. Its relationship with the Houthis is less sure and one more of convenience. But, given a GDP of $335 billion, Iran is spending in excess of around 0.5% of GDP on terrorism. Total military spending in Iran is around $10 billion. If you spend over ten percent of your defense spending on hiring some franchising partners it is a truly significant amount. More importantly ten percent of your defense budget indicates that this is no sideshow but the main event in your country’s defense spending.

Normally the US spends $3.8 billion a year on Israel, currently this has risen to $17 billion. Iran is set to double defense spending but the US will probably still outspend it in the region. The US is spending 580 times as much on trying to defend the world as Iran is spending to upend the US lead order. Russia meanwhile is hiking its defense spending to 25% of GDP as the economy creaks, with the country spending in excess of $145 billion. The US is thinly stretched as it is and would find it difficult to respond to multiple threats. Furthermore it would be very expensive for the US to do so. At the same time the US is the largest economy of the world by around $18 trillion in GDP while China is around $11 Trillion. The US is larger but we would expect China to be more efficient in procurement, even with rampant corruption. Its unlikely that the Chinese would spend a sixth of one years´ GDP on a jet. But, with China’s allies Russia and Iran keeping US spending high, China seems to be at a distinct advantage. To win in Taiwan it just has to keep the US from using nuclear weapons while it is spread thin in other areas.

It seems clear that there is an axis of convenience at work where Iran, Russia and China hope to gain their immediate advantages through working simultaneously. Russia would give Europe and the US a black eye and have legions of resources for its kleptocracy to steal Ukraine. Meanwhile that country´s vast resources would provide the Axis with enough to survive a boycott. That boycott would come about if China invaded Taiwan. China would get Taiwan. Which seems like a silly thing given how well China has been doing making stuff for everyone without having to kill people.

But, the country has a horrible record, over 5000 years in hiring leaders for life. Everything is hunky dory and then they doom themselves for a few decades by making a promising guy leader for life. Iran´s sacrifice seems to be disproportionate. It is now losing two of its forward deployed fortresses. What would be worth that sacrifice? To me the only thing would be if they were given nuclear missiles by either Russia or North Korea. This is chilling enough. North Korea meanwhile is starving but with its shells and troops in high demand is about to make this a world war. Troops and shells are just about all it has, and one less mouth to feed will be very convenient for them.

And this is what a world war feels like. Remember reading about the First World War and how everyone kind of sleepwalked into it? I´m convinced that this is what is happening today. The Axis does not have to win against the US, they don`t have to take them on and win one on one. Each has to extract their goals without forcing the US to attack it. This seems difficult but Russia has been killing thousands in Ukraine whilst the US guarantees the country’s freedom. That has in effect meant that Ukraine has to scrounge for hand me downs from the 1990´s and 1980´s. Probably not what the country had in mind when it gave its nuclear weapons up in return for guarantees from Russia, the UK and the US. Russia is at war with the US and now has brought the world to world war. Its attacks on democracy, payments and influence over public figures has meant that many in the US now ostensibly support Russia. Perhaps a globally deployable Burger King, however formidable can not save democracy after all.

But, maybe 3D printing can. I think that the current Replicator plans do not go far enough and smell a bit too much of continued pork banqueting at the expense of democracy. Time is short, the US is already on its back foot. In fact it may already find itself in a conflict in can’t´t win. Save for 3D printing. I’ve said this before but now find myself being a bit more frantic, the US can also set up a franchise model. It simply needs to make a deployable air defense missile factory that it is comfortable sharing with allies. Level 10 could be the current state of the art that it only would use itself. It could then make a level 7 factory that it would easily share with its three eyes allies Australia, UK and Canada; a level 6 that it would give to all NATO save Turkey, a level 5 factory that it would happily share with any NATO country and a level 3 one that it would share with a sketchy ally. By letting 3D printers assemble missiles in place, iterate and improve them rapid production capacity could be brought to bear. What’s more improvements would be implemented quickly and the enemy could be out innovated. The US could also do this at very low cost and have similar weapons to Iran´s shaheds or similar. This way the US will deploy 3D printing factories worldwide that could compete at cost with Iran´s franchise model while the US´ weapons would be the best overall. This would solve the US´ depleting stocks, let it outproduce enemies and give its allies enough support, at all levels, to battle the Axis. To me this is increasingly the only path I see to victory.