Comment by pharos92
10 hours ago
America hasn’t faced a peer-level, modern military since the Korean War. For seventy years, it has specialized in "wars of choice" against overmatched opponents, mistaking uncontested airspace for actual invincibility.
U.S. weapons supremacy is increasingly exposed as a marketing facade. Despite a $1T annual budget, the industrial base is so brittle that strategic missile stocks were nearly depleted within a month of engagement with Iran. To keep the gears turning, Washington is now cannibalizing the stockpiles of its own allies.
You could make the case that the F-35 isn't a weapon; it’s a sophisticated wealth-extraction tool designed to fleece the American taxpayer. While it excels at deleting defenseless targets in lopsided conflicts, its primary mission is maintaining the flow of capital into a bloated military-industrial complex that prioritizes contractor profits over combat endurance.
Yes, the U.S. possesses the most lethal tactical hardware in history, but its industrial backbone is currently ill-equipped for a prolonged, peer-to-peer war of attrition.
- Korean War (North Korea/China)
- Rating: Competent
- Note: North Korea began with a well-equipped, Soviet-backed armor force; China followed with massive, highly disciplined infantry waves that effectively fought the UN coalition to a stalemate.
- Vietnam War (North Vietnam/Viet Cong)
- Rating: Technologically Incompetent
- Note: While technologically outmatched, they demonstrated elite level unconventional warfare, logistical persistence (Ho Chi Minh Trail), and sophisticated anti-aircraft defenses.
- Invasion of Grenada (Grenadian Military)
- Rating: Poor
- Note: A very small force with limited heavy weaponry and minimal organizational depth.
- Invasion of Panama (Panamanian Defense Forces)
- Rating: Poor
- Note: Though professionalized to an extent, they lacked the hardware and air defense to resist a modern concentrated assault.
- Gulf War (Iraq)
- Rating: Competent (on paper) / Incompetent (in execution)
- Note: Iraq held the world's fourth-largest army at the time with modern Soviet equipment, but failed significantly in command, control, and air superiority.
- Intervention in Somalia (Local Militias/Warlords)
- Rating: Poor
- Note: Characterized by decentralized "technical" vehicles and light arms; effective only in urban ambush scenarios rather than conventional warfare.
- War in Afghanistan (Taliban/Al-Qaeda)
- Rating: Incompetent (conventionally) / Competent (insurgency)
- Note: Zero conventional capability (no air force/armor), but highly capable at sustained, low-tech asymmetric warfare.
- Iraq War (Ba'athist Iraq)
- Rating: Poor
- Note: By 2003, the military was severely degraded by a decade of sanctions and previous losses; it collapsed within weeks of the conventional invasion.
- Military Intervention in Libya (Gaddafi Loyalists)
- Rating: Poor
- Note: Largely reliant on aging Soviet hardware and mercenary units; unable to project power against NATO-backed air cover.
- War against ISIS (Insurgent State)
- Rating: Poor (conventionally) / Competent (tactically)
- Note: They lacked a traditional air force or navy but utilized captured heavy equipment and "shock" tactics with high psychological impact.
> - Invasion of Grenada (Grenadian Military) > - Rating: Poor > - Note: A very small force with limited heavy weaponry and minimal organizational depth.
> - Gulf War (Iraq) > - Rating: Competent (on paper) / Incompetent (in execution) > - Note: Iraq held the world's fourth-largest army at the time with modern Soviet equipment, but failed significantly in command, control, and air superiority.
> - Iraq War (Ba'athist Iraq) > - Rating: Poor > - Note: By 2003, the military was severely degraded by a decade of sanctions and previous losses; it collapsed within weeks of the conventional invasion.
the lesson of those wars to the US is, like sports teams, we need to deploy our forces in kinetic actions regularly or we lose our edge, lose touch with the battlefield and capabilities of opponents.
peace is better than war, of course, but you need to look at the progress of history as a stochastic process, and if you skip all the little wars because you have a choice, you will be ill-prepared for the big wars when they are thrust upon you. maybe call the little conflicts "friendlies", we need to compete in the friendlies to be ready for the unfriendlies.
>America hasn’t faced a peer-level, modern military since the Korean War. For seventy years, it has specialized in "wars of choice" against overmatched opponents
America has not faced any wars in its own "theater", it's own backyard; rather, it has "chosen" to fight wars that seemed important enough to travel halfway round the world, bringing lots of stuff. One of the American military's strengths is logistics, both getting there and on the battlefield.
>mistaking uncontested airspace for actual invincibility.
America pioneered and still leads in combined arms fighting doctrine and capabilities, and that basically requires air superiority as the first step. There's no mistake, it is creating uncontesed airspace (which starts with creating the capabilites) that enables victory at low casualty rates. It's not so much invincibility as "convincing vincibility" of opponents.
>China followed with massive, highly disciplined infantry waves that effectively fought the UN coalition to a stalemate.
just to clarify what "effectively fought" means, the Chinese entered the war when the ROK+US+UN forces had reached as far as the Yalu River, and yes their "infantry waves" response, i.e. lightly armed human waves, pushed the anti-communists back but at very, very high cost:
"North Korean casualties are estimated at around 1.5 million, including both military and civilian losses, while Chinese military casualties are estimated to be around 400,000 to 600,000."
"South Korean military losses during the Korean War were approximately 137,899 dead, with additional casualties including 24,495 missing and 8,343 captured. The United Nations forces, primarily composed of U.S. troops, suffered around 36,574 deaths, with total UN losses estimated at about 210,000 dead and missing."
that's about 2 million or more killed vs 210,000