stu3@mhuxh.UUCP (Mark Modig) (12/03/84)
John Litvin writes: >I noticed in yesterday's (Wednesday) WSJ that The Supreme Soviet, or Parliament >was told that '85 arms spending will be equivalent of $22.38 billion. As the >Journal noted, Soviet spending on arms is believed to be about 2X that amount >by some creative accounting. Anyway, say they're spending about $50 billion >on defense. > >The same day's Journal had an article about how the Pentagon is firm on its >request for $333.7 billion budget for fiscal '86. > >What gives? How come there is a nearly 7X difference between the two countries >on spending? > Well, as the informed reader will see, the Soviet figure is for 1985, the Pentagon figure for fiscal '86. Obviously, there will be a huge increase in Soviet spending in 1986. We won't belabor the point further [and expose our ignorance about what month the fiscal year really begins (I've narrowed it down to one of 13 possibilities)] and point out that it is difficult at best to compare calendar and fiscal years. Seriously, you are assuming that a dollar here buys the same a dollar would in the Soviet Union. (Actually, this is true. What can you get here for a dollar these days?) Labor, for example, is considerably more expensive over here. The competitive bidding for weapons systems here is a joke. Also, American stuff usually is much more advanced (read:expensive) in terms of all sorts of cute technological frumistats. The sort of technology that goes into our weapons costs. Equivalent Soviet weapons are usually simpler and thus cheaper. I presume the Soviet government owns its weapons factories in reality, even if it does not on paper. Profit does not figure into their calculations. Here the government must deal with private contractors that are not nearly so controlled. I seriously doubt whether you could get away with charging the Soviet government $700 for a hammer. Here you get rewarded with a new contract to help build more and bigger technological wonders. Mark Modig ihnp4!attunix!mom ^^^^^^^--new address P.S. Those guys in Stockholm, Holland, and Amsterdam, Sweden are wrong. I'm an American; I live in New Jersey, a small colony of New York, which, I guess, is located next to Yorkshire (they expanded, I'm told), though I can't seem to find it on the map. Anyway, we (or is it us?) Americans know, there ARE 13 months in the year. Count 'em!)
david@randvax.UUCP (David Shlapak) (12/05/84)
> John Litvin writes: > > >I noticed in yesterday's (Wednesday) WSJ that The Supreme Soviet, or Parliament > >was told that '85 arms spending will be equivalent of $22.38 billion. As the > >Journal noted, Soviet spending on arms is believed to be about 2X that amount > >by some creative accounting. Anyway, say they're spending about $50 billion > >on defense. > > > >The same day's Journal had an article about how the Pentagon is firm on its > >request for $333.7 billion budget for fiscal '86. > > > >What gives? How come there is a nearly 7X difference between the two countries > >on spending? > > > Seriously, you are assuming that a dollar here buys the same a > dollar would in the Soviet Union. (Actually, this is true. What can > you get here for a dollar these days?) Labor, for example, is > considerably more expensive over here. > I presume the Soviet government owns its weapons factories in > reality, even if it does not on paper. Profit does not figure into > their calculations. Here the government must deal with private > contractors that are not nearly so controlled. I seriously doubt > whether you could get away with charging the Soviet government $700 > for a hammer. Here you get rewarded with a new contract to help > build more and bigger technological wonders. > > Mark Modig > ihnp4!attunix!mom While this explanation is close to the mark, it still doesn't touch on the reason why the Soviets can get away with publicizing defense budgets that are actually ~5% of the amount they actually spend on weaponry. First, the average Soviet conscript soldier earns ~$3 a MONTH; compare that to a private in the American armed forces, who takes in more than $600 per month. Also remember that Soviet soldiers are neither fed nor clothed as well an their American counterparts (read Suvorov's "Inside the Soviet Army" for the gory details). There is also no such thing as a pension for 99% of the folks in the Red Army. Thus, while the Pentagon is forced to spend about half its budget just paying its troops, past and present, the Soviets need spend much, much less. Secondly, the vast majority of Soviet military spending is hidden in other budget items. For example, tanks are built by the Ministry of Heavy Machinery, and most of the money to be spent on them is in that Ministry's budget, NOT that of the Ministry of Defense. Same for airplanes, missiles, etc. The way many analysts calculate the Soviet budget is, first of all, to assume that they pay their soldiers more or less like we do. This eliminates the single largest asymmetry in comparing Moscow's military expenditures to ours. Then, they estimate what it would cost the Sovs to build an equivalent number of equivalent hardware in the US based upon the same sorts of optimistic assumptions which lead us to habitually UNDERestimate the prices of our own weapons. The result is a "best guess" at what the Soviets spend, in Western terms, on defense. The technology gap and all that other stuff that Mark mentions are elements of the puzzle, but very, very minor. --- das