It wouldn’t. Interestingly, we spend less than twice what the UK does as a percentage of GDP, but get far more than twice the capability for it. I think much of that reflects economy of scale; if the UK built the F-22, it wouldn’t be building 187 of them.
Really ?! That’s borderline retarded, retiring airframes *before *you have the replacement, isn’t it ? Of course, that’s kind of what we’re doing with the Rafale as well, so…
Ah, well. Military intelligence and all that.
Well, the airframes are all pretty old and today they are just too vulnerable to ground fire (particularly surface-to-air missiles). Combine that with their high accident rate- the basic design predates fly-by-wire systems and they’re supposedly much harder to fly than conventional aircraft- and it’s arguable that the loss of operational ability is offset by the high cost of modernizing and refurbishing them.
The production lines closed in the early nineties, so there are few replacement parts available anyway. The RAF sold most of its remaining aircraft to the US for parts (for the US Marine variant).
Granted, but Harriers are fucking cool. Retort.
(terrible warplanes of course, but still brilliant pieces of engineering. I’m honestly kind of bummed that they’re out, for some reason)
Well, yeah, but the F-35(B) is cooler. It does all the stuff the Harrier does, but with stealth! Plus Transformers-esque vertical takeoff routine is awesome to watch.
Harriers weren’t terrible warplanes; they weren’t as effective as conventional planes, but the UK couldn’t afford to build full size carriers so it was those or nothing.
As a brazilian this type of conversation baffles me.Brazil is almost as big as the United States,we have a 200 milion population,we share a border with 10 countries (like Venezuela) and still our military expenditure is just 30 billions of dollars a year.I have never fear that my country is gonna be invaded and never worried about our ability to project power.Brazil has not been in a war since the 19 century.We have been able to maintain peace with our neighbors and the rest of the world using just diplomacy.Why can´t the U.S do the same?
I don’t know what your history books say but Brazil was an active combatant in WWI and WWII.
You are right , but our participation was really small.I think i should have said that the last time that Brazil was really involved in a war was in the 19 century.The brazilian involvement in WW 1 and 2 , in my opinion , where just like the participation of a country like finland in the Afghanistan war.I was just a support role in a conflict between other participants.
But you are right, our last involvement in a war was ww2.I still think that 67 years without been involved in a war is a pretty good record.
Didn’t actually read what I wrote there, ehe? 
That’s ok, Der…I know you needed to get that stuff off your tape recorder, since it was burning a whole in your keyboard.
-XT
Your neighbors (other than Argentina for a while) are mostly too busy with domestic squabbles to develop expansionist goals. Anyway, you’ve got an aircraft carrier. What’s it for?
Accumulate rust.The brazilian goverment bought that pile of trash from France with the idea that it would help patrol the cost and protect oilfields.But is pretty much a waste of money.BTW we do have an expansionist neighbour,Venezuela.Chavez loves to put his nose in other countries business, especially in Colombia.
I did say mostly. Anyway, even with its recent increase in defense spending, Venezuela still has a smaller military establishment than Brazil or even Argentina.
Plus, the US has to import lots of oil. You don’t, which means you don’t have to worry overly much about the Middle East. You also never had to worry much about the Soviet Union. I suppose the US didn’t have to, but the world would look quite different today if it hadn’t. Our current defense spending is tied in large part to programs which are a legacy of the Cold War.
I could be mis-remembering here, but I believe that the US and Brazil signed a military treaty in like 2010. We’ve had sort of an on again, off again relationship with Brazil in the past (the US’s record of dealings, both military and economic in Latin America haven’t exactly been untarnished :p). At any rate, I seriously doubt the US would just sit by and watch in the highly unlikely event that Brazil was threatened by either Venezuela or Argentina.
-XT
shrug We sat by and watched (other than supplying arms and intelligence) while a much better ally was threatened by Argentina. Brazil is more or less part of the Non-Aligned Movement, and its foreign policy goals rarely coincide with ours. Anyway, for a good part of the last century we’d have been going in to help Argentina or Venezuela if it suited our needs.
They didn’t really need our help…in fact, our help might have been counter productive at the time. I don’t expect that Brazil would either, but at a guess if they did we’d probably offer it.
True, but like I said, I seem to recall that we had signed some sort of military treaty with them, and it seemed that things were warming a bit between us…in a wary sort of way.
Bingo. We do things when they suit our needs and goals. By the same token, and moving back towards the OP, the things we do (such as have a large military) have real, rational reasons within the internal logic of our foreign policy, and aren’t simply because we want to feed the Military Industrial Complex™ and ensure the gravy train continues for Fat Cat Rich Capitalist(arr).
-XT
You are right.The U.S had to deal with very different things in the past that Brazil never had to worry about.But i do belive that in the future, it would be in the best interest for the U.S to start focusing more in its internal problems than in world problems.In my opinion,you people are not getting much return for the huge amount of money that you spend in your military.
Well, we are spending less (mostly) today than we used to.
Well, not all of it, but there are clearly some things - especially in the procurement area - which are clearly MIC-complex feeding. The V-22 and F-35 programs, for example. If any other government projects (outside NASA) had a cost overrun that big, they would have been shut down years ago. Defense programs virtually never get shut down, even in today’s penny-pinching Congress.
The F-35 is going to cost more than twice as much per plane as was originally budgeted, and development costs are something like five times what they were supposed to be.
The V-22 was supposed to cost $2.5 billion to develop. Two years later, the development budget was $30 billion. It doesn’t even do anything special; it’s just a big helicopter that can fly about 70 mph faster.
Now, technology has to advance, whether there’s a war or not, so some otherwise pointless MIC-feeding is understandable - but probably not that.
But how much better would the f-35 be?
How much better than what? It will be infinitely superior to legacy multirole military aircraft - you could defeat the entire Brazilian Air Force with a dozen of them, if not for refueling and rearming - but it’s less capable than it was designed to be.
That’s not the issue, though. You could have modernized existing aircraft to provide 75-90% of the capability with one tenth of the investment.
You’ve piqued my interest. What is this upgrade you speak of that makes legacy fighter stealthy and only costs about $15 million per plane? I know some folks in the Pentagon who would love to speak to you.