Sure. It's almost as if we live in some kind of dystopian alternative universe where the trillion dollar defense budget is actually just a giant trough for busi

Sure. It's almost as if we live in some kind of dystopian alternative universe where the trillion dollar defense budget is actually just a giant trough for businesses big enough to bribe (sorry, "lobby") government stooges into giving them a cut. I guess in that world, we'd have a lot of PR about having the #1 military, and yet we'd consistently fail at every long term military goal, up to and including basic protection of our allies and meeting promised mutual defense statements. Sure we could invade the odd tropical island and depose a warlord, maybe trade some class A drugs, but actually defending an ally? Oof. It'd be a world where we are, in fact, powerless. The kind of world where we'd say "Russia would be stupid to actually cut off gas to Europe as Europe would have to find another source and then Russia would have no leverage nor market." while at the same time cutting off chip IP to China, who, er, presumably won't develop their own chip IP, and won't become the #1 chip super power, because that's not what the President wants to happen and if it does he'll throw a tantrum and make a pee pee? In that world, the USA is over. The only option the US has for relevance in that world is to go to war with Russia, and bomb that pipeline to Europe while they're at it, just to get Germany off the teat. But it can't. Because "world's #1 military" is just PR. Good job we don't live in that world.