November 28, 2020
The U.S. Army Wasted $30 Billion On These Weapons
Everyone was pouring money into projects hoping to make a new wonder weapon.
by Sebastien Roblin
Key point: America and the Soviet Union both spent a ton of money on defense. Here are some ideas that did not work out.
The United States spent $610 billion in 2018 on defense, roughly one-third of all military spending on the planet—but that doesn’t mean that money is always being used efficiently. Over thirty years, the U.S. Army has engaged in two long-term wars and several briefer ones without replacing the major weapon systems which entered service in the 1970s and 80s.
In part, this is because the Army scaled back hi-tech equipment procurement in order to sustain expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But at the same time, the Army did spend $30 billion dollars on five new hi-tech weapons—all of which were canceled.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/us-army-wasted-30-billion-these-weapons-173442
