September 3 came and went, but the after-shocks are still rattling phones in every group chat.
One minute my readers were arm-chair generals; the next, they felt like arm-chair kindergarteners.
The same question popped up again and again:
“If China can roll out that much new hardware on its relatively modest budget, where are the American goodies?
The U.S. is burning through a trillion dollars a year—why haven’t we seen a single headline weapon since the iPhone was invented?”
The same question popped up again and again:
“If China can roll out that much new hardware on its relatively modest budget, where are the American goodies?
The U.S. is burning through a trillion dollars a year—why haven’t we seen a single headline weapon since the iPhone was invented?”
It’s a better question than most congressmen have asked in decades.
Two men proved the point within hours.
Two men proved the point within hours.
Donald Trump watched the same live stream we did.
Then he ordered eight fighters to roar over the White House—something that hasn’t happened since 9/11—claiming it was a salute to the visiting Polish president.
The formation: four F-35s, four F-16s.
(The F-22s, poor things, are now museum pieces with ejection seats.)
At the press spray that followed, Trump blurted out what everyone already knew:
“I watched their parade. Beautiful. Very impressive.”
Translation: I needed a quick photo-op to keep up.
Then he ordered eight fighters to roar over the White House—something that hasn’t happened since 9/11—claiming it was a salute to the visiting Polish president.
The formation: four F-35s, four F-16s.
(The F-22s, poor things, are now museum pieces with ejection seats.)
At the press spray that followed, Trump blurted out what everyone already knew:
“I watched their parade. Beautiful. Very impressive.”
Translation: I needed a quick photo-op to keep up.
The second man was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Invited on cable news to react, he served up the standard four-pack of Washington word salad:
Invited on cable news to react, he served up the standard four-pack of Washington word salad:
- It’s all Biden’s fault—his weakness pushed Russia and China together.
- Don’t worry, we’re rebuilding the force: space, air, surface, undersea—America still rules.
- We don’t want a fight with Beijing; we want “peaceful coexistence.”
- Relax, folks, we’re actually getting along great with the “East Pole.”
If Washington really has “superiority everywhere,” someone should tell the hardware.
The Air Force’s AGM-183 hypersonic missile? Cancelled.
The Army-Navy twin program? On life support.
The Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile—once the “pillar” of future nuclear deterrence—was supposed to fly in 2023; it’s now aiming for 2030 and costs 50 % more per silo.
The Navy’s electromagnetic railgun? RIP.
What survives is priced like fine art:
an Arleigh Burke III destroyer now costs $2 billion—twice the price of China’s Type 055 cruiser but with the combat value of a smaller Type 052D.
One Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarine: $7 billion a hull, before the cost overruns have babies.
The ground story is no prettier.
The lead Chinese armored vehicles in the parade—the Type-99A tank and the new ZBD infantry carrier—triggered flashbacks inside the Pentagon.
In 2003 Donald Rumsfeld sold Congress a PowerPoint called Future Combat Systems: a networked, lighter, smarter army.
After ten years and $20 billion it produced nothing except slides.
Obama killed it in 2013.
Today’s American armor is still the same 1980s design, wrapped in new bolt-on kits.
The lead Chinese armored vehicles in the parade—the Type-99A tank and the new ZBD infantry carrier—triggered flashbacks inside the Pentagon.
In 2003 Donald Rumsfeld sold Congress a PowerPoint called Future Combat Systems: a networked, lighter, smarter army.
After ten years and $20 billion it produced nothing except slides.
Obama killed it in 2013.
Today’s American armor is still the same 1980s design, wrapped in new bolt-on kits.
A 400-year-old anecdote explains the pattern better than any spreadsheet.
In 1644 rebel leader Li Zicheng captured Beijing and immediately “audited” the Ming war office.
Why, his men asked, did we have to bribe your generals for years—thousands of taels per city—just to have them open the gates?
The ledgers were produced, names and dates in neat columns.
The Ming officials finally understood: the money they thought was padding their pensions had come from the enemy’s treasury all along.
No wonder the rebels covered a thousand kilometers in three months; they had bought the road.
In 1644 rebel leader Li Zicheng captured Beijing and immediately “audited” the Ming war office.
Why, his men asked, did we have to bribe your generals for years—thousands of taels per city—just to have them open the gates?
The ledgers were produced, names and dates in neat columns.
The Ming officials finally understood: the money they thought was padding their pensions had come from the enemy’s treasury all along.
No wonder the rebels covered a thousand kilometers in three months; they had bought the road.
Historians call it Late-Empire Syndrome: the moment a state spends more energy billing itself than defending itself.
The American poster child is the USS Zumwalt.
Conceived under the fantasy that no peer fleet could touch U.S. surface ships, it traded armor for a long-range shore-bombardment gun.
Price at sketch: $1.4 billion.
Price at launch: $4 billion—if you don’t count the ammo that was cancelled for being too expensive.
The ship is now a floating experiment platform, because any Chinese or Russian destroyer can see it and sink it before its wonder-gun gets within range.
Conceived under the fantasy that no peer fleet could touch U.S. surface ships, it traded armor for a long-range shore-bombardment gun.
Price at sketch: $1.4 billion.
Price at launch: $4 billion—if you don’t count the ammo that was cancelled for being too expensive.
The ship is now a floating experiment platform, because any Chinese or Russian destroyer can see it and sink it before its wonder-gun gets within range.
And that is still a bargain compared with everyday Pentagon shopping:
$1,280 for a metal coffee cup;
$128,000 for a miniature hand-truck;
155 mm artillery shells that cost $2,000 in 2021 and now fetch $8,400—fourfold inflation in three years.
“Van Fleet rates” of 320 rounds per tube per day, routine in Korea 1952, are today a budget buster.
$1,280 for a metal coffee cup;
$128,000 for a miniature hand-truck;
155 mm artillery shells that cost $2,000 in 2021 and now fetch $8,400—fourfold inflation in three years.
“Van Fleet rates” of 320 rounds per tube per day, routine in Korea 1952, are today a budget buster.
The disease is contagious.
Britain drops $82 billion a year on defense to field two leaky carriers, six destroyers and twice as many generals as tanks.
France spends $65 billion and was just shown the door in West Africa by a few hundred Wagner contractors—losing a million square miles of influence.
Australia: $34 billion buys 59 tanks and a navy that had to be reminded, by a Chinese sail-past, that it could be destroyed by one visiting flotilla.
Britain drops $82 billion a year on defense to field two leaky carriers, six destroyers and twice as many generals as tanks.
France spends $65 billion and was just shown the door in West Africa by a few hundred Wagner contractors—losing a million square miles of influence.
Australia: $34 billion buys 59 tanks and a navy that had to be reminded, by a Chinese sail-past, that it could be destroyed by one visiting flotilla.
Where does the money go?
Ask the ghosts of the Ming war office.
They already answered, four centuries ago: it seeps upward, downward, sideways—everywhere except into the weapons the empire needs when the rebels reach the gate.
Ask the ghosts of the Ming war office.
They already answered, four centuries ago: it seeps upward, downward, sideways—everywhere except into the weapons the empire needs when the rebels reach the gate.
The parade on September 3 was not just a display of new missiles; it was a mirror.
In it Americans can see a republic that still has the world’s reserve currency but behaves like a dynasty in its final chapter—complete with courtiers selling the walls to the invaders, one overpriced coffee cup at a time.
In it Americans can see a republic that still has the world’s reserve currency but behaves like a dynasty in its final chapter—complete with courtiers selling the walls to the invaders, one overpriced coffee cup at a time.
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