Dark budget? They can't even supply Ukraine with enough ammo and weapons to defend themselves and the DoD is already squealing that they are running out of everything. Dark budget..hahahaha...good one....

How is that relevant?

It seems totally possible that enough interest groups don’t want Ukraine to actually win, so they block anything more than the minimum viable amount. So it’s not much of a barometer at all for anything…

Yes, but this theory requires more and more epicycles.

There's probably some small-ish 'dark budget'. But think about it: the official budget is in the order of single digit percentage points of US GDP. That represents and enormous amount of resources. Any appreciable fraction of that in a 'dark budget' would also leave traces all over the place.

Well of course?

The world is vastly more complex than say the world of 1945, so almost certainly there are now likely several dozens to several hundreds of ‘epicycles’ that are in fact true and necessary for full understanding.

Edit: Now the pentagon doesn’t contain the entire complexity of mankind within it… but it’s probably not that far off.

I'm not actually sure that the world is more complex today. Lots of things are a lot easier and simpler, in fact.

Hindsight bias. States, like us human beings, are not nor ever have been completely in control of themselves and exist out of different "parts" making the whole. Also, when expected outcomes don't align with perceived results, it's usually best but not very human to doubt yourself. You never have all the information you need for making the best decision or opinion. "Dark Budgets" vested in firms like Dwave via firms like inQtel, steer research about quantum computing. Whoever has Shor/Grovers going first, has a advantage equitable to winning the AGI race... That too can win wars. Nothing is simple and perceived simpleness is on the clock, for everyone.

I'm not quite sure what you are on about.

What bearing does what you mention have on the question on whether things got more or less complicated?

> Also, when expected outcomes don't align with perceived results, it's usually best but not very human to doubt yourself.

Eg this seems like something that would apply equally well at any time?

> Whoever has Shor/Grovers going first, has a advantage equitable to winning the AGI race... That too can win wars.

We have plenty of quantum resistant options, and people are already switching over.

And the story of the Enigma and its encryption shows that cryptographic and its breakage was already important back in the day.

> Nothing is simple and perceived simpleness is on the clock, for everyone.

How is this different now than before, though?

It's not inherently different, how we deal with it is. Drawing conclusions from linear seemingly causal events is nuts considering that most start calculating from the future desired outcome to the present.Someone may do something stupid on purpose in order to gain later. Adversaries may do the same, the math can quickly spiral beyond human/individual comprehension. For a fact at least for a part of whoever may be involved in some way or another. Complexity is not random, and we can choose our initial conditions to our liking, causing $outcome. We now have entire DC's crunching numbers, not just a bunch of nerds at Bletchley Park. Their ability to calculate and manipulate odds for something to happen far exceeds ours, that's different now. Yet we read snippets from people speculating, drawing conclusions based on, what exactly ?

You are way more optimistic than me about anyone actually being in charge, or humanity's ability to predict things.

Perhaps...

The rational (but cynical) policy for the DoD/NATO is to provide just enough support to Ukraine to keep the war equal and let the Russians bleed themselves until all support for continued war is gone in their population.

In monteary terms, this is barely more expensive than maintainig enough of a weapons stockpile during peacetime to counter Russia. And at the end of the conflict, anti-war sentiment within Russia might reach Germany post WW2 levels.

By comparison, more overt support to Ukraine, enough for Ukraine to at least humiliate Russia and throw them all the way out of the country, would only serve to help spread the anti-West hate within Russia, and generate support for even more ambitious rearmament in the years that would follow.

Pretty much like Germany after WW1.

Not even that. You might want it to win, not care about the outcome or not think that it will win without putting the US through a long depression, in all those cases it makes US officials reluctant to put themselves in such vulnerable position especially given the new rising world powers

There's no dark budget, it's all there, the programs are just usually listed as "Classified" or "Special Activities" like NGA funding was in the late 90s.

> This does not include many military-related items that are outside of the Defense Department budget, such as nuclear weapons research, maintenance, cleanup, and production, which are in the Atomic Energy Defense Activities section,[90] Veterans Affairs, the Treasury Department's payments in pensions to military retirees and widows and their families, interest on debt incurred in past wars, or State Department financing of foreign arms sales and militarily-related development assistance. Neither does it include defense spending that is domestic rather than international in nature, such as the Department of Homeland Security, counter-terrorism spending by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and intelligence-gathering spending by NSA, although these programs contain certain weapons, military and security components.

> Accounting for non DoD military-related expenditure gives a total budget in excess of $1.4 trillion.[91]

The Pentagon frequently "loses" $1T here and there and then says, "oopsie!" with no actual consequences. That looks like a dark budget to me once you factor out typical government waste and overredundancy.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/pentagon-audit-2666415734/