Sources: All of the information stated in this article is based on reliable sources, and is detailed at the end of the article
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Preface
On 17 April, a member of the US House of Representatives openly "criticized" the US military spending issue at a congressional meeting.
According to reports, the congressman took out a small bag containing bushing parts, indicating that many weapons of the US military can be used, and there is no technical content in producing such parts, but the purchase price of the US Air Force is as high as $90,000.
Even a bag of gold is unlikely to sell for $90,000, let alone a bag of bushings with little technical content, but why would the United States spend so much money on such parts?
Bushing ninety thousand bags?
On April 17 of this year, U.S. Congressman Waltz posted a video on his social media platform in which he publicly questioned U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall.
During the congressional discussion, Waltz pulled out a bag containing small bushing parts and asked the Secretary of the Air Force if he knew exactly how much the small bushing would cost.
The Secretary of the US Air Force replied, of course, that he did not know, and then Walz said that this bag of parts can be used in many weapons of the US military, but there is basically no technical content in the production of such parts, but the purchase price of the US Air Force is 90,000 US dollars.
Such data made almost all the parliamentarians present drop their jaws, after all, even a bag of gold could not be worth so much money.
The small bag of bushings in Waltz's hand is a kind of consumable industrial parts, which are generally placed on high-precision or airtight parts to play a closed or cushioning role.
Therefore, it is actually very common for the US Air Force to use this kind of parts, but it is the sky-high price, we have seen it for the first time, because in our impression, this thing is very cheap, and even when you buy other things, the boss will give you a few.
On the online shopping platform, we found that the price of such parts is only sold for 1.. 67 yuan, so the purchase price of the US Air Force is obviously boring.
In fact, although Waltz did not make it clear in Congress, he still said openly and secretly that there were obviously "corruption" in it, and another point was that the procurement source of the US military was too single.
In fact, Waltz's video also seems to explain why the United States ranks second to tenth in military spending every year in the total military spending of the nine countries.
With all this being said so obviously, and comparing the prices of goods made in China, is he pulling business for China? The answer is obviously no.
It is important to understand that Mike Waltz is known for his staunch anti-China stance in American politics, and during the outbreak of the pandemic, he was caught in a rather ironic storm over products made in China.
We know that the U.S. government didn't actually make any effective epidemic prevention measures during the epidemic, but Waltz posted a certificate of conformity for mainland disposable gloves on social platforms, and asked U.S. congressmen and staff why they use Chinese epidemic prevention products.
This kind of behavior is a bit like flipping the pot just after eating, so he was also ridiculed by American netizens and Chinese netizens.
The high military spending of the United States
In recent years, U.S. defense spending has shown a sustained upward trend, and its amount has approached or even equaled the cumulative annual military spending of the second to tenth countries that follow it.
Theoretically, given the huge amount of military spending invested every year, its military development should show a more rapid trend. However, in recent years, we do not seem to have seen much of the U.S. military's truly innovative weaponry.
Let's take a look at our country, although there is a big gap between our military spending and the US military, our military strength has been rising steadily in recent years, and new weapons have continued to appear in the public's field of vision like dumplings.
So many people are curious about what the US military spends so much money every year, what is it used for?
The United States is a country with a military-industrial complex, so they have always used the "single procurement" model, and there is no difference without comparison, which has led to corruption in the military system, and over time, this corruption has become more and more serious.
As a simple example, the most advanced F-35 fighter in the United States, although it has now entered mass production, still has a lot of problems and flaws.
You must know that from the development of a new type of weapon to the mass production, there will be countless tests in between, and then all the problems will be counted and rectified, until there are no problems.
But the United States has been developing this fighter for more than 20 years, and there are still small problems, so we know exactly whose pockets the United States has invested in military spending over the years.
In addition, the United States is the country with the largest number of military bases in the world, and has set up military bases in more than 80 countries and regions overseas, with a total of 750 military bases.
These military bases are not left alone, and the United States needs to invest in costs to operate them every year, and the annual operating costs of these 750 military bases in the United States are as high as 55 billion US dollars.
In addition, we all know that the weapons of the United States are expensive, and they all say that they are expensive, after all, people's science and technology are advanced, even if the one sold to you is a castrated version, many countries cannot make it.
However, the research and development of the US military is indeed expensive, but it is undeniable that the cost of developing weapons is actually not that much, and many of them still go into the pockets of arms dealers.
The operation of military bases, the high cost of purchasing weapons, and the daily salaries of the US military explain why the United States spends so much money, but the development of national defense is still so slow.
Corruption in the US military
As for the corruption of the US military, in fact, it is not only at the top level, but also the problem of small cadres at the bottom is also very big; before Waltz, there was a Senate who criticized the corruption of the US military, and in order to prove his point, he also cited his own evidence.
The soldiers have their own water cups, and a water cup is only about ten dollars, but the purchase price of the US military is 1,280 US dollars.
In addition to the water cup, the purchase price of the US military's office chair is 9,341 US dollars, think about an ordinary office chair is almost 70,000 yuan, this office chair is more comfortable than the massage chair we sell.
In addition to the issue of "single procurement," there are actually very big problems in the management of the US military, and the global network once quoted a report by the US "Kitsap Sun" that mainly focused on the incident of Zettle, the captain of the USS Bremerton nuclear-powered attack submarine, soliciting prostitutes.
According to the report, during a visit to the USS Bremerton in Sukby Bay in the Philippines, Captain Zettle took advantage of the break from work to summon 10 scantily clad prostitutes to the hotel to accompany him.
In addition, the British "Independent" also reported on the corruption of the US military, and it turned out that the US military directly airlifted nine goats from Italy to Afghanistan in order to improve food, and this trip cost 6 million US dollars.
Improving food directly costs 600 US dollars, such a level of consumption is unimaginable to ordinary people, after all, it costs thousands of yuan to eat a roast whole sheep in our place, and people directly spend tens of millions of yuan on a meal.
You must know that the source of US military spending is the country's tax revenue, and where does this money come from, to put it bluntly, it is still collected from the hands of the people of the whole country.
In fact, the American people are very dissatisfied with this high military spending, because we all know that in fact, many wars and turmoil in the world are inseparable from the United States.
In addition to this, there is a lack of open and transparent supervision of the US military's military spending, and it can even be said that there are no regulatory measures, which means that they do not know where so much money is spent.
But even if the US military is so corrupt, the US government does not dare to really touch the US military, because the United States mainly relies on two US dollars to maintain its hegemonic status, one is the US dollar and the other is the US military.
The U.S. dollar is responsible for helping the United States harvest the world's wealth, and the U.S. military provides a military guarantee for the United States to maintain its hegemony.
Therefore, even if the corruption problem in the US military is serious, the United States will give special treatment to the US military, but we must know that many behemoths are broken from the roots, just like the US military, if it is not stopped, then the United States will sooner or later taste the evil consequences that it has sown.
epilogue
In fact, the problem of corruption in the US military has been going on for many years, and Waltz's courage to expose the corruption problem in the US military is not for the sake of the American people.
After all, the US election is approaching, and the contest between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party in the United States has reached a white-hot point.
Sources of information