"You get what you pay for": part 2, Defense spending

Projected U.S. Defense budget for 2008: $671,000,000,000.

Other sources (sorry, right now I'm too lazy to provide 'em) suggest that this is more than the rest of the world combined.

Now, as a rule, folks don't mind paying for something if they perceive they're getting value for their money, so the raw number, $671Bn, in and of itself isn't very meaningful. What are we buying with all this $?

Well... we're losing two wars against 3rd-world adversaries: Iraqi & Taliban insurgents in Iraq & Afghanistan, respectively. We hear repeatedly that the military is stretched to the breaking point by our commitments to these two wars, and that we cannot sustain the current 'surge' in Iraq beyond this summer.

What else are we buying? A previous post noted that we're spending a few billion dollars on a pointless missile defense system. A still earlier post noted that our high-tech mindset blinds us to the real threats we face.

Still another post notes that we spend bunches of $ developing ineffective high-tech "anti-IED" devices for use in Iraq... at the expense of implementing plausible counter-insurgency tactics.

I don't know how many different fighter aircraft we have in our fleet - I'd guess about a dozen. (Yes, I know, a little research could produce the actual number... but my point can be made without the extra effort.) In addition to costing ~$100Mn/aircraft, the sheer variety of aircraft implies additional costs:
1) we lose the benefit of interchangeable parts - the wonder of modern manufacturing pioneered by Eli Whitney. Each aircraft requires the maintenance of a custom spare-parts inventory... and those custom parts ain't cheap!
2) technicians - enlisted military personnel - are trained to maintain exactly ONE aircraft... this increases the training & personnel cost for maintenance.

How many types of fighters do we really need? I don't know, but I'd guess we could get by with 3: air-to-air, air-to-ground, escort. Three missions, three planes.

My ideal airborne weapons system: the B-52 bomber. This thing has been in service for more than 50 years, and is still an integral part of our strategic force. Yes, it has been upgraded... but it is still the same basic airframe as it was in 1955!

How many different varieties of field artillery do we maintain? I've not clue, but feel safe in saying, "too many."

How many new fighters, bombers, field artillery pieces, bombs, missiles, etc., etc., and so forth, are under development at astronomical prices? Again, I haven't a clue, but feel safe to say, "too many."

My bet is that specs for command/control/communications systems require that they be functional at five-mile radius of 100 megaton nuclear blast... ignoring the fact that the human operators will have perished!

We're spending $671Bn dollars/year on defense and can't defeat two third-world insurgent forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What's wrong with this picture?

The Pentagon's addiction to high-tech weapons systems is crippling our defense capabilities, and bankrutping the country!
It's time to tame the military-industrial complex!

Stop the madness!