The American Fixation with Gizmos and Military Absurdity!

Okay, its been awhile since I've had a rant and this one's time has come.

There are many things about the world today which give me concern and they should give everyone concern. Not least of which are the on again/off again good relations these days with both Russia and China. Its interesting to watch in that way.

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Let me ask you something though.... Do you think the People's Liberation Army or Army/Navy have computer systems and combat operation systems filled with chips stamped "Made in USA"?

Keep in mind, the publicly stated purpose of some of these systems is specifically to counter and destroy American military formations. The Carrier battle group comes to mind as one they have built more than one system to target and penetrate the defense screens of. Successful? Hopefully, we never need to learn that.

Still.... Do you think those systems are based and directly contain U.S. coding and chips, to be used against U.S. systems? I'm thinking the Chinese make their own for some things. We should as well...and low bid contracts sound good. At least until that low bidding became a world wide market event, with little to no regard as to long term strategic realities for who WINS them.

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Lets see a couple examples of what I mean...because while China may use some U.S. material, we ARE using Chinese coded and produced chips as well as other similarly contained items which, in failure, can negate the entire operation of the system they are a part of ...if the wrong one goes bottom up at the wrong moment.

Dozens of suspected counterfeit parts have been installed on U.S. defense equipment from Raytheon Co. (RTN), L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. (LLL) and Boeing Co. (BA), including aircraft deployed to Afghanistan.

The Senate Armed Services Committee found counterfeit parts -- usually from China -- on at least seven aircraft, including the Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) C-130J transport plane, Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol and L-3 27J Spartan transport.

Source

Always a happy thing to consider...but wait! There's more!

This is not exactly a new problem for the U.S. military. There was a report issued in 2008 that identified counterfeits in the military supply chain as a big issue, noting that the problem stems from Clinton-era cost-cutting measures relating to procurement. Given this year’s Penatagon budget, which is much higher than many countries’ GDPs, the most surprising part of this whole story is that the U.S. military is actually engaged in saving money. God knows what they’re spending the rest of it on.

Source

Well.. crap. We can't blame Obama this time...so I know, that'll lose a % of people reading this right there.

This isn't politics though, this is American national survival, when we're entirely betting our safety and future on the superiority of our technology.......based on and incorporating systems or subsystems from the very nations we may use it against ...and THEY know that TOO. Which is what makes it particularly insane, in my opinion.

Oh.. We're still not done though...

Listing out some of the examples of Chinese cyber spy penetration, he said: "We're also seeing counterfeit routers and chips, and some of those chips have made their way into US military fighter aircraft.. You don't sneak counterfeit chips into another nation's aircraft to steal data. When it's done intentionally, its done to degrade systems, or to have the ability to do so at a time of one's choosing."

Source

It's utterly amazing to me, how much a nation banking on superiority in battle to other nations, depends directly on those same nations to BE superior and maintain that level of ability to fight ...them! I'd call it a logic puzzle to drive a genius crazy..except this is headlines and reality, and has been for many many years now.

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Finally.... The Russians aren't endowed at this point with the very high tech manufacturing and fabrication infrastructure which China has by its serving western markets. They simply can't be everyone's chip supply to possibly meddle with them en-route to installation within combat weapons systems.

We still have a case of short sighted foolishness though, and this is really what FIRST grabbed my attention today.

Engineers at Aerojet Rocketdyne in Canoga Park are designing a new liquid-fuel rocket engine that would directly compete against one built by a Russian company that's currently used on high-profile launches.

If Aerojet Rocketdyne does end up building the replacement engine, it could mean millions of dollars' worth of contracts and years of work for employees in Canoga Park, who have been stung by layoffs and program cancellations for years.

Source

There is another thread out there entirely dedicated to that last story, and so it is mentioned here for context and another example of how we've off shored what we use to an extreme.

We are literally depending on a nation becoming a serious adversary to supply rockets used in critical mission systems and to lift one of a kind satellites of all kinds into space. That dependence should never have occurred, IMO.

Anyone else see enough stupid and crazy in all this to get hopping mad about sometimes? America sits in unemployment, cancelled contracts and stagnation, as noted above in the Rocket example, while we actually bicker over whether it's a GOOD idea or not to shift all that INSIDE the U.S. again and..Oh, I don't know...maybe USE AMERICANS for American priority projects?

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After all....I ask again...do we think the Chinese and Russians are going beyond just copying our designs ..but openly buying the chips for defense systems, labeled AS such, from US...as the nation they may actually use them AGAINST? Well.. We are doing precisely that, regularly.

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Maybe..it is time we work on rebuilding that production capability we once enjoyed near self sustaining levels of independence by. It would be nice to be a nation that could stand on its own. We're among the few on Earth who can by sheer geography, and HAS in the past. It is what we've lost...and that production happened to take civilian employment and private sector revenue (taxes included) right along with it, next to the experience core it all carried.

Yup. We can build our own stuff. Now the military buys from the cheapest supplier and the suppliers can hide stuff in this technology we have created, messes of electronic paperwork that make it sound like they are legit. Also the big defense contractors can stamp made in USA on their product if most of the manufacturing or just assembling is done here. You can buy a tool from Taiwan, put the tag that says "Assembled in the USA" on it and remove the tag saying made in China and it is legal. I know this because I was going to be a tool distributor a while back so learned the loopholes.

By adding a part made in the USA and putting it together like assembling a BBQ grill and adding some racks, you could put Made in USA on the tag. Now this was about ten years ago, so I haven't looked if there are any changes to this.

Think about this, a factory orders all the parts for something for a product for two bucks then their help assembled this stuff and sells it wholesale for ten bucks...five minutes of labor involved.....Now the GNP would look good so the government isn't going to complain, as long as a set of rules are followed. People get rich this way, while the rest of us are trying to get a job at McD's or Subway. I suppose we can upgrade to Walmart.

Thats long struck me as odd .. good to see that someone else has noticed .. and yes both buy from certain u.s manufacturers .. its late and four hours sleep in four days cant recall names of the manufacturers at moment ..

At the end of the day corporate profits mean more than jobs and a viable manufacturing base in america .. with its largely service based economy america will fall further behind ..

Anyhoo .. good rant s&f ..

The same paradigm has been used in real life. US forces in Afghanistan trained up the locals to carry on their work once they left, Thinking the recruits were loyal to them. Then all of a sudden they turn on the US forces and show themselves to be really the enemy. It still all boils down to the universal tenet "if you want something doing right, do it yourself". Nuff said.

I can't hardly believe this isn't intentional, with a long-range plan only known to world powers 'in the loop'.
The only other logical explanation is that all the people running the show possess an I.Q. far below that of an average sixth grader.

I have stated this before, I will restate it once again...

Our founding fathers warned us not to meddle with, or become embroiled in the affairs of other nations.

Yet, here we are...

Welcome to the Bang-Head-Against-the-Wall Lounge

I have seen this my whole adult life while serving. It makes no sense unless we consider the folks calling the shots simply want to make money. Then it aligns.

Matter of fact, it gets promoted as a good thing. Save Uncle Sam a few bucks by cutting corners? Get an atta-boy on your evaluation. Never mind if it makes sense or not.

The amazing thing is the DoD budget does nothing but grow. So pennies get pinched here in order to spend dollars there. If you happen to be "there", the gravy train does not stop.

From a strategic stand point, unless you develop and procure all your own resources from your home turf, you are highly vulnerable. Right now the US Military is so dependent on international sources and private contractors, if they had to go it alone, I am not sure how pretty it would be.

S&F

One of the bigger problems here is the egotistical nature of the DOD. They believe they have the best goodies without the assumption that the other side has people that are just as inventive and know there stuff just as well.

If you can get hold of any piece of tech, you can discover what it does and how it does it. Then by adding your particular take on the tech, you can improve it. Peoples think differently. Not only does China seem to get hold of the plans for everything, they make most of the electronics one way or another.

They can now often bring out a version II before the US has finished version I. With China's huge ability to put more people than necessary on any task, they are looking at every circuit board leaving China, working out where they are going and what into, and then eventually getting the whole control system.

It is so much easier to simply send over the circuit and have the whole board built, that many companies do this now on the development cycle. China has a front row seat to learn how your engineers think.

The US uses electronics to eaves drop, the Chinese use boots on the ground. We know which ones pays the better dividend.

Everyone looks at chips because they are worth $$$

No one looks at capacitors and resistors because there is no money in producing counterfeits. But what if, a whole lot of capacitors are just waiting for that strange signal before they decide to 'blow.'

Going to war with a country that makes your weapons is just a fool's game.

P