Cost brings down the size of Armed Forces

[uk 75]

If one looks back over the period since 1945 it is notable for a reduction in the numbers of major weapons that countries can afford. It is true that today's Type 45 destroyers are more capable than the Type 42s but even when they are working, the RN has fewer of them to cover the work.
The US once fielded a huge force of B52s and B47s. Today the surviving H variants and handful of B2s will give way eventually to a smaller number of B3s.
At the rate we are going the RAF will replace its F35s and Typhoons with a couple of squadrons of Tempests.
Of course we are on the verge of completely new small systems which with AI and nanotechnology may change shape of armed force totally.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Quite a bit of ballooning costs in maintaining & operating armed forces over the years has been down to corruption, incompetence, and/or profit gouging. Another factor was/is ongoing inflation usually caused by ill-advised economic, and increasingly, social polices. One thing that has also repeatedly caused problems is an often resurrected fallacy that having smaller armed forces automatically equates to reduced costs. For example, many a time a blinkered government has cut it's military to shreds for various motivations, including financial or otherwise, only to then promptly get the country it is supposed to be protecting from harm into a tight corner that only military force will extract it from.