Engineering and Scientific Capabilities of West are in Precipitous Decline

A couple of days ago, a routine test of a Trident II SLBM by UK ended in an early and spectacular failure. While infrequent failures of established missile systems will occur, this one is relevant because the previous test in 2016 also failed. More relevantly, the class of nuclear submarines these are launched from, have a long history of serious malfunctions attributed to inadequate maintenance. Given that those four Vanguard class submarines constitute the entirety of UK’s nuclear deterrence, makes one wonder if that country has any real nuclear deterrence capability- not that it matters since its is now is a vassal of USA in all but name. It is also worth noting that, over the past two decades, UK has been having a number of serious problems with their military forces- ranging from ships that constantly breaking down, an inability to recruit enough personnel, inadequate budget for acquiring any realistic amounts of ordnance, tanks, ships, airplanes etc. While many converging factors are responsible for this sustained deterioration (profiteering by corporations, high levels of corruption and general incompetence etc), the end result is that UK today is a mediocre military power, albeit one harboring delusions of past empire and military grandeur.

While the previously mentioned incidents might give the impression that this systematic loss of engineering competence is restricted to UK, there is a fair amount of evidence to suggest otherwise. The armed forces of every west-European country today, with the possible exception of France, are laughably inadequate for even defending their own country against any semi-competent adversary. The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has also exposed the laughable inadequacy of their military-industrial base. Moving on to the USA.. in past few years, more than one routine test-launch of the Minuteman III ICBM (have also experienced failure or inadequate performance. Note that this type of missile is currently the only ground-launched ICBM currently deployed by USA. In sharp contrast, tests of similar missiles by Russia, China and even North Korea seldom experience such failures. In other words, the problem of declining engineering competence is restricted to the West. But these examples are just the proverbial tip of an iceberg of declining general engineering and scientific competence in the West.

Since we are on the topic of American ICBMs, let us talk about the many issues plaguing successful development of the replacement for Minuteman III. This project, known as LGM-35 Sentinel, which hasn’t produced a single fully validated prototype for over a decade, is experiencing serious cost and schedule issues- to put it mildly. But to truly grasp the extent and depth of these problems, we have to talk about the ICBM system it is supposed to replace. The original Minuteman ICBM (LGM-30 series) was probably one of most revolutionary and successful weapon system ever created by American defense establishment. The project to develop it started in the mid-1950s, before any satellite had been launched, and was able to deliver a revolutionary solid-fuel ICBM with solid-state computer guidance by the early 1960s. Notably, this missile was much safer and easier to store than previous liquid-fueled missiles. This program and the one which created the similar Trident SLBM can be considered as the highpoint of American engineering and scientific competence in this area.

The Minuteman program produced three iterations of these missiles, with the last one (LGM-30G III) developed in the late 1960s and these are still in active use. While newer land-based ICBMs such as the Russian RS-24, RS-26 or Chinese DF-31, DF41 do have better flight characteristics, in addition to being mobile, the former still remains relevant over 50 years after it was first created. And this brings us to the issue of serviceability. As it turns out, the loss of knowledge and inability to make replacement components for the Minuteman III was one of the main motivations behind the LGM-35 program. It seems that defense industries in USA have lost a lot of the skills and knowledge base necessary to make reliable replacement components for these missile systems- which were designed in the late 1960s. Initially, I thought this was an dumb excuse to milk more money out of the government, but it now appears that most people who knew how to make replacement parts have mostly retired. But it gets worse and is part of a much larger pattern of decline.

While some might have heard about the various problems plaguing the commercial side of Boeing (737 Max 8 accidents, 787 development issues etc), those pale when compared to the much more serious issues on their military side- mostly inherited from McDonnell Douglas. The few spectacular airline accidents or multi-year delays and cost overruns in developing new airliners look quaint compared to the massive cost overruns and decade long series of problems with their flagship military products such the deep money-pit also known as F-35 program, KC-46 Tanker fiasco among many engineering disasters. I am not even going to touch on the costly disaster in their space launch division, known as United Launch Alliance- a corporation whose multi-decade incompetence allowed the rise of Space X. At this point, some might want to attribute a large part of the blame for cost overruns, delays, poor design and shoddy workmanship to the military morons who write the specs they want to see in “next-generation” weapons systems.

While this might seem to be the case, it is worth remembering that most suppliers to the American military nowadays are effective monopolies and have almost total control of what specifications are deemed necessary in every single product and contract. Moreover, every decision maker in the military today will retire into highly-paid sinecures at those very same corporations. To put it another way, the American (and generally western) Military-Industrial Complex now exist to extract money from the taxpayer to put out a few shiny and over-hyped toys which are not even as good as similar and much cheaper systems made by Russia or China. But under all this corporate financialization which has overrun the economies of West is the much deeper and systemic problem of diminishing engineering and scientific competence. Here are a few more brief examples. Consider the choice of a fuel-hungry and maintenance-intensive Gas Turbine engine in the M1 Tank. While the use of such an engine does provide that rather heavy tank a decent speed, this comes at the expense of much higher maintenance requirements and sensitivity to adverse weather conditions than similar vehicles with conventional diesel engines. We also know from the Saudi-Houthi war that M1 Tanks are just as easy to destroy as any other tank of that size and generation. So what was the real gain in that dumb decision?

We could also talk about the Armored Personal Carriers (APCs) and other armored vehicles developed by USA over past 2-3 decades. To put it mildly they have the same or lower level of effectiveness and survivability of vehicles made in Russia or China- which also cost much less. So, what explains this price premium? My point is that the mediocre and often sub-optimal performance of over-priced weapons systems developed by West in past 2-3 decades combined with their inability to even properly maintain older versions is another example of the rapid decline in general engineering and scientific competence of western countries- even in their supposedly well-funded Military Industrial Complex. Anyway.. I am wrapping up this post now, but the general topic is something I have talked about frequently in the past (in areas ranging from drug discovery to computers) and will likely revisit in the future.

What do you think? Comments?