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Are you really sure that the US is undisputed in those 4 categories? A list of obvious weaknesses: * The US economy and industrial power is dependent on IT and

Are you really sure that the US is undisputed in those 4 categories? A list of obvious weaknesses: * The US economy and industrial power is dependent on IT and brittle supply chains. Nobody knows how much the cyber infrastructure holding this up is already compromised. * Russian S-400s can already deny air superiority to Israeli planes, which are not far behind US planes. * How does the US have space superiority when there is no ASAT defense besides MAD? * The US has not been able to suppress a rebellion in Afghanistan with trillions of dollars and 17 years. Maybe in an actual war their hands would be untied, so this isn't the best point. * The US Navy loses war-games to swarm attacks and is just now a decade later deploying solutions to this. When was the last time US ships actually had to fight? Vietnam? * The US has increasing ethnic and social conflicts, not to mention the potential fifth column of residents with ties to enemy powers. * Barely half of US fighter planes are combat ready at any given moment. The trillion dollar F-35 had to be flown with VFR the first time it crossed the IDL. Who knows what else is lurking in that software?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
AcerbicZero 8y ago
I can happily go point by point here, but my original comment wasn't intended to suggest I agreed with the current state of world military balance and shouldn't be taken as implicit support of US policy. That said - * The S-400 is an impressive system. The Russians have so built ~300 of them, and like any system, the soft factors are more important than the paper facts suggest. Training, deployment, doctrine, and strategic/tactical goals would greatly affect the viability of it on any modern battlefield. * Space Superiority is more than just ASAT capabilities, but its an area that few other countries have ever even attempted, and with the US's dominance in rocket technology (arguably anyway) and high altitude laser platforms, I'm fairly confident it would be a stalemate at best, with even the closest competitor. I would agree its an area of US defense that will need special attention over the next ~10 years. * Insurgency =/= Great War. * OIF was heavily supported by carrier based aircraft, and there are exactly zero countries that posses a modern enough navel force to threaten US control of the actual blue water areas. US Submarine technology is decades ahead of everyone else at this point. There are concern developments in this area, but again, we're talking "Great War" * True point. Wars tend to get people pointed in the same direction though. Especially "Great Wars" * US pilots put in more seat time than every other country combined. This is a factor that cannot be overstated. Putting 10x the number of the worlds best plane in the air means nothing if the actual operator cannot leverage those tools effectively. In the end, these are all great points as to why the US has room to improve its lead, but none of them really address the core point which is that the US is currently the undisputed leader in almost every military category, and any "Great War" involving the US would be a very lopsided affair. You're more than welcome to pick your challenger and we can see how long it takes me to make a list twice as long with their problems, although I can't guarantee I'll actually spend the time doing that today :)
- AlanSE 8y ago
  Due to morbid curiosity or whatever, I can't get enough of these arguments. Yes, the initial superiority of one military is greater by a large margin and will remain that way for some time to come. But I think it's misleading wording to say it "has room to improve its lead", simply due to the fact that emerging powers are improving a greater rate, and it's economically unreasonable to believe otherwise. Plus, no individual actor made the decision to plunge their mighty military power into the conflagration that became WWI. I keep reading articles on the argument that carriers CAN be sunk. One article argued that only a nuclear attack could do it, but its argument was unsubstantiated. Swarm tactics and drone warfare are emerging game-changers in conventional warfare. More than anything, initial phases of WWIII would be missile warfare. Carrier groups can defend against hypersonic, but cannot do so reliably. Combine this with a risky false impression - that war could be contained regionally. Would the symbolism of sinking a carrier be enough to have the U.S. back out of the contested East Asian theaters? I can't answer that question, and it worries me that I can't. If the answer was certain either way, war would be less likely. As it stands, I could see certain gambles being both plausible, and terrifyingly dangerous.
  - goatsi 8y ago
    Carriers are not invincible, submarines have gotten clear views of them before in military exercises, let alone missile swarms. The strongest defense a US carrier group has is the fact that there are 10 other carrier groups distributed around the world. I think anyone who thinks that inflicting a sharp defeat on the US in the pacific would crush public morale and push it into a negotiated peace would have to be a very poor student of history.
    - fit2rule 8y ago
      It takes a single Sunburn [0] to take out a carrier. There is no defence - yet. Of course, when the railgun and lasers are deployed, this all changes again, but in the meantime the US' carrier fleet is principally a policing tool, and would be dead in the water during an all-out war - assuming the US chooses to go against an enemy that has the Sunburn in its arsenal. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-N-22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-N-22
nkozyra 8y ago
These points largely are speculative and could be applied broadly to any super power.
lozaning 8y ago
You know what is absolutely undisputed though? America's love for guns. There are 120 guns in the US for every 100 people. American civilians own 393 million guns, both legally and otherwise, out of a worldwide total of 857 million firearms [1]. Good luck occupying that. Also, FWIW under every circumstance that isn't some kind of military invasion phantasy porn I generally look less positively on our relationship with guns. [1]http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Papers/SAS-BP-Civilian-Firearms-Numbers.pdf http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Pap...
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Yeah. Recently I realized that alien invasion/zombie outbreak movies couldn't possibly have different setting than United States, because no other country on Earth has enough firearms just lying around for survivors to mount an armed defense against the invaders.
  - soylentcola 8y ago
    There's a rifle at the Winchester.
  - flukus 8y ago
    28 Days/Weeks/Months is a good zombie series set in the UK, it was mostly the military doing the fighting. I never could understand how zombies in the walking dead managed to overrun the US military and all their bases, many in the middle of the desert or other hard to reach places. When it comes to zombie attacks pointy sticks seem pretty effective anyway.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      Walking Dead is a TV show that makes zero sense whatsoever. I dropped watching it after 2.5 seasons, because after season 1 it lost any semblance of a plot, and became a TV-show-equivalent of the very zombies it portrays - mindlessly wandering around. I can't understand why it is so popular.
minimalist 8y ago
> * Barely half of US fighter planes are combat ready at any given moment. The trillion dollar F-35 had to be flown with VFR the first time it crossed the IDL. Who knows what else is lurking in that software? I was not able to find any sources corroborating that story. Are you confusing it with the F-22?
EthanHeilman 8y ago
> When was the last time US ships actually had to fight? Vietnam? 1988 Operation Praying Mantis [0] during the Tanker War in the Iran-Iraq war. Iran deployed swarm attacks, but only at a small scale. Which was one of the largest US naval battles after WW2. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis
geggam 8y ago
As a note the #1 complaint I hear in veterans groups is the frustration of not having a clear enemy. Turn the military loose and Afghanistan will resemble a parking lot full of very submissive people. Soldiers in combat have tighter rules of engagement with the enemy than US Police force have to follow when interacting with citizens. Let that sink in.
- ebullientocelot 8y ago
  Amen. Overseas positive identification and rules of engagement were drilled into our heads constantly, driven home by threats of prosecution for murder/war crimes if you got it wrong. Despite the fact that Tommy Taliban loved to fire at us from crowds in markets and the windows of school buildings, US forces did a remarkable job of restraint. This is not to say that mistakes weren't made, or that certain groups didn't do things that they most certainly should not have, but by and large I would much rather trust US infantry to not shoot me than the Pittsburgh Police in a confusing situation. That said, during those rare moments of clarity on the Afghan battlefield, there was zero doubt with respect to the outcome.
- abandonliberty 8y ago
  This is more of a problem with US Police
tynpeddler 8y ago
>* Russian S-400s can already deny air superiority to Israeli planes, which are not far behind US planes. The S-400 is, like all major Russian weapon systems, an enigma. In the past, the Russian were capable of producing some excellent weapon systems, but they've also been very capable of inflating the capabilities of some real stinkers. The Mig 25 Foxbat comes to mind for example. All of my attempts to find real, verified information on S-400 capabilities have only turned up marketing material and articles quoting the marketing material. There have been no usages of the S-400 system in combat conditions that I am aware of. It seems the S-400 should be taken seriously, but overestimation can be as dangerous as underestimation. It is possible that the S-400 is simply a rehash of the S-300 system with some of the interceptors having larger motors with longer range. This would still make it a potent system but one with known counters.
Fjolsvith 8y ago
> Barely half of US fighter planes are combat ready at any given moment. The trillion dollar F-35 had to be flown with VFR the first time it crossed the IDL. Who knows what else is lurking in that software? The US Air Force simply doesn't use it's full fleet at any given moment: "For example, in 1969, 523 USAF fighter aircraft were deployed to Vietnam or Thailand, only 14 percent of the 3,838 fighters in the USAF inventory that year." [1] 1. https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR2500/RR2500/RAND_RR2500.pdf https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/..., p.20

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

AcerbicZero 8y ago

I can happily go point by point here, but my original comment wasn't intended to suggest I agreed with the current state of world military balance and shouldn't be taken as implicit support of US policy. That said - * The S-400 is an impressive system. The Russians have so built ~300 of them, and like any system, the soft factors are more important than the paper facts suggest. Training, deployment, doctrine, and strategic/tactical goals would greatly affect the viability of it on any modern battlefield. * Space Superiority is more than just ASAT capabilities, but its an area that few other countries have ever even attempted, and with the US's dominance in rocket technology (arguably anyway) and high altitude laser platforms, I'm fairly confident it would be a stalemate at best, with even the closest competitor. I would agree its an area of US defense that will need special attention over the next ~10 years. * Insurgency =/= Great War. * OIF was heavily supported by carrier based aircraft, and there are exactly zero countries that posses a modern enough navel force to threaten US control of the actual blue water areas. US Submarine technology is decades ahead of everyone else at this point. There are concern developments in this area, but again, we're talking "Great War" * True point. Wars tend to get people pointed in the same direction though. Especially "Great Wars" * US pilots put in more seat time than every other country combined. This is a factor that cannot be overstated. Putting 10x the number of the worlds best plane in the air means nothing if the actual operator cannot leverage those tools effectively. In the end, these are all great points as to why the US has room to improve its lead, but none of them really address the core point which is that the US is currently the undisputed leader in almost every military category, and any "Great War" involving the US would be a very lopsided affair. You're more than welcome to pick your challenger and we can see how long it takes me to make a list twice as long with their problems, although I can't guarantee I'll actually spend the time doing that today :)

AlanSE 8y ago
Due to morbid curiosity or whatever, I can't get enough of these arguments. Yes, the initial superiority of one military is greater by a large margin and will remain that way for some time to come. But I think it's misleading wording to say it "has room to improve its lead", simply due to the fact that emerging powers are improving a greater rate, and it's economically unreasonable to believe otherwise. Plus, no individual actor made the decision to plunge their mighty military power into the conflagration that became WWI. I keep reading articles on the argument that carriers CAN be sunk. One article argued that only a nuclear attack could do it, but its argument was unsubstantiated. Swarm tactics and drone warfare are emerging game-changers in conventional warfare. More than anything, initial phases of WWIII would be missile warfare. Carrier groups can defend against hypersonic, but cannot do so reliably. Combine this with a risky false impression - that war could be contained regionally. Would the symbolism of sinking a carrier be enough to have the U.S. back out of the contested East Asian theaters? I can't answer that question, and it worries me that I can't. If the answer was certain either way, war would be less likely. As it stands, I could see certain gambles being both plausible, and terrifyingly dangerous.
- goatsi 8y ago
  Carriers are not invincible, submarines have gotten clear views of them before in military exercises, let alone missile swarms. The strongest defense a US carrier group has is the fact that there are 10 other carrier groups distributed around the world. I think anyone who thinks that inflicting a sharp defeat on the US in the pacific would crush public morale and push it into a negotiated peace would have to be a very poor student of history.
  - fit2rule 8y ago
    It takes a single Sunburn [0] to take out a carrier. There is no defence - yet. Of course, when the railgun and lasers are deployed, this all changes again, but in the meantime the US' carrier fleet is principally a policing tool, and would be dead in the water during an all-out war - assuming the US chooses to go against an enemy that has the Sunburn in its arsenal. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-N-22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-N-22

nkozyra 8y ago

These points largely are speculative and could be applied broadly to any super power.

lozaning 8y ago

You know what is absolutely undisputed though? America's love for guns. There are 120 guns in the US for every 100 people. American civilians own 393 million guns, both legally and otherwise, out of a worldwide total of 857 million firearms [1]. Good luck occupying that. Also, FWIW under every circumstance that isn't some kind of military invasion phantasy porn I generally look less positively on our relationship with guns. [1]http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Papers/SAS-BP-Civilian-Firearms-Numbers.pdf http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Pap...

TeMPOraL 8y ago
Yeah. Recently I realized that alien invasion/zombie outbreak movies couldn't possibly have different setting than United States, because no other country on Earth has enough firearms just lying around for survivors to mount an armed defense against the invaders.
- soylentcola 8y ago
  There's a rifle at the Winchester.
- flukus 8y ago
  28 Days/Weeks/Months is a good zombie series set in the UK, it was mostly the military doing the fighting. I never could understand how zombies in the walking dead managed to overrun the US military and all their bases, many in the middle of the desert or other hard to reach places. When it comes to zombie attacks pointy sticks seem pretty effective anyway.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Walking Dead is a TV show that makes zero sense whatsoever. I dropped watching it after 2.5 seasons, because after season 1 it lost any semblance of a plot, and became a TV-show-equivalent of the very zombies it portrays - mindlessly wandering around. I can't understand why it is so popular.

minimalist 8y ago

> * Barely half of US fighter planes are combat ready at any given moment. The trillion dollar F-35 had to be flown with VFR the first time it crossed the IDL. Who knows what else is lurking in that software? I was not able to find any sources corroborating that story. Are you confusing it with the F-22?

EthanHeilman 8y ago

> When was the last time US ships actually had to fight? Vietnam? 1988 Operation Praying Mantis [0] during the Tanker War in the Iran-Iraq war. Iran deployed swarm attacks, but only at a small scale. Which was one of the largest US naval battles after WW2. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis

geggam 8y ago

As a note the #1 complaint I hear in veterans groups is the frustration of not having a clear enemy. Turn the military loose and Afghanistan will resemble a parking lot full of very submissive people. Soldiers in combat have tighter rules of engagement with the enemy than US Police force have to follow when interacting with citizens. Let that sink in.

ebullientocelot 8y ago
Amen. Overseas positive identification and rules of engagement were drilled into our heads constantly, driven home by threats of prosecution for murder/war crimes if you got it wrong. Despite the fact that Tommy Taliban loved to fire at us from crowds in markets and the windows of school buildings, US forces did a remarkable job of restraint. This is not to say that mistakes weren't made, or that certain groups didn't do things that they most certainly should not have, but by and large I would much rather trust US infantry to not shoot me than the Pittsburgh Police in a confusing situation. That said, during those rare moments of clarity on the Afghan battlefield, there was zero doubt with respect to the outcome.
abandonliberty 8y ago
This is more of a problem with US Police

tynpeddler 8y ago

>* Russian S-400s can already deny air superiority to Israeli planes, which are not far behind US planes. The S-400 is, like all major Russian weapon systems, an enigma. In the past, the Russian were capable of producing some excellent weapon systems, but they've also been very capable of inflating the capabilities of some real stinkers. The Mig 25 Foxbat comes to mind for example. All of my attempts to find real, verified information on S-400 capabilities have only turned up marketing material and articles quoting the marketing material. There have been no usages of the S-400 system in combat conditions that I am aware of. It seems the S-400 should be taken seriously, but overestimation can be as dangerous as underestimation. It is possible that the S-400 is simply a rehash of the S-300 system with some of the interceptors having larger motors with longer range. This would still make it a potent system but one with known counters.

Fjolsvith 8y ago

> Barely half of US fighter planes are combat ready at any given moment. The trillion dollar F-35 had to be flown with VFR the first time it crossed the IDL. Who knows what else is lurking in that software? The US Air Force simply doesn't use it's full fleet at any given moment: "For example, in 1969, 523 USAF fighter aircraft were deployed to Vietnam or Thailand, only 14 percent of the 3,838 fighters in the USAF inventory that year." [1] 1. https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR2500/RR2500/RAND_RR2500.pdf https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/..., p.20