I seem to recall a certain nation's senate tried to underpay their troops, and a certain charismatic general promised higher pay and then marched on the capital.....
Alea iacta est
this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2026
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Wargames have shown that we're going to get our asses completely handed to us if we go to war with China. We need to make our Armed Forces more competitive!
Say no more!
Taken along with the recent news that the Army is going to start charging troops for chow hall food (using the money that they already pay and can't choose not to), it seems like there's some budget cuts happening in personnel. Since the military budget as a whole hasn't gone down to my knowledge, the only explanation is that they're cutting to increase the profit margins of Raytheon and General Dynamics and co.
TrueAnon rule: always pay your guys
Best start remembering the names of the leader of the local military base, they'll be attempting to establish themselves as the local warlord soon enough.
Rot like this setting in the US military genuinely warms my heart, bid away fellas, bid away
It’s almost like someone thought of one of the most damaging things possible to do against the weakest ranks of institutional knowledge.
Glorious.
So... they want to cheat their soldiers out of pay by playing them off against each other. This will destroy morale, destroy cohesion, and foster division and backbiting and resentment for the government.
Critical support.
aren't they currently complaining about low enlistment rates?
Uhm ackshually Warrant Officers aren’t enlisted they’re warranted
I thought a warrant officer was the lowest rank of commissioned officer? Like I thought the term "Warrant" was a leftover from when a warrant officer was someone promoted from the ranks to the status of officer, so they were officers by virtue of an order to promote them (I.e. a warrant) and not commission. But the military makes no sense to me
Edit: No you're right, warrant is a leftover term, but they're officially below all commissioned officers still. Which means a person who has been consistently promoted for 20 years of military services is still outranked by a guy fresh out of a bachelors degree
You can be outranked by a 22 year old with a bachelor’s degree after 30 years of service, too
I feel like historically most countries realized that when you actually need a coherent organisation to do shit under pressure, i.e. what you want out of the armed forces, the free market bullshit is right out.
Now there's the counterfactual here which is Ukraines weird discord run gamified RL-EXP-Point gathering for resupplies. Given the whole premise of that entire war I'd say just on that aspect the ukranians seem to be doing oddly well with it considering how fucking stupid it sounds, but then again russia seems to be doing the same sort of war-but-neoliberal here. Which is a scenario that neither meshes well with 24 hour global burger king deployment capabilities nor what the USAF usually gets tasked to do
considering how fucking stupid it sounds
It sounds like an anarcho-capitalist wet dream - do you have a link or hints for what to look for to learn more? I want to read about that shit, it sounds bizarre.
Everything that makes life worse for US soldiers contributes to making the world a better place, so critical support to this initiative
The Army will soon have senior warrant officers bid against each other in an eBay-style auction for retention bonuses and six-year service commitments. Soldiers who agree to take a “minimum” bonus can cash in, while those who ask for larger ones will lose out, Army officials announced in a recent press release.
"eBay"? In auctions the higher price wins.
They get together to jack up the bonus price, then get thrown in the brig for it.
