Western arms prices have increased 5 times faster than inflation since 1970

$100 million for a combat plane, $25 million for a tank, $1 billion for a frigate… Western armaments have reached pharaonic prices in recent years, forcing armies to reduce their formats and their fleets, to be endowed.

But what, really, is this empirical observation? Are arms prices today really higher than they were a few decades ago, once the inflation parameter is included? And does this increase in the price of arms apply uniformly to different equipment and to different countries?

To answer these questions, as well as to identify their causes and the consequences on the operational capabilities of the armies, a methodical analysis is required. And, who knows, perhaps it will bring out unexpected findings?

Augustine's Law and the inexorable increases in defense equipment costs

In 1978, Norman R. Augustine, former Under Secretary of State forU.S. Army from 1975 to 1977, and who would be president of Lockheed Martin in the late 1990s, made a prediction that became famous under the name Augustine's Law.

« If the Pentagon's methods and cost trends do not change, the Pentagon's budget around 2050 will be used to purchase a single tactical aircraft. This will be entrusted three days a week to the US Air Force, three days to the US Navy and one day to the US Marines Corps. » 

Fortunately, this prediction will not come true. Well, not quite. Indeed, at the same time, the Pentagon's budget, for its part, has been multiplied by 11, going from $83 billion in 1970, in the middle of the Vietnam War, to $877 billion in 2022, i.e. more than the 810%. of inflation experienced by the United States from 1970 to this date.

However, according to the current Secretary of the Air Force, Frank Kendall, the new US Air Force fighter, from the NGAD program, will cost several hundred million dollars per copy, the price of a hundred F4s. Phantom II, in 1970, the US Air Force's benchmark heavy fighter until the mid-70s, and the arrival of the first F-15s.

But this race for technological performance, which has led to these uncontrolled price increases, seems to have reached, today, its threshold of sustainability. Thus, the US Air Force put the NGAD program in a state of stasis, the time, according to the official speech, to assess the relevance of the paradigms used until then for the design of these 6th generation combat aircraft, while Chinese competition seems to be rolling out a much better controlled, and very effective, military industrial program. .

It would therefore be interesting, in this matter, to study precisely the evolution of the prices of different defense equipment, based on the prices of the flagship equipment families of the three major global arms exporters, to understand the causes. , and, perhaps, mitigate the harmful consequences.

From 1970 to 2020, the price of arms has increased fivefold in the West

To do this, it is appropriate to list the prices of some of the American, French and Russian equipment, flagships of this period, and to determine the price compensated for inflation in 2020, to determine the real increase, excluding macroeconomic developments. of their countries of origin.

$2,4 million for the F4 Phantom 2 in 1970, $150 million for the F-22 Raptor in 2010, the price of US combat aircraft has increased 60-fold in 50 years

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