The US' military supremacy "illusion" comes from an era when the US had no peer competitors of a similar size -- waging wars in this era is really cheap.
It's highly debatable whether the US can contain china at its present size, let alone in a few years. China is vastly large than the soviet union, in comparison to the US, at the height of the cold war -- and merely to contain a smaller adversary, the US had to significantly outspend it.
The US can dominate its region relatively cheaply (ie., the western hemisphere); but if it wants to retain the ability to project power across the world, and be the primary power in theatres of interest (middle east and china esp.) then it's woefully underspending.
The US is armed to take on a world without peer competitors. If it had to fight a proxy war with china, dominate the middle east, and supply a land war in ukraine -- it would loose all three.
The asymmetry of power needed for the US to dominate the world is enourmous -- this was only cheap when the single adversary was a much smaller russia.
The US does not have the manufacturing capacity to replace 50% of its bunker-buster arms "suddenly". It simply cannot do it. So if a war breaks out tomorrow, where it needs these arms, they're gone.
The west is simply not equipped to wars with peer competitors. It's equipped for the taliban, not nations with fleets of air craft carriers.
> It's equipped for the taliban, not nations with fleets of air craft carriers.
The US has more carriers than all other nations combined, times 2.
> The US does not have the manufacturing capacity to replace 50% of its bunker-buster arms "suddenly". It simply cannot do it. So if a war breaks out tomorrow, where it needs these arms, they're gone.
During a time of war every manufacturing plant capable of being reconfigured to make arms or vehicles is. Just like in WW2.
The rest of this is just silly. The US “owns” the oceans. We go where we want when we want any call it “freedom of navigation“ and nobody stops us.
I’m sorry I offended your country’s capabilities vs the US, but there’s a reason the US hasn’t been invaded yet and it’s because it’s an impossible feat.
> but there’s a reason the US hasn’t been invaded yet and it’s because it’s an impossible feat.
This is so irrelevant to the conversation, that it indicates you don't understand what's at issue or the basic geopoltical terms in which to evaluate US strategic capabilities.
The US isnt trying to prevent invasion, it's trying to dominate every region of the world. It's military is extremely over-sized to merely defend america. It's extremely undersized to dominate every region of the world in 2025. This is why comparing sizes of militaries is irrelevant and extremely misleading. Essentially all other militaries are concerned with only local defence and power projection.
From ~90s to 00s the US military was big enough to dominate the world, because it had no rivals. When you have rivals even half your size, to dominate them, you need massively out-class them. Consider that during the cold war the US spent 10% of its GDP, vastly more in real terms than the soviet union.
China can dominate its region of the world very cheaply compare to the US dominating *china* ! because defence is vastly cheaper than offence and geographically local power projection is relatively cheap. China is not designing a military to contain all of south america -- the US *is*
The US is trying to maintain arms to entirely ensure its own defence under any possible threat *AND* dominate russia in eastern europe, china in the south china sea, the middle east, ensure all shipping lanes are open, staff miltiary bases throughout europe, asia, etc. -- and the vast array of proxy countries in which it maintains a military pretence. There are 100k troops in europe, 40k+ in japan, and so on.
The US doesn't evaluate its military capability in terms of "what happens if mexico invades"
It's highly debatable whether the US can contain china at its present size, let alone in a few years. China is vastly large than the soviet union, in comparison to the US, at the height of the cold war -- and merely to contain a smaller adversary, the US had to significantly outspend it.
The US can dominate its region relatively cheaply (ie., the western hemisphere); but if it wants to retain the ability to project power across the world, and be the primary power in theatres of interest (middle east and china esp.) then it's woefully underspending.
The US is armed to take on a world without peer competitors. If it had to fight a proxy war with china, dominate the middle east, and supply a land war in ukraine -- it would loose all three.
The asymmetry of power needed for the US to dominate the world is enourmous -- this was only cheap when the single adversary was a much smaller russia.
The US does not have the manufacturing capacity to replace 50% of its bunker-buster arms "suddenly". It simply cannot do it. So if a war breaks out tomorrow, where it needs these arms, they're gone.
The west is simply not equipped to wars with peer competitors. It's equipped for the taliban, not nations with fleets of air craft carriers.