Much of that stuff has actually found itself in the hands of those it was made to fight against. This is significantly worse than throwing it away in my opinion.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood,_toil,_tears_and_sweat
The greatest asset the US has built up over the past twenty or so years fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan is a reserve of soldiers with real world military experience. I’m not saying it justifies the cost. Far from it. But it’s not a complete wash from a mid term strategic analysis.
From my experience and social contacts, I don't think "incompetence" at doing anything is accurate or would I describe it as affecting morale. There are inefficiencies and incompetency with leadership or supply chains, some of this waste is part of running such a large organization like the military. One that sticks in my mind is having 60 people assigned to shake debris out of parachutes when there are only 25 hooks to hang the parachutes on, requiring US mail to be transported by US citizens, and I'm nit picking here: US Air Force intra-Base Security Police enforcing a 15 MPH speed limit...
There have been many lessons that have been learned, from these conflicts and I think a large contributing factor to the cost is rapid procurement of enhanced equipment such as individual and vehicular armor improvements; equipment that had been identified in review's as being a deficiency.
I think a positive attribute around the military is what is being viewed and cited, is lessons and critique. The Army does have strong systems in place for reviewing actions. I think it's something that I try to take a utilize in the civilian sector. I think there is waste, and certainly there could be modifications to improve efficiency, but I also think for a very large organization it does fairly well, and modernized fairly well to the challenges that were presented. However if I were joking around with some friends, I would totally would be tossing around incompetence left and right (haha)!
The average term of enlistment in the USA military is 15 years, 11 years for officers. So that experience gets lost quickly unless we keep getting embroiled in new wars.
https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2015...
The average length of enlistment for U.S. military personnel is just under 15 years for all branches. The average service time for officers is a bit less, averaging about 11 years. The U.S. Air Force has an average enlistment time of 14.7 years. Oct 4, 2017
The referenced URL is:
https://classroom.synonym.com/beyonce-curls-8729.html
(yes, that "beyonce-curls" URL is the right one)
Surprisingly, it does include references, but only one of them still exists, which backs up the 11 year number for officers, but not for general enlisted:
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2011/10/05/chapter...
The average officer in 2009 had been in the military nearly 11 years, slightly more than a year longer than the average in 1973.
The pattern among enlisted personnel is more complicated. The average length of service for enlisted personnel rose from 5.8 years in 1973 to a peak of 7.5 in 1994 and 1996, but then began drifting downward and now stands at 6.7 years.
Some military pilots talking about Afghanistan
- drove people out
- airframe lifetimes consumed
- people not wanting to sign up
I'm not finding much of what you claim the poster is "saying", in their post.
As for people, spending a couple of years in the military is much better personal development for many young people than going to college at an age when most people can't appreciate it.
These things aside, of course the loss of life is horrific and a terrible waste.
https://facethefactsusa.org/facts/the-true-price-of-war-in-h...
Metal is a non-renewable resource. Cost of extraction does not match market price, more so when unnecessary demand is created for wars. What kind of spin is this?
But in general metals can be recycled quite well and often are recycled due to their price. Also even if you finely shredded it and mixed it with other stuff the resulting mix would still most likely have higher grade than regular ore & mining it would thus be economicaly viable.
There could be asteroids of pure palladium, platinum, gold, and silver, and it wouldn't matter a fig until it was cost competitive with digging rocks out of the ground, sticking them on a slow barge to a massive refinery and processing them with cheap, probably exploitative, labor.
"We can't have a metal shortage because there's lots of metal in space" is not the most coherent argument I've heard today...
And think in terms of people. People that spend a year as soldiers in Afghanistan can't spend that year doing something else. We threw an insane amount of people-time, and a tragically insane amount of people.
There is an opportunity cost in terms of both stuff and people. We can print money, but we can't print stuff or people.