What You're Buying this Year

Source: Sandboxx News

While most Americans have been distracted by other political matters, the Pentagon has quietly gone on a missile-buying spree. Spurred by wargames that show US forces running out of key weapons in a week or two of fighting, the Pentagon has done (at least) the following:

• Increased buys of Patriot surface-to-air missiles from 600/year to 2,000/year, and THAAD interceptors (for shooting down ballistic missiles) from 100/year to 500/year, both by 2030.
• Signed five new missile-related contracts with Raytheon, including increasing production of Tomahawk cruise missiles from 90/year to 1,000/year and tripling production of AMRAAM air-to-air missiles and SM-6 surface-to-air missiles.
• Made a billion-dollar direct investment in two companies that make rocket motors to increase production.
• Paid Lockheed-Martin to set up a second production line for the JASM-ER air-launched cruise missiles, with the aim of increasing production from 500/year in 2023 to 2,200/year by 2030. 
• Simultaneously made huge investments in both cheap offensive drones and anti-drone systems.

This on top of our ongoing programs to build two new fighters, the F-47 the Air Force and the FA-XX for the Navy, and our very expensive new B-21 stealth bombers.

I don't blame the Pentagon or the Trump Administration for this; we seem to be in a new era of global war, and they are responding to the threats they see. The waste of war just makes me sad sometimes.