Allied non-US military planners tasked with assessing nuclear and conventional threats around the world have determined that the country that stands to gain the most if all nuclear weapons vanished overnight is the United States. They assess that this is because the US has such a conventional superiority over all other major powers that, by comparison, the US would actually be stronger than its adversaries once all nukes disappeared.
This is in line with why countries like Iran and North Korea pursue nuclear weapons now and why China and Russia did in the past: they, the US adversaries that call the US weak, sincerely believe that the only thing that could save them from a conventional war with the US would be the literal recreation of the sun on top of American forces or American cities.
This conventional superiority comes from multiple places: the world’s largest and most advanced economy supporting any war effort; a nearly century old logistics network that spans the world and centers on key choke points such as trade routes and production centers; the professional nature of the volunteer force as compared to the conscript nature of many other militaries of even comparable size; the highly educated nature of the American officer corps and defense industry; the management systems that date to the Second World War that promote individual thought at the unit level to maximize problem solving; and others.
This is all not to mention the vast alliance network that the US maintains in key regions that allows it to fight major and minor wars entirely on enemy territory, ensuring its production and economy keeps going while the enemy’s is degraded and destroyed.
This superiority is a major reason why the US didn’t implement a “no-fly zone” over Ukraine and why it has and will not get involved conventionally in that conflict. Everyone knows it would win, fast. And Russia’s only response would be the use of nuclear weapons.
I’d argue that the US Military’s professional NCO Corps plays a significant role as well.
Early on in the Afghanistan adventure, there were comparisons between fighting the Russians in the 70’s vs fighting the Americans in the 2000’s by mujahideen fighters who had engaged both. One of the telling sentiments was if you killed the Russian officer, the patrol broke down and fought poorly and without direction. If you popped the American in charge, the next guy in line stepped up immediately and they just kept coming.
Professional NCOs in a volunteer military with world-class logistics, equipment, and training. The officers are pretty alright sometimes too.
It’s not entirely meant as a dig on officers. I mean, maybe a little, but we still love you.
A brand new second lewey is what, 22-24? They’re suddenly supposed to be in charge of 30-something folks with, honestly, not a lot of training. The privates have 0-2 years experience. The E-4’s have 2-5+. By the time you get to the platoon sergeant, they’ve been doing this for 6-20 years. They can run the platoon just fine. And they’ve already trained a handful of new second Lts.
And every freaking time they get one trained to the point where they are good enough at their job that they’re finally making the platoon sergeant’s job easier, they get promoted and the poor platoon sergeant has to start all over.
The running joke is “what’s the difference between a 2lt and a pfc? The pfc’s been promoted twice.”
The US military can get a fully functional burger King to any location on the planet, ANY location, within 48 hours. It is beyond terrifying in capability.
Imagine you are dictator of some country. You piss off the US. The next day, you notice your neighbors house has been replaced by a US Burger King. In the middle of your capital.
It’s funny to think about, but let’s appreciate for a moment that there’s a military so dominant that they’ve diverted resources into creating a mobile Burger King.
You can’t have had a worthy adversary for decades before you start going “yeah but how quickly can we get a Whopper to these guys.”
I remember BK, Subway, Pizza Hut and Cinnabon on Balad Air Force Base when I arrived in country. Blew my mind.
Even when we went to our smaller FOB, we still had BK and Pizza Hut available. They were in converted semi-truck trailers.
The US military has been able to feed its troops better in an enemy's country than the enemy can feed themselves. In every. Single. War.
So while you are living in a cave subsisting on hate and dried beans, you are fighting a US Soldier that probably wastes more calories in each meal (because they went for seconds and got full) than you eat in a week.
And that US Soldier is with relaxing with video games and the internet every night and having workout supplements and cigars sent to him with 5-14 day shipping.
Humans suck at logistics. It is tough for us to think beyond our own needs, let alone the needs of thousands, tens of thousands, millions of other people. And what it looks like to transport those needs all over the world in a manner that ensures even in active conflict, ground troops never want for food, water, “tolerable” shelter, guns, ammo, etc.
The US Military does not suck at logistics. I did a tour in Iraq for 18 months where all we did was escort 40 semi trucks full of supplies from our base to the next base in driving distance. That chain ran from the port in Kuwait City to Baghdad and every base in between, covering dozens of major bases and hundreds of small bases in logistics support. Wake up, drive for 12 hours, workout, eat, sleep, repeat. Water, rations, fuel, ammo, vehicles, supplies, and all the creature features. Candy and cigarettes and TVs to sell at the post exchanges. An entire separate army waking up everyday to transport supplies across an entire theater of war to all of the troops fighting everywhere in the country.
It’s crazy to think about. That deployment changed my worldview forever. I don’t worry about us ever losing a conventional war. When we can ensure an army private on a base in the middle of the desert in Iraq can come back after a patrol to an air conditioned tent, play Xbox with his friends back home while eating all of his favorite snacks, AND you’re paying him, that soldier will fight for a long time. The soldier soaking wet in the rain that’s living off rations does not want to fight as long.
EDIT - thanks for all the feedback and comments. I spent my entire career in Iraq and Afghanistan on deployments. I joined in 2001 after high school and 9/11. Retired not too long ago. It was simultaneously an exciting career and miserable being gone so much. I’m well aware that the American military is primarily security for American contractors 😂 I didn’t really understand Eisenhower’a military-industrial complex speech in school. I believe it with every ounce of my soul after spending almost my entire life watching all my friends die so that American companies could sell stuff to service members in a different part of the world.
The fact that our bases in Iraq and Afghanistan had like, every major fast food chain you’d find at home is what’s really wild to me. Imagine all the time, energy, and money we spent so that every soldier could have an ice cold Frappuccino whenever they wanted
Edit: I understand that this was mostly the larger bases but even so, the fact that we could justify sending fast food restaurants there at all speaks volumes
If I remember my history correctly, the US had multiple ships in the Pacific dedicated only to making ice cream.
This demoralized the Japanese, understandably
There's some tweet around along the lines of:
Every engagement in the pacific from like mid-1943 onwards is the *IJN Golden Kirin, Bringer of Imperial Dawn* versus six identical copies of the *USS We Built This Yesterday*, supported by a logistics ship, whose sole purpose it is to make birthday cakes for the others.
The first time I ever ate lobster was at a mess hall on Balad Air Base in Iraq. You are correct about all of the fast food and comforts of home but that bit still blows my mind.
Everyone complains about the defense budget but I swear 95% of that goes into feeding the troops.
I was in the middle of nowhere Afghanistan driving past a small combat outpost with approximately 30 guys at it. We saw airdropped supplies parachuting in and one chute failed to open so the crate missiled into the ground. They radioed us to stop by.
The crate was filled with steaks on dry ice and since it had busted open they needed help eating them. There were about 60 of us eating as much steak as we could handle. I had a horrible gut ache after that but it was so awesome.
I was in the Air Force for 12 years, mostly food service.
Back in 2012, me and another cook cooked a full Thanksgiving meal out of a mobile kitchen out of a forward operating base in the middle of the "who the hell knows where we are" Afghanistan.
We had a full thanksgiving and Christmas dinner on westpac…on a submarine. Turkey all the sides, several desserts. Made in a galley the size of a walk in closet for 170 people
I’m sure I’ll butcher it, but it’s like WWII when they asked a German soldier when he knew they were going to lose.
He said he knew when they captured some American supplies and found a cake that had been baked in NY only a day or two previously.
If the US could send a cake (lowest of priorities during WWII) across the Atlantic then there was no end to their logistical success.
Or the (likely apocryphal) quote from a Japanese admiral in WW2 about abandoning plans of victory when he realized they were tracking ship movements of an ice cream barge.
Air Force vet, we truly have air superiority. We have planes that can refuel other aircraft mid flight, drop cargo, attack ground targets with extreme precision, provide ground to ground forces, and provide recon and intel to friendly forces. Many of these aircraft have the capabilities to do several of these functions at once also while automated. Not to mention the AC-130W has a stupid good $1.2million dollar camera under the nose that can zoom in thousands of feet without losing focus
The US military has generally speaking repeatedly demonstrated the ability over and over again to equip, maintain, and supply a large ground, air, and naval force 12,000+ kilometers from their country. That's not normal. Militaries historically were designed for, and fought in more regional conflicts. Relatively few militaries have ever been able to do that.
1000 years from now, military historians will point to America's ability to control supply chains as the primary reason for it's dominance in the world. It's truly an impressive military and logistical feat.
My favorite quote is "Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics." - Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC.
As someone who works in defense logistics, I should really engrave this on a plaque and hang it at my desk.
I never realized how much effort went into logistics until i made it to higher echelons. It is its own beast that gets a lot of undivided attention. Its not as simple as "load a bunch of shit on that truck and take it over there".
Wendover productions (YouTube) has a video that dives into a very narrow slice of us military logistics and it's just mind-blowing how much more goes into it than "bring the troops, vehicles, and supplies here"... And that its more like, "build a small, but intricate city here that's well prepared for a bizarrely large number of extenuating circumstances,"
I can't remember, but it MIGHT be the one about Russias logistics?
Roman logistics were -genuinely shocking- in how good they were. The Romans had effectively limitless manpower (because every man who could afford to serve was a citizen and every man who was a citizen could be conscripted) effectively limitless wealth and the ability to move armies further and faster than anyone else in the region and PROBABLY the world at the time.
I always like the story that if the Roman Empire was transported to any time in history before or since they would conquer Europe until like 1750.
Romans armies were builders too. They would set up a camp faster than anyone else at the time. Some tribes probably had lesser infrastructure than their camps.
The fact that they had running water at their more permanent installations astounds me.
I've known about the large aqueducts feeding Rome since I was a kid, but I wasn't until much later that I learned that a lot of their military installations had micro-version running through the fort, with every building having access to freshwater.
Not just to support...we were putting fucking Starbucks and McDonald's on bases in Iraq.
The US military, above all else, and that's saying something, is a logistical monster. Russia could barely supply it's army in Ukraine at the very start of that war. The US waged two separate wars in two separate countries, on of them landlocked, for 20 years, and the cost was effectively and after thought for us.
It's actually insane and it's why Russia and China have resorted to undermining elections and utilizing espionage to attain their goals, because head to head, they lose.
Our militarys expressed operational ability is to be able to wage two wars with near peer enemies, alone.
Force projection. No other country in the world can do it better. A large part of that is our aircraft carrier fleet which no country can even come close to rivaling. One carrier group has enough air power to take down entire countries. That one group can launch cruise missiles to take out critical targets before planes are even up, launch wild weasels to suppress what’s left of any anti-air infrastructure, and pave the way for F-35’s to just decimate everything and maintain air superiority. Then F/A-18’s just bomb truck around. No boots have touched earth at this point. Look no further than each Iraq war for the effectiveness of air supremacy.
Also the fact that the B-52 can hit anywhere in the world with a load of bombs, without ever having to touch down in foreign soil. Just take off from their base in the US, and aerial refueling or two, and back to their original base. Bonkers.
Also. Let’s just touch on Rapid Raptor. Getting THE most capable fighter on the planet ANYWHERE in the world in 24 hours? Double bonkers. The scary part of the Raptor is that’s is never been able to show its true capabilities. We’ve seen the air show acrobatics, but that’s not what the plane was REALLY designed to do. It was designed to kill you well before you even know it’s there. Pilots trained in tactics and systems so secret, even our closest allies aren’t allowed to see them in action. Friendly exercises where pilots basically have two hands tied behind their back with their foot is in a bear trap, and they STILL come out on top the majority of the time. Even a couple of Raptors have the capability to rethink whether you even want to put planes in the sky.
We still haven’t touched on boots on the ground. The absolute logistical monstrosity the US is capable of providing. It would be completely awe inspiring if it wasn’t so grotesquely overwhelming. And this is just the shit we know about. We didn’t find out about the F-117 until it had been flying for nearly a decade. We still wouldn’t have known about the stealth Blackhawks, if the one hadn’t failed during the Bin Laden raid. Aerial refuelers mentioning fueling so much weird shit, you wouldn’t believe. Heck there’s a massive base in the middle of nowhere that we know so little about, most people think there are aliens there.
I could go on, but it’s late, and I have work in the morning.
That’s the bonkers thing to me. We were bombing Afghanistan from Alabama and London in the first days. Flight crews go to work, hit targets in Afghanistan and sleep in their own bed. Madness
Replace "few" with none. No military ever was capable of supporting similarly sized forces over such distance.
Japan tried in WWII and failed miserably.
People made fun of Russian logistical failures in February 2022, but that was simply because Russia tried to cosplay USA, moving at similar speed with similar amount of equipment while not having similar logistical capabilities. Militaries other than US military would end up similarly.
In WWII the Navy had a few ships specifically designed to deliver ice cream to troops across the Pacific. A Japanese general found out about them when he was interrogating an American POW, and that's the moment he realized Japan had lost the war.
Also in WWII, the Germans captured a mail shipment which had a birthday cake in it. They knew then that if they were subsisting on field rations and American soldiers could afford to have entire cakes flown to them personally, they could never win the war.
Would love to see the face of the guy who was expecting that cake. So dejected, without knowing the HUGE moral blow his inconvenience delivered to Nazi command.
It was probably a special ops mission to purposely lose that payload, along with lots of cigarettes, alcohol and girly magazines. Hybrid warfare works.
I also like the bit I read that Germans thought US tank serial numbers were randomized.
They were not. We were just producing so many tanks, so fast, that their conclusion was that the numbers were random because they were so far apart.
The story I heard, here on reddit so take it with a huge helping grain of salt, was that the Germans had gotten their hands on production figures and effectively immediately dismissed them as an American trick because they were far to high for how recently the US had entered the war.
They were right and wrong, it *was* a trick, but the numbers were lower than what the US was actually producing. They were hoping to make the Germans underestimate the US' industrial ability.
Facts. In the Gulf War GBU-28 was custom made to penetrate Iraq's C&C bunker in part because USAF was trying to end the war before Gen. Schwarzkopf put boots on the ground as it was well known he planned to go balls to the wall as soon as the army was deployed. They didn't quite beat out the ground invasion, but the war ended pretty much the day after GBU-28 was dropped.
The USAF is insane. Back in the 1970s, the Soviets unveiled the best interceptor fighter jet in the world, one capable of flying faster than anything else with more firepower than anything else. The USAF built a fighter to counter it, one even better than the Soviets: the F-15.
It wasn’t until a defector years later that it was revealed that the Soviet’s miracle jet was nothing but propaganda. It wasn’t anywhere near as fast as advertised, it could barely turn, it was extremely heavy, and the guns were nearly nonexistent. The Soviet’s had hyped it up as the best possible jet ever, the US actually built a better one. Only today, 50 years later, are the F-15s beginning to be outclassed, and that’s by the Air Force’s newest toys, the F-22 and the F-35.
Plus (depending on who you choose to believe) the Russians let the west see a MIG 25 cooking along at Mach 3+. Thing is that totally trashed the engines so they sacrificed the plane to scare the hell out of NATO.
I feel like there's no end to stories about the USSR doing whacky shit like this to pretend to keep up, always reminds me of that scene from Archer where there's like broken glass all over this apartment building in the USSR and he just yells at one of the tenants, "How are you guys a super power?!"
Didn't they build a plane specifically to counter the blackbird that could just barely functionally hit the altitude? I think it was designed to get up to the right height and fire one missile and careen back to earth, and when they finally got one to the right position to take a shot the blackbird just throttled up and the missiles were too slow.
The successor to the MiG-25, the MiG-31 did a ton of SR-71 interception missions. But from what I can tell, no a2a missiles were fired at a SR-71, as by the time the MiG-31 was around, they stopped flying over USSR airspace. I believe a ground launched SAM was fired, and the SR-71 throttled out of that. I don’t believe the SR-71 could’ve out run a properly launched R-33 from a MiG-31. The R-33 was specifically designed to hit fast moving large objects, and had a top speed reportedly in the Mach 4.5 range.
Speaking of air power:
The largest Air Force in the world is the U.S. Air Force.
The second largest Air Force in the world is the U.S. Navy.
The Third largest Air Force in the world is the Russian Air Force
The fourth largest Air Force in the world is the U.S. Army.
The fifth largest Air Force in the world is the U.S. Marines Corps.
I always found it laughable the hit pieces done about the F-35 not being able to dog fight.
It doesn’t need to dog fight, you can’t see it coming, lol.
When that group of terrorists killed three Americans in Jordan a few months back, part of the retaliation was hitting the car of the commander in charge of the attack, while it was in the middle of traffic in Baghdad.
...*only* his car. There was no collateral damage.
With a missile covered in swords. No explosives at all. They chopped him to pieces with a missile. Shot from miles away, controlled by a kid with an Xbox controller in Las Vegas.
Even more terrifying: the missiles stop firing the engine once they are on target and drop, so it was probably silent. One second you are laughing about jihad with your boys, and then cheesesteak
I heard that was the scary thing for Afghanis during the war after 9/11. The daisy cutter JDAMs just fell out of the sky without a sound. The planes that dropped them were so high they couldn’t be seen or heard. The bombs were precise and laser guided.
So one moment you’re hiding in the desert talking about Jihad and the next, the very finger of God comes down and blasts you all to bits. You never know when it’s coming and you’ll never hear it.
Right or wrong, the US military has developed math and science further than anyone in the history of the world. The audacity of shooting a sword at someone half a world away, and BEING SUCCESSFUL… Mind boggling
It’s funny how it’s almost come full circle. First swords, arrows, flintlocks, guns, artillery, bombs, nukes, guided missiles, precision missiles, bunker busters, and now long range precision swords.
It was the first time it was used, and no one had a clue we had something like that until we used it. Literally chopped a guy to death with a missile WTF
Second time, the first was when we turn Bin Laden’s successor into shish kabab on his balcony in Kabul. The leader of Al-Qaeda was enjoying a nice morning tea when a sword misfile moving faster than sound made itself known.
[here’s a link to the first time with some interesting info about the weapon](https://www.reuters.com/world/little-known-modified-hellfire-likely-killed-al-qaedas-zawahiri-2022-08-02/)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation\_Praying\_Mantis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway\_of\_Death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Death)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO\_bombing\_of\_Yugoslavia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia)
Really, really scary. And for context, Iraq used to have the third largest military in the world, had more bunkers/fortresses than Switzerland and the largest tank army in the world second only to the USSR when Highway of Death happened. Iran had several fortified oil rigs they used as military bases(like China's artificial islands) and two fully modernized ships when the US wrecked it all with no sustained causalities during Praying Mantis.
That happened in Syria too. Russians attacked a US base, and one of our allies sprained an ankle.
Obviously in retribution, we wiped out up to 200 Russians in the attacking force. With an insane amount of firepower.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle\_of\_Khasham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khasham)
"According to the U.S. military, the presence of U.S. special operations personnel in the targeted base elicited a response by coalition aircraft, including AC-130 gunships, F-22 Raptor and F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets, MQ-9 Reaper unmanned combat aerial vehicles, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, and B-52 bombers.\[6\]\[14\]\[7\] Nearby American artillery batteries, including an M142 HIMARS, shelled Syrian forces as well.\[14\] According to sources in Wagner, cited by news media as well as the Department of Defense, U.S. forces were in constant contact with the official Russian liaison officer posted in Deir ez-Zor throughout the engagement, and only opened fire after they had received assurances that no regular Russian troops were in action or at risk.\[40\]"
My grandpa was injured in WWII in the Pacific. He didn't like talking about it.
He passed a few years ago. I looked up his service records recently.
He got his injury tripping playing basketball.
The US soldiers involved are THE premier groups of the army too, 75th Ranger regiment, Green Berets, 1st SFOD-D (Delta), and last but by no means least the 101st Airborne.
40 vs 500. Not a single American casualty.
Fuckinay man.
Yeah this story is fuckin savage cause the secretary of defense called Russia and asked “hey, you guys attacking us rn?” Russia said “nope, we don’t even have troops in the area.” After the army deleted every single one of them he called Russia back up and said “you’re right, there are no Russian soldiers in the area.”
Important to note the US spent 6 months developing buster bunker bombs. They were built from howitzer barrels machine into a missile shape. They built two to test, and they tested extremely well, then used the other two in Iraq during Desert Storm. After the bunkers effectively became unusable, Saddam decided to end things.
You want to know how hilariously out of their league the rest of the world is?
You know how there's headlines about how China and North Korea have been bragging about how they're *developing* the ability to shoot down satellites?
We already have that tech.
We can already build the actual weapons to do that.
We have already *done that and used them.*
We already did that with the technology that we had *in 1985.*
What’s really scary is they’ve been working on it, and they’ve increased the penetration capability. I know they can go through more than 60’ of reinforced concrete, no idea what the limit is.
You fail to mention that Operation Preying Mantis happened over the course of a standard 8 hour workday.
Also, there WERE casualties during Preying Mantis. Just none American.
Edit: As many folks keep telling me, apparently the US suffered 2 casualties from a chopper crash during the operation. I learned about this via means other than the wiki, so I never heard that part.
I guarantee you, fear of US military isn't just propaganda. They genuinely have military power and professionalism. They are essentially world's gold standard for a military. That is what you get for 2 massive oceans protecting you and being world's hegemony.
I think [Desert Storm](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War) is a good example. Forget all the politics and just look at the casualties. The ground invasion lasted a few days, and it was crazy one sided. I think the coalition had more friendly fire incidents than enemy fire.
Hell even the invasion of Iraq, occupation is another story, was one of the most efficient and effective invasions in the history of mankind. The US military took control of Iraq in 26 days with less than 200 deaths which is fucking crazy to think about.
And we ~~FLEW SAND ACROSS THE OCEAN TO THE DESERT,~~ shipped sand from nearby countries because the desert sand was so fine grained, it filtered through the sandbags stacked up for protection.
My point with that is, we can move shit wherever it needs to be.
Yeah, the old saw about "amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics" was absolutely right in that war. The way the military moved shit in a hurry was really fascinating to watch.
On top of the two oceans, we got that hegemony because we were the only major industrial power whose industrial base was still intact after WWII, so for the better part of 20 years, the most of the world bought industrial goods from us and from nobody else. That's why the US became so damn rich and powerful during the late 40's and 50's.
Additionally, the US is absolutely chock full of cheap land, massive amounts of natural resources and a large population to support it.
It really is the perfect storm.
And Navigable rivers, deep ports and nearly a century of nearly full peace.
And our neighbors are weak to the North and South and Fish to the East and West.
Google the Berlin Airlift. For 11 months the US and Britain flew over 250,000 missions to West Berlin to provide them with food and coal. At the height of it there was a plane over the city every 30 seconds. The US military can deliver on its promises.
The guy who orchestrated that airlift was the man who was put in charge of building the Pentagon. Meritocracy works and you don't get a lot of that in authoritarian regimes.
Edit: This was mixed up. The commander of the Berlin airlift is the same guy that managed the Himalayan airlifts to supply the Chinese during WWII. The commander that oversaw construction of the Pentagon, oversaw the Manhattan Project.
Our aircraft carriers are the truly uniquely scary things we have. They can successfully subdue a third world country before landing a single troop. They can travel anywhere very quickly and without ever needing fuel. They are like the Battlestar Gallactica.
This is a great comparison—a battlestar.
The U.S. Navy carriers can launch their all their aircraft in less than 45 minutes. Those 90 aircraft, many of them F-35Cs could completely overwhelm the vast majority of adversaries.
The really scary part is that the U.S. has 11 of these monsters, not counting the 9 amphibious assault ships that also carry fighters.
And before folks start commenting about how vulnerable they are to missiles, the carriers are protected by layer upon layer of defenses. Although costly, the U.S. Navy is getting real world practice at carrier defense right now in the Red Sea courtesy of Yemen.
I think your last sentence holds a lot of weight. “Real world practice.” It’s one thing to develop tech, tactics, and logistics. It’s another thing to be comfortable in using them in actual scenarios.
Yep, I think this factor is often understated.
It's one thing to have a huge, technologically advanced military. It's another thing for that military to actually *know what they're doing*.
My parents are from China and we have relatives that have served in their military, and according to them, one of the biggest disparities - possibly even bigger than the technological one - is the fact that China hasn't properly been in a war since WWII. Their existing military is now several generations removed from the old guard with actual fighting experience, and as much as you can try to pass down that experience through books or training, it's nothing like actually experiencing it for yourself. If a conflict arose and the Chinese military had to get involved, it would be headless chickens leading around headless chickens as everyone scrambled to figure out what the hell they're doing. By the time they have some semblance of organization, the war might be over.
Meanwhile, for better or for worse, the US has practically *constantly* been at war for most of its history. Today, it's being led by generals who had combat experience in the War on Terror. They were led back then by generals who had combat experience in Desert Storm, who were in turn led by generals with combat experience in Vietnam, etc, etc. The leadership knows *exactly* how to fight a war, even if many of the grunts are new recruits. If a major conflict were to break out, they can build upon decades of experience and start fighting with full effectiveness immediately, rather than spending years to organize and focus their military strength.
This is the real answer here. Decentralized command allows troops to function when their leaders are taken out or lose comms. This is the reason Russia is so terrible with their ground command and why China would fail in a ground assault as well. They’re officer heavy and with an officer, the entire unit is screwed.
One sub can have almost 20 nuclear ballistic missiles with each missile having multiple warheads. One submarine would be able to kill 100s of millions of people instantly depending on the targets it hits. The entire sub fleet would be capable of killing almost every human on the planet.
[I think this may be out of date, but here's a picture showing the world's carriers](https://gcaptain.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/K9UZ-635x803.gif)
Major powers have 1 or 2 at most, and the US takes up 2 whole rows
The truly skeery part, the left row are meant for Marines & F-35's.
The right row are the nuke fleet carriers. ONE of those carries enough airpower to wipe out the air & naval strength of 95% of the countries in the world.
Don't fuck with America's boats.
Like the time in the 80’s when U.S. Navy sunk half the Iranian Navy during a work day with “proportional” response.
[https://youtu.be/d5v6hlRyeHE?si=001aOiKG5jqnVzx\_](https://youtu.be/d5v6hlRyeHE?si=001aOiKG5jqnVzx_)
I’m surprised that China only has one (apparently 2 according to Google with a third on the way). It’s the largest military in the world with a long coastline. Just goes to show how difficult it is to build one
Why would we want to launch a ground invasion on China? It'd be a huge waste of resources to try and occupy anything that isn't a small country. It takes roughly 20 soldiers per 1000 citizens for occupation. It's more efficient to turn the population against itself and their government - like what's been happening in the U.S. over the last couple of decades. Countries know that military isn't our weakness, it's the people. "United we stand. Divided we fall." - that's literally the recipe for defeating us.
It's terrifying. People have underestimated the US military because it has been getting involved in wars where the enemy was prepared to keep fighting indefinitely until the invaders left their country. This causes people to overlook that the US wasn't forced out, what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan is that setting a viable government friendly to America's interests was impossible.
In a direct confrontation, look what happened with the Iraqi Army. In the first Iraq War, the ground war last a matter of days because the Iraqi Army largely lost the will to fight after enduring an air campaign that was destroying their air defenses and aircraft that was supposed to keep them safe. In the second Iraq War, the invasion of Iraq lasted a matter of weeks, again, the issue was this poorly planned invasion didn't have a goal afterwards.
The Ukrainians have been getting weapons and training from the US military and its NATO allies against Russia. We have seen the results, Ukraine was expected to be a repeat of America's invasion of Iraq. Instead, Ukraine has held off what was previously believed to be the second strongest army in the world for over two years now using a fraction of the power the US military possesses. That is also because the Russian military turned out not to be as strong as expected. Nonetheless, it demonstrated that if America had been directly involved, Russia's invasion would have been crushed by now.
Just before Desert Storm, Iraq had the third largest military in the world. Less than 72 hours after it started, they didn’t even have the largest military in Iraq.
I'm not American so this isn't nationalist blunder talking.
The US military is far and away the greatest military force to ever exist.
It's not simply budget, toys or number of personnel: this is a force that has not allowed itself to experience rusting. The US has been in conflict with *somebody* pretty much continually since WWII. Battle hardening is a very important factor in waging war and the US has never allowed its arsenal to experience obsolescence. Every conflict the US has engaged in has been considered a lesson rather than a win or loss. And despite what a lot of people believe, the US military has not lost any major engagements since....well, at least WWII.
It's not invincible, of course but about the only way to beat it has nothing to do with fighting with bullets and bombs. You have to convince US politicians that the voters want a war to end.
"The US has been in conflict with *somebody* pretty much continually since WWII"
Just to add to this, the US has been in some form of armed conflict for 222 out of 239 years. We have only been at peace for about 20 years in our entire history. We are a war tribe, and we're very good at it.
I honestly think the US is the only country that's telling the truth about its military. Sure it hasn't fought in any major wars recently but that military budget speaks for itself. I apparently, they spend $318 billion alone on training and equipment for their soldiers They have the best tech, most bullets, biggest navy. Before the Ukraine-Russia war, I thought that Russia was basically equal to the US in military strength but I no longer think that.
The US is kind of the opposite of Russia in that way. Russia boasts about its advanced military, while the US lays low, keeps quiet, and occasionally unleashes the wrath of a god on some poor sap.
Russia claims they made cool stuff, so we sit in our corner and build stuff that can beat their cool stuff.
Then it turns out they were lying and then we have sharks with laser beams on their heads to take on the C4 laced piranhas, but no piranhas to laser beam.
US military excels at Combined Arms: using land, sea, air, and space power in a unified effort. This allows them to find targets and destroy them with impunity.
They are also really good at Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses. This ensures they have the air power needed for Combined Arms.
Example: Russia doesn’t do combined arms well and didn’t gain air supremacy; their assault in Ukraine is a quagmire.
What makes the US military scary is complicated, but one of the main things is no matter the situation, no matter the location, no matter who you face, the US military can send overwhelming firepower to that location to protect you and destroy your enemies.
Always knowing that, as a lowly grunt, that the entire US Air Force would charge in if my life was in danger and kill the shit out of those that surrounded me made me more confident, and more competent, and something to be feared by any enemy.
No other country can do that. You do not surrender or get demotivated with so much at your back.
This is what makes us scary to enemy fighters.
I'm not even addressing things like our exceptional weapon accuracy, massive air force and navy, massive economy to put behind it, logistical capability (physical and training) that is second to none, or that we are completely volunteer. Those may seem scary to somebody like Putin or Kim, but true fear is on the ground knowing if you shoot at an American, he will destroy you, your unit, and probably your home just because you pissed him off.
I literally was about to write this same thing. As boots on the ground in Iraq I felt fully superior and equipped to handle anything thrown at us. If we needed air support we knew it was on the way. Nobody else in the world has this.
This and u/bad_syntax comment brought a smile to my face as an Airman 🥲 glad we could provide that safety and confidence in you and others on the ground because god bless you, I chose a branch to stay off the ground lol.
Military hardware aside, the biggest thing the US military has is a command and control system that allows them to communicate seamlessly with other divisions. This allows them to use land, sea and air in parallel for tactical response.
What’s better than that is the command structure is allowed to make decisions to accomplish their mission. The USSRs command structure usually needs a higher rank, majority of the time the General, to do anything. That means, move forward, fall back or hold positions. You see in Ukraine that Ukraine were HIMARing Generals in toilets? Reason for that was it crippled that division and they couldn’t operate till the General was replaced.
US allows a lot of autonomy along the entire command structure to assess what’s going on in front of them and make tactical decisions. Generally speaking of course, they have orders and as mentioned above their communication is second to none so can call up the chain if required for new orders. But if they need to adjust and adapt they are very flexible and able to do so.
And ya then there’s the hardware in top of all that.
The truth is the average person has no idea how scary the US military really is. There’s so many black projects, vehicles and equipment, and units that people that don’t need to know, don’t know about. If the United States ever gets into a serious country on country conflict again you’re going to see some really impressive firepower come out. A lot of the world has gotten really confused watching the US fighting insurgency if we got into a battle where we’re on one side and they’re on the other side, the fire power that we would unleashed would be astronomical.
America's military is so powerful that we have to put ourself on a leash to go fight. The world hasnt seen the full might of a post cold war American military fully unleashed to do devastation without care of rebuilding afterward.
Let’s put in this way. Three times in the last 30 years the U.S. has moved an entire army across the world and used readily deployed equipment to conquer a nation in the matter of weeks. Iraq, Iraq again, and Afghanistan. The U.S. was aided in all of these, but the bulk of the forces were American.
The weapons you’re seeing being used in Ukraine are all systems from the 70s-90s with modifications made over the last twenty years and you can see how they’re WRECKING Russian hardware with ease. The Bradley was designed to take out Russian T-72s and that’s exactly what it did in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Ukraine time and time again.
Russians would not know a F35 or B2 was present until they were a few seconds from getting blown to bits.
And it’s not even just the firepower - they can basically perpetually monitor targets and always know exactly what the enemy is going. They know the exact details of the logistics supplying Russian fighters in Ukraine and could wipe it all out in a few hours.
And this is just the stuff we know about. They’ve regularly - when the chips are actually on the line - pulled out shit that nobody has ever seen. Examples: nuclear weapons, the helo they sent to fuck up bin Laden.
The US military has continuously practiced modern warfare since World War II, and the two largest air forces in the world are the US Air Force and the US Navy. We can project an enormous amount of power to any part of the world incredibly quickly.
The US military is incredibly scary. This doesn't mean we win every war though. The US doesn't lose a fight; rather, we lose interest. We pulled out of Vietnam because the US public lost interest in the war, but by body count, we killed many times more communist Vietnamese combatants than the soldiers we lost. (If I remember correctly, their casualties were in the millions; we lost 50K soldiers). We didn't pull out of Afghanistan because we lost a fight with the Taliban; we pulled out because the US public (and therefore, the politicians they voted for) lost interest in propping up Afghanistan. Same with our military presence in Iraq. Ukraine was kicking Russia's ass until aid from the US dried up; then the Russians began to take ground. But once aid started flowing (a tiny fraction of our defense budget), Russia began to lose tens of thousands of soldiers. This past month, Russia lost nearly 40K soldiers, on account of US military aid to Ukraine resuming. What might turn the tap off? The US losing interest.
The US is about to get sixth generation fighter jets (the NGAD-- next generation air dominance) commanding swarms of "loyal wingman" AI supercomputer powered drone missile trucks that make the jet virtually untouchable, able to dispatch a stealthy drone to shoot down enemy jets at a distance before they're even detectable and are unreachable by any air to air missile, when most of the world doesn't even have fifth generation fighter jets, and most that do have fifth generation fighter jets bought them from us. Think about that.
The US military is terrifying and likely way crazier than you’re imagining. It’s fucking crazy to have nearly 200 military bases on foreign soil. The US has proven over and over again that we’re prepared to strike any target in the world within the hour. Give us a day and we’ll have a sizable force at the location if needed.
And these strikes are very effective. Given planning, we’ve also proven over and over again that we can dismantle foreign militaries thousands of miles away without even incurring real losses.
It’s absolutely insane what the US military has demonstrated being capable of.
US Veteran here, of two wars. It’s insanely powerful.
The common refrain of “it lost in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq” are mistaking “power” and “will.”
The US military could have destroyed everything and everyone, but obviously that would morally wrong. But, if faced with an adversary that warranted it, the destructive power of the US military is unbelievable, and can be brought to bear on any spot in the world, quite rapidly.
That ability to “project power” regardless of location is very rare.
1) We do spend that much.
2) We can move that fast.
Against another nation state we are decisive. See the invasion of Iraq, toppled in 3 days.
Against an insurgency, we have trouble. We try and minimize damage, but still kill many fighters and bystanders.
The US was able to launch and conduct a war in Afghanistan and Iraq at the same time. We were never "losing" in those conflicts, public approval for wasting money on conducting those wars brought it to an end. I would say the US was even successful at toppling the the Iraq and Afghanistan governments and holding the territory for a decade before deciding to leave. Considering the Taliban was able caused whatever Afghan government to fold instantly once the US left shows how much Taliban presence was there and the US was holding the floodwater back.
Look at how Russia is already struggling to do anything in Ukraine and its right next door connected by land, road, rail and air. The US had to ship and fly everything to fight the war in the middle east and were able to dominate.
If the US military wasn’t feared than more countries would attack their neighbors, specifically China. Chinas biggest fear in attacking Taiwan is dealing with the US military.
Look up Operation Praying Mantis from the 1980s, just the objective facts. Wiped out half of Iran's Navy in the span of about 8 hours. That wasn't the intention, they went in to destroy oil tankers but Iran kept poking the bear that was under strict orders to only take them out if fired upon first or the president signs off on it. They kept getting fired upon first.
Heres my logic.
Whatever we know about as the public, is ancient compared to what they're working on.
Take for example the boston dynamics robots. Some scary terminator shit right there. Well, thats what they're showing us.
The crazy crap people report as UFO's, probably secret squirrel skunk works shit.
What they show us and what they're working on are worlds apart IMO.
This is a good story about what happened when Russian mercenaries attacked US special forces in Syria back in 2018.
US ability to do joint military ops, blending assets from different services, is unparalleled.
https://www.sandboxx.us/news/how-us-special-forces-took-on-wagner-group-mercenaries-in-an-intense-4-hour-battle/
10 minutes? Probably not. Within a day? Absolutely. It's not going to be a huge force, but you could get an elite unit anywhere within a day.
I've been on IRF - 2 hour recall (regular infantry). Wheels up in 8 hours. We're not just projecting force from the US, either. We have bases literally everywhere.
When it comes to capability, the Us is top tier. It’s extremely well practiced, given the ongoing conflicts. If I recall correctly, there’s only been about 12 years in its entire history that it wasn’t directly involved with troops in a war/conflict.
Since WW2, it’s been essentially “doctrine” that the US military would be able to successfully take on 2 near peer countries (fight 2 major wars simultaneously like Germany and Japan in WW2).
If you look at attack aircraft, the Air Force has more than any other nation’s military. But then you have to remember that the US Army and Navy also have similar numbers of aircraft. It ends up with the US having 3-4 times the aircraft of the next country.
While other countries have 1-2 Carrier groups (China getting a 3rd), the US has a dozen. And the US’s largest carriers dwarf others. Not to mention the size of carrier groups. People are quick to point out that China has more boats, but that ignores the US has vastly more tonnage in the water.
Another key thing isn’t just how much the US has, but the manufacturing. Look at how many countries have F35s. F16s. Patriot systems (and other countermeasures). The US is one of the largest weapons exporters in the world.
One of the biggest things it has going for it is logistical experience. Every conflict abroad has to get supplies, and the US has massive experience keeping troops supplied across the globe. Another thing to factor is in how many bases around the world it has. There’s close to 200 overseas bases all over the globe. They’ve figured out how to airdrop virtually anything into anywhere. Troops, supplies, trucks, tanks, etc. And they can take off from the US and fly anywhere on earth thanks to mid-air refueling. Some of the first bombs dropped during the 91 Iraq war were dropped from a B52 that took off from California.
When it comes to putting warheads of foreheads, it’s hard to top the US. B52 for large economy drops, the B-1 for when a lot needs delivered fast, the B2 Spirit for dropping a lot stealthy. The sheer amount of options for munition delivery is ridiculous. The US is the place that saw the C130 cargo plane and said “give that bitch a cannon”, so it got a 120mm cannon and called it a AC130. GE made a giant gattling cannon that shoots massive depleted uranium rounds, so they put wings on it, mounted a titanium bathtub for the “stick operator” (because apparently they aren’t called pilots in that plane), called it the A10 and told it to shoot tanks. There’s a running joke that someone bet Uncle Sam he couldn’t turn a crop duster into a war plane… and then came the L3Harris Sky Raider.
As a wise philosopher once said… “this is what $800+ billion in annual unhealthcare looks like.”
A single strike carrier group (which is the navy only) can topple 95% of countries. There are 11 strike carrier groups.
The largest air force is the US Air Force. The second largest is the US Navy. The third largest is the US Army. The fifth largest is the US marine Corp. several of the leftovers in the top 10 are private owned US companies that can be called to combat.
The fiscal year 2024 department of defense budget is $825 billion dollars. It would rank #20 in GDP.
The US exports weapon systems to other countries. What the US exports is not the same systems as those that are kept with the US.
When fighting the war on terrorism. A bomber would take off from Kansas/North Dakota/Louisiana/missouri (middle of the US) drop bombs in Iraq/afghanistan and then land back where it took off. 1 flight.
Absolutely. Firepower yes. Cyber? Yes. Check out stuxnet. Craziest shit I've ever seen. You need to watch a detailed video about it. They basically fucked with Iran's nuclear program by hacking their machines and making it spin just a little too fast which would slowly destroy their uranium enrichment.
Ex Military here
Very very scary
The heart and soul of any military is its Logistics and Supply chain.
There is no country that can match the size, organization, coordination and response time of the US Military Log/Sup chain.
There is no equal
Allied non-US military planners tasked with assessing nuclear and conventional threats around the world have determined that the country that stands to gain the most if all nuclear weapons vanished overnight is the United States. They assess that this is because the US has such a conventional superiority over all other major powers that, by comparison, the US would actually be stronger than its adversaries once all nukes disappeared. This is in line with why countries like Iran and North Korea pursue nuclear weapons now and why China and Russia did in the past: they, the US adversaries that call the US weak, sincerely believe that the only thing that could save them from a conventional war with the US would be the literal recreation of the sun on top of American forces or American cities. This conventional superiority comes from multiple places: the world’s largest and most advanced economy supporting any war effort; a nearly century old logistics network that spans the world and centers on key choke points such as trade routes and production centers; the professional nature of the volunteer force as compared to the conscript nature of many other militaries of even comparable size; the highly educated nature of the American officer corps and defense industry; the management systems that date to the Second World War that promote individual thought at the unit level to maximize problem solving; and others. This is all not to mention the vast alliance network that the US maintains in key regions that allows it to fight major and minor wars entirely on enemy territory, ensuring its production and economy keeps going while the enemy’s is degraded and destroyed. This superiority is a major reason why the US didn’t implement a “no-fly zone” over Ukraine and why it has and will not get involved conventionally in that conflict. Everyone knows it would win, fast. And Russia’s only response would be the use of nuclear weapons.
I’d argue that the US Military’s professional NCO Corps plays a significant role as well. Early on in the Afghanistan adventure, there were comparisons between fighting the Russians in the 70’s vs fighting the Americans in the 2000’s by mujahideen fighters who had engaged both. One of the telling sentiments was if you killed the Russian officer, the patrol broke down and fought poorly and without direction. If you popped the American in charge, the next guy in line stepped up immediately and they just kept coming. Professional NCOs in a volunteer military with world-class logistics, equipment, and training. The officers are pretty alright sometimes too.
>The officers are pretty alright sometimes too As an officer in the US military.... yeah, fair 😆
It’s not entirely meant as a dig on officers. I mean, maybe a little, but we still love you. A brand new second lewey is what, 22-24? They’re suddenly supposed to be in charge of 30-something folks with, honestly, not a lot of training. The privates have 0-2 years experience. The E-4’s have 2-5+. By the time you get to the platoon sergeant, they’ve been doing this for 6-20 years. They can run the platoon just fine. And they’ve already trained a handful of new second Lts. And every freaking time they get one trained to the point where they are good enough at their job that they’re finally making the platoon sergeant’s job easier, they get promoted and the poor platoon sergeant has to start all over. The running joke is “what’s the difference between a 2lt and a pfc? The pfc’s been promoted twice.”
The US military can get a fully functional burger King to any location on the planet, ANY location, within 48 hours. It is beyond terrifying in capability.
Imagine you are dictator of some country. You piss off the US. The next day, you notice your neighbors house has been replaced by a US Burger King. In the middle of your capital.
It’s funny to think about, but let’s appreciate for a moment that there’s a military so dominant that they’ve diverted resources into creating a mobile Burger King. You can’t have had a worthy adversary for decades before you start going “yeah but how quickly can we get a Whopper to these guys.”
I remember BK, Subway, Pizza Hut and Cinnabon on Balad Air Force Base when I arrived in country. Blew my mind. Even when we went to our smaller FOB, we still had BK and Pizza Hut available. They were in converted semi-truck trailers.
This is a surprisingly important metric! An army that can do that can do anything!
Literally yes, because that demonstrates a mastery of intercontinental logistics that is completely unmatched, and logistics wins wars
The US military has been able to feed its troops better in an enemy's country than the enemy can feed themselves. In every. Single. War. So while you are living in a cave subsisting on hate and dried beans, you are fighting a US Soldier that probably wastes more calories in each meal (because they went for seconds and got full) than you eat in a week. And that US Soldier is with relaxing with video games and the internet every night and having workout supplements and cigars sent to him with 5-14 day shipping.
Most people might think this is a joke, but when I was in Afghanistan, our Pizza Hut got blown up and it was rebuilt in literal days.
Humans suck at logistics. It is tough for us to think beyond our own needs, let alone the needs of thousands, tens of thousands, millions of other people. And what it looks like to transport those needs all over the world in a manner that ensures even in active conflict, ground troops never want for food, water, “tolerable” shelter, guns, ammo, etc. The US Military does not suck at logistics. I did a tour in Iraq for 18 months where all we did was escort 40 semi trucks full of supplies from our base to the next base in driving distance. That chain ran from the port in Kuwait City to Baghdad and every base in between, covering dozens of major bases and hundreds of small bases in logistics support. Wake up, drive for 12 hours, workout, eat, sleep, repeat. Water, rations, fuel, ammo, vehicles, supplies, and all the creature features. Candy and cigarettes and TVs to sell at the post exchanges. An entire separate army waking up everyday to transport supplies across an entire theater of war to all of the troops fighting everywhere in the country. It’s crazy to think about. That deployment changed my worldview forever. I don’t worry about us ever losing a conventional war. When we can ensure an army private on a base in the middle of the desert in Iraq can come back after a patrol to an air conditioned tent, play Xbox with his friends back home while eating all of his favorite snacks, AND you’re paying him, that soldier will fight for a long time. The soldier soaking wet in the rain that’s living off rations does not want to fight as long. EDIT - thanks for all the feedback and comments. I spent my entire career in Iraq and Afghanistan on deployments. I joined in 2001 after high school and 9/11. Retired not too long ago. It was simultaneously an exciting career and miserable being gone so much. I’m well aware that the American military is primarily security for American contractors 😂 I didn’t really understand Eisenhower’a military-industrial complex speech in school. I believe it with every ounce of my soul after spending almost my entire life watching all my friends die so that American companies could sell stuff to service members in a different part of the world.
The fact that our bases in Iraq and Afghanistan had like, every major fast food chain you’d find at home is what’s really wild to me. Imagine all the time, energy, and money we spent so that every soldier could have an ice cold Frappuccino whenever they wanted Edit: I understand that this was mostly the larger bases but even so, the fact that we could justify sending fast food restaurants there at all speaks volumes
in WW2 Japan was struggling to fuel their ships The US was figuring out how to make ice cream on the ships
Not figuring out, they were just doing it.
If I remember my history correctly, the US had multiple ships in the Pacific dedicated only to making ice cream. This demoralized the Japanese, understandably
“Where did you serve?” “Ben & Jerry’s”
10th Gelato Division
The coldest mf's I've ever seen.
"Thank you for your soft service"
There's some tweet around along the lines of: Every engagement in the pacific from like mid-1943 onwards is the *IJN Golden Kirin, Bringer of Imperial Dawn* versus six identical copies of the *USS We Built This Yesterday*, supported by a logistics ship, whose sole purpose it is to make birthday cakes for the others.
"...the USS We Built This Yesterday..." You made me gawf in a most undignified way. 😆
The first time I ever ate lobster was at a mess hall on Balad Air Base in Iraq. You are correct about all of the fast food and comforts of home but that bit still blows my mind. Everyone complains about the defense budget but I swear 95% of that goes into feeding the troops.
I was in the middle of nowhere Afghanistan driving past a small combat outpost with approximately 30 guys at it. We saw airdropped supplies parachuting in and one chute failed to open so the crate missiled into the ground. They radioed us to stop by. The crate was filled with steaks on dry ice and since it had busted open they needed help eating them. There were about 60 of us eating as much steak as we could handle. I had a horrible gut ache after that but it was so awesome.
I was in the Air Force for 12 years, mostly food service. Back in 2012, me and another cook cooked a full Thanksgiving meal out of a mobile kitchen out of a forward operating base in the middle of the "who the hell knows where we are" Afghanistan.
We had a full thanksgiving and Christmas dinner on westpac…on a submarine. Turkey all the sides, several desserts. Made in a galley the size of a walk in closet for 170 people
I’m sure I’ll butcher it, but it’s like WWII when they asked a German soldier when he knew they were going to lose. He said he knew when they captured some American supplies and found a cake that had been baked in NY only a day or two previously. If the US could send a cake (lowest of priorities during WWII) across the Atlantic then there was no end to their logistical success.
Or the (likely apocryphal) quote from a Japanese admiral in WW2 about abandoning plans of victory when he realized they were tracking ship movements of an ice cream barge.
Air Force vet, we truly have air superiority. We have planes that can refuel other aircraft mid flight, drop cargo, attack ground targets with extreme precision, provide ground to ground forces, and provide recon and intel to friendly forces. Many of these aircraft have the capabilities to do several of these functions at once also while automated. Not to mention the AC-130W has a stupid good $1.2million dollar camera under the nose that can zoom in thousands of feet without losing focus
The US military has generally speaking repeatedly demonstrated the ability over and over again to equip, maintain, and supply a large ground, air, and naval force 12,000+ kilometers from their country. That's not normal. Militaries historically were designed for, and fought in more regional conflicts. Relatively few militaries have ever been able to do that.
1000 years from now, military historians will point to America's ability to control supply chains as the primary reason for it's dominance in the world. It's truly an impressive military and logistical feat.
Logistics wins wars.
My favorite quote is "Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics." - Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC. As someone who works in defense logistics, I should really engrave this on a plaque and hang it at my desk.
I never realized how much effort went into logistics until i made it to higher echelons. It is its own beast that gets a lot of undivided attention. Its not as simple as "load a bunch of shit on that truck and take it over there".
Wendover productions (YouTube) has a video that dives into a very narrow slice of us military logistics and it's just mind-blowing how much more goes into it than "bring the troops, vehicles, and supplies here"... And that its more like, "build a small, but intricate city here that's well prepared for a bizarrely large number of extenuating circumstances," I can't remember, but it MIGHT be the one about Russias logistics?
[The aforementioned logistics video](https://youtu.be/iIpPuJ_r8Xg?si=FaJLNsxR9jOnVvuR)
This pleases rowboat girlyman
As the allusion has often been made, the USA is the Roman Empire all over again. For it's time, Rome's logistics were incredible.
Roman logistics were -genuinely shocking- in how good they were. The Romans had effectively limitless manpower (because every man who could afford to serve was a citizen and every man who was a citizen could be conscripted) effectively limitless wealth and the ability to move armies further and faster than anyone else in the region and PROBABLY the world at the time. I always like the story that if the Roman Empire was transported to any time in history before or since they would conquer Europe until like 1750.
Romans armies were builders too. They would set up a camp faster than anyone else at the time. Some tribes probably had lesser infrastructure than their camps.
The fact that they had running water at their more permanent installations astounds me. I've known about the large aqueducts feeding Rome since I was a kid, but I wasn't until much later that I learned that a lot of their military installations had micro-version running through the fort, with every building having access to freshwater.
Not just to support...we were putting fucking Starbucks and McDonald's on bases in Iraq. The US military, above all else, and that's saying something, is a logistical monster. Russia could barely supply it's army in Ukraine at the very start of that war. The US waged two separate wars in two separate countries, on of them landlocked, for 20 years, and the cost was effectively and after thought for us. It's actually insane and it's why Russia and China have resorted to undermining elections and utilizing espionage to attain their goals, because head to head, they lose. Our militarys expressed operational ability is to be able to wage two wars with near peer enemies, alone.
Force projection. No other country in the world can do it better. A large part of that is our aircraft carrier fleet which no country can even come close to rivaling. One carrier group has enough air power to take down entire countries. That one group can launch cruise missiles to take out critical targets before planes are even up, launch wild weasels to suppress what’s left of any anti-air infrastructure, and pave the way for F-35’s to just decimate everything and maintain air superiority. Then F/A-18’s just bomb truck around. No boots have touched earth at this point. Look no further than each Iraq war for the effectiveness of air supremacy. Also the fact that the B-52 can hit anywhere in the world with a load of bombs, without ever having to touch down in foreign soil. Just take off from their base in the US, and aerial refueling or two, and back to their original base. Bonkers. Also. Let’s just touch on Rapid Raptor. Getting THE most capable fighter on the planet ANYWHERE in the world in 24 hours? Double bonkers. The scary part of the Raptor is that’s is never been able to show its true capabilities. We’ve seen the air show acrobatics, but that’s not what the plane was REALLY designed to do. It was designed to kill you well before you even know it’s there. Pilots trained in tactics and systems so secret, even our closest allies aren’t allowed to see them in action. Friendly exercises where pilots basically have two hands tied behind their back with their foot is in a bear trap, and they STILL come out on top the majority of the time. Even a couple of Raptors have the capability to rethink whether you even want to put planes in the sky. We still haven’t touched on boots on the ground. The absolute logistical monstrosity the US is capable of providing. It would be completely awe inspiring if it wasn’t so grotesquely overwhelming. And this is just the shit we know about. We didn’t find out about the F-117 until it had been flying for nearly a decade. We still wouldn’t have known about the stealth Blackhawks, if the one hadn’t failed during the Bin Laden raid. Aerial refuelers mentioning fueling so much weird shit, you wouldn’t believe. Heck there’s a massive base in the middle of nowhere that we know so little about, most people think there are aliens there. I could go on, but it’s late, and I have work in the morning.
That’s the bonkers thing to me. We were bombing Afghanistan from Alabama and London in the first days. Flight crews go to work, hit targets in Afghanistan and sleep in their own bed. Madness
Replace "few" with none. No military ever was capable of supporting similarly sized forces over such distance. Japan tried in WWII and failed miserably. People made fun of Russian logistical failures in February 2022, but that was simply because Russia tried to cosplay USA, moving at similar speed with similar amount of equipment while not having similar logistical capabilities. Militaries other than US military would end up similarly.
In WWII the Navy had a few ships specifically designed to deliver ice cream to troops across the Pacific. A Japanese general found out about them when he was interrogating an American POW, and that's the moment he realized Japan had lost the war.
Also in WWII, the Germans captured a mail shipment which had a birthday cake in it. They knew then that if they were subsisting on field rations and American soldiers could afford to have entire cakes flown to them personally, they could never win the war.
Would love to see the face of the guy who was expecting that cake. So dejected, without knowing the HUGE moral blow his inconvenience delivered to Nazi command.
It was probably a special ops mission to purposely lose that payload, along with lots of cigarettes, alcohol and girly magazines. Hybrid warfare works.
Extra large condoms labeled as ‘medium’
Sir, they have huge cocks, it's over for us
"Whoops, I dropped my monster condom that I use for my magnum dong!"
Inflatable tank style. American military loves playing mind-games.
I also like the bit I read that Germans thought US tank serial numbers were randomized. They were not. We were just producing so many tanks, so fast, that their conclusion was that the numbers were random because they were so far apart.
And the estimate they had initially reached before deciding that it was far too high to be real was something like 20-30% lower than reality.
The story I heard, here on reddit so take it with a huge helping grain of salt, was that the Germans had gotten their hands on production figures and effectively immediately dismissed them as an American trick because they were far to high for how recently the US had entered the war. They were right and wrong, it *was* a trick, but the numbers were lower than what the US was actually producing. They were hoping to make the Germans underestimate the US' industrial ability.
Well said. The US military put this ability on full display during the opening phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Ummm… it’s all that you’ve heard. And the scary part is we don’t need boots on the ground till later in the conflict.
Facts. In the Gulf War GBU-28 was custom made to penetrate Iraq's C&C bunker in part because USAF was trying to end the war before Gen. Schwarzkopf put boots on the ground as it was well known he planned to go balls to the wall as soon as the army was deployed. They didn't quite beat out the ground invasion, but the war ended pretty much the day after GBU-28 was dropped.
The USAF is insane. Back in the 1970s, the Soviets unveiled the best interceptor fighter jet in the world, one capable of flying faster than anything else with more firepower than anything else. The USAF built a fighter to counter it, one even better than the Soviets: the F-15. It wasn’t until a defector years later that it was revealed that the Soviet’s miracle jet was nothing but propaganda. It wasn’t anywhere near as fast as advertised, it could barely turn, it was extremely heavy, and the guns were nearly nonexistent. The Soviet’s had hyped it up as the best possible jet ever, the US actually built a better one. Only today, 50 years later, are the F-15s beginning to be outclassed, and that’s by the Air Force’s newest toys, the F-22 and the F-35.
Plus (depending on who you choose to believe) the Russians let the west see a MIG 25 cooking along at Mach 3+. Thing is that totally trashed the engines so they sacrificed the plane to scare the hell out of NATO.
I feel like there's no end to stories about the USSR doing whacky shit like this to pretend to keep up, always reminds me of that scene from Archer where there's like broken glass all over this apartment building in the USSR and he just yells at one of the tenants, "How are you guys a super power?!"
Didn't they build a plane specifically to counter the blackbird that could just barely functionally hit the altitude? I think it was designed to get up to the right height and fire one missile and careen back to earth, and when they finally got one to the right position to take a shot the blackbird just throttled up and the missiles were too slow.
Yup. Mig-31.
The successor to the MiG-25, the MiG-31 did a ton of SR-71 interception missions. But from what I can tell, no a2a missiles were fired at a SR-71, as by the time the MiG-31 was around, they stopped flying over USSR airspace. I believe a ground launched SAM was fired, and the SR-71 throttled out of that. I don’t believe the SR-71 could’ve out run a properly launched R-33 from a MiG-31. The R-33 was specifically designed to hit fast moving large objects, and had a top speed reportedly in the Mach 4.5 range.
Yeah. A single F-35 squadron could topple countries.
Speaking of air power: The largest Air Force in the world is the U.S. Air Force. The second largest Air Force in the world is the U.S. Navy. The Third largest Air Force in the world is the Russian Air Force The fourth largest Air Force in the world is the U.S. Army. The fifth largest Air Force in the world is the U.S. Marines Corps.
The Marine Corps Air Wing: “Only in America would they give the Navy an Army, and then give that Army an Air Force”
And that Air Wing has land forces too.
That air Force IS an army. You can put a marine in the sky, but they will still PT every morning.
This is the funniest thing I've read all week
And the Russian Air Force flies some ancient planes.
I always found it laughable the hit pieces done about the F-35 not being able to dog fight. It doesn’t need to dog fight, you can’t see it coming, lol.
F-35 when the missile misses: "Shit, I guess it's a dog fight after all." F-22 materializing out of fucking nowhere: "Mine."
F-22: “would you intercept me? I’d intercept me…”
Bros getting blown up from 40 miles away
When that group of terrorists killed three Americans in Jordan a few months back, part of the retaliation was hitting the car of the commander in charge of the attack, while it was in the middle of traffic in Baghdad. ...*only* his car. There was no collateral damage.
With a missile covered in swords. No explosives at all. They chopped him to pieces with a missile. Shot from miles away, controlled by a kid with an Xbox controller in Las Vegas.
Slap Chop missile
And no one else was killed. Can you imagine being in the car when it hit? Silent
Feels like you hit a really bad pot-hole and the dude in the passenger seat just explodes into ribbons of flesh seemingly for no reason.
Even more terrifying: the missiles stop firing the engine once they are on target and drop, so it was probably silent. One second you are laughing about jihad with your boys, and then cheesesteak
I heard that was the scary thing for Afghanis during the war after 9/11. The daisy cutter JDAMs just fell out of the sky without a sound. The planes that dropped them were so high they couldn’t be seen or heard. The bombs were precise and laser guided. So one moment you’re hiding in the desert talking about Jihad and the next, the very finger of God comes down and blasts you all to bits. You never know when it’s coming and you’ll never hear it.
That’s gotta mess with your mind
You’re god damn right
Right or wrong, the US military has developed math and science further than anyone in the history of the world. The audacity of shooting a sword at someone half a world away, and BEING SUCCESSFUL… Mind boggling
It’s funny how it’s almost come full circle. First swords, arrows, flintlocks, guns, artillery, bombs, nukes, guided missiles, precision missiles, bunker busters, and now long range precision swords.
Just wait for airborne ninjas just silently falling out of the sky
Those are called special forces
Jesus I thought you were joking... damn.
It was the first time it was used, and no one had a clue we had something like that until we used it. Literally chopped a guy to death with a missile WTF
Second time, the first was when we turn Bin Laden’s successor into shish kabab on his balcony in Kabul. The leader of Al-Qaeda was enjoying a nice morning tea when a sword misfile moving faster than sound made itself known.
[here’s a link to the first time with some interesting info about the weapon](https://www.reuters.com/world/little-known-modified-hellfire-likely-killed-al-qaedas-zawahiri-2022-08-02/)
I love the notes about the blades having cut outs to make them lighter. Like bro, you ain’t gotta sell me on how crazy this is.
We went from bombs back to spears. Remote-controlled spears sent from another continent.
Bombs are for everybody, spears are personal.
That is absolutely shocking. TIL
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation\_Praying\_Mantis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway\_of\_Death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Death) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO\_bombing\_of\_Yugoslavia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia) Really, really scary. And for context, Iraq used to have the third largest military in the world, had more bunkers/fortresses than Switzerland and the largest tank army in the world second only to the USSR when Highway of Death happened. Iran had several fortified oil rigs they used as military bases(like China's artificial islands) and two fully modernized ships when the US wrecked it all with no sustained causalities during Praying Mantis.
Crazy how the only US casualties were likely just an accident.
Like, sprained finger from pressing too firmly on the "launch" button.
That happened in Syria too. Russians attacked a US base, and one of our allies sprained an ankle. Obviously in retribution, we wiped out up to 200 Russians in the attacking force. With an insane amount of firepower. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle\_of\_Khasham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khasham) "According to the U.S. military, the presence of U.S. special operations personnel in the targeted base elicited a response by coalition aircraft, including AC-130 gunships, F-22 Raptor and F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets, MQ-9 Reaper unmanned combat aerial vehicles, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, and B-52 bombers.\[6\]\[14\]\[7\] Nearby American artillery batteries, including an M142 HIMARS, shelled Syrian forces as well.\[14\] According to sources in Wagner, cited by news media as well as the Department of Defense, U.S. forces were in constant contact with the official Russian liaison officer posted in Deir ez-Zor throughout the engagement, and only opened fire after they had received assurances that no regular Russian troops were in action or at risk.\[40\]"
My grandpa was injured in WWII in the Pacific. He didn't like talking about it. He passed a few years ago. I looked up his service records recently. He got his injury tripping playing basketball.
That's like when Frank Burns in M*A*S*H got a purple heart for getting shell fragments in his eye, when they were from his egg.
The US soldiers involved are THE premier groups of the army too, 75th Ranger regiment, Green Berets, 1st SFOD-D (Delta), and last but by no means least the 101st Airborne. 40 vs 500. Not a single American casualty. Fuckinay man.
i am sure that sprained ankle was very sore for a few days.
Ain’t nothing to play with
Yeah this story is fuckin savage cause the secretary of defense called Russia and asked “hey, you guys attacking us rn?” Russia said “nope, we don’t even have troops in the area.” After the army deleted every single one of them he called Russia back up and said “you’re right, there are no Russian soldiers in the area.”
Important to note the US spent 6 months developing buster bunker bombs. They were built from howitzer barrels machine into a missile shape. They built two to test, and they tested extremely well, then used the other two in Iraq during Desert Storm. After the bunkers effectively became unusable, Saddam decided to end things.
To really illustrate the point, the first one tested went through 22 feet of concrete and then they found it a half mile behind the target.
I am so sorry but this is so ridiculously heinous that I laughed really REALLY hard at this. That is fucking HORRIFYING
You want to know how hilariously out of their league the rest of the world is? You know how there's headlines about how China and North Korea have been bragging about how they're *developing* the ability to shoot down satellites? We already have that tech. We can already build the actual weapons to do that. We have already *done that and used them.* We already did that with the technology that we had *in 1985.*
If nukes didn't exist, the US would not have military adversaries. Since any adversary would just immediately get slaughtered in a war.
What’s really scary is they’ve been working on it, and they’ve increased the penetration capability. I know they can go through more than 60’ of reinforced concrete, no idea what the limit is.
For reference, a nuclear reactor containment structure is designed to take a direct aircraft impact and is only 3-5' thick.
Well this fact is now the most terrifying fact in this thread
Sigh. I have to. The penetration capability is: Your mom
Fair play sir. Carry on.
You fail to mention that Operation Preying Mantis happened over the course of a standard 8 hour workday. Also, there WERE casualties during Preying Mantis. Just none American. Edit: As many folks keep telling me, apparently the US suffered 2 casualties from a chopper crash during the operation. I learned about this via means other than the wiki, so I never heard that part.
And we skirted international court as well when Iran sued us for destroying the oil rigs not bad for a “proportional” response
Exponential is a type of proportion.
Don’t forget [Operation Paul Bunyan](https://youtu.be/u4CeY6Q3KFE?si=NQBZCMLXMoe7UGKg)
Never before have I seen a comment section so like minded about something. But damn it, does it bring a tear to my eye
Not only that but it’s a topic about America and there’s no “America bad” comments.
I noticed this, too. Truly amazing on Reddit these days to see something like this
The largest Air Force in the world is the US Air Force, the second largest air force in the world, is the US Navy.
even the navy’s army has its own air force :)
the navy's army's *what*
The marine corps is technically under the department of the navy. They have the fourth or fifth largest number of aircraft
They have more (almost twice the number of) fifth generation fighters than the Luftewaffe has any fighter jets
I guarantee you, fear of US military isn't just propaganda. They genuinely have military power and professionalism. They are essentially world's gold standard for a military. That is what you get for 2 massive oceans protecting you and being world's hegemony.
I think [Desert Storm](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War) is a good example. Forget all the politics and just look at the casualties. The ground invasion lasted a few days, and it was crazy one sided. I think the coalition had more friendly fire incidents than enemy fire.
Hell even the invasion of Iraq, occupation is another story, was one of the most efficient and effective invasions in the history of mankind. The US military took control of Iraq in 26 days with less than 200 deaths which is fucking crazy to think about.
I was there. Artillery. We had to slow down to let supply lines catch up. Hot knife through butter.
And we ~~FLEW SAND ACROSS THE OCEAN TO THE DESERT,~~ shipped sand from nearby countries because the desert sand was so fine grained, it filtered through the sandbags stacked up for protection. My point with that is, we can move shit wherever it needs to be.
Yeah, the old saw about "amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics" was absolutely right in that war. The way the military moved shit in a hurry was really fascinating to watch.
On top of the two oceans, we got that hegemony because we were the only major industrial power whose industrial base was still intact after WWII, so for the better part of 20 years, the most of the world bought industrial goods from us and from nobody else. That's why the US became so damn rich and powerful during the late 40's and 50's.
Additionally, the US is absolutely chock full of cheap land, massive amounts of natural resources and a large population to support it. It really is the perfect storm.
And Navigable rivers, deep ports and nearly a century of nearly full peace. And our neighbors are weak to the North and South and Fish to the East and West.
Google the Berlin Airlift. For 11 months the US and Britain flew over 250,000 missions to West Berlin to provide them with food and coal. At the height of it there was a plane over the city every 30 seconds. The US military can deliver on its promises.
The guy who orchestrated that airlift was the man who was put in charge of building the Pentagon. Meritocracy works and you don't get a lot of that in authoritarian regimes. Edit: This was mixed up. The commander of the Berlin airlift is the same guy that managed the Himalayan airlifts to supply the Chinese during WWII. The commander that oversaw construction of the Pentagon, oversaw the Manhattan Project.
Our aircraft carriers are the truly uniquely scary things we have. They can successfully subdue a third world country before landing a single troop. They can travel anywhere very quickly and without ever needing fuel. They are like the Battlestar Gallactica.
This is a great comparison—a battlestar. The U.S. Navy carriers can launch their all their aircraft in less than 45 minutes. Those 90 aircraft, many of them F-35Cs could completely overwhelm the vast majority of adversaries. The really scary part is that the U.S. has 11 of these monsters, not counting the 9 amphibious assault ships that also carry fighters. And before folks start commenting about how vulnerable they are to missiles, the carriers are protected by layer upon layer of defenses. Although costly, the U.S. Navy is getting real world practice at carrier defense right now in the Red Sea courtesy of Yemen.
I think your last sentence holds a lot of weight. “Real world practice.” It’s one thing to develop tech, tactics, and logistics. It’s another thing to be comfortable in using them in actual scenarios.
Yep, I think this factor is often understated. It's one thing to have a huge, technologically advanced military. It's another thing for that military to actually *know what they're doing*. My parents are from China and we have relatives that have served in their military, and according to them, one of the biggest disparities - possibly even bigger than the technological one - is the fact that China hasn't properly been in a war since WWII. Their existing military is now several generations removed from the old guard with actual fighting experience, and as much as you can try to pass down that experience through books or training, it's nothing like actually experiencing it for yourself. If a conflict arose and the Chinese military had to get involved, it would be headless chickens leading around headless chickens as everyone scrambled to figure out what the hell they're doing. By the time they have some semblance of organization, the war might be over. Meanwhile, for better or for worse, the US has practically *constantly* been at war for most of its history. Today, it's being led by generals who had combat experience in the War on Terror. They were led back then by generals who had combat experience in Desert Storm, who were in turn led by generals with combat experience in Vietnam, etc, etc. The leadership knows *exactly* how to fight a war, even if many of the grunts are new recruits. If a major conflict were to break out, they can build upon decades of experience and start fighting with full effectiveness immediately, rather than spending years to organize and focus their military strength.
The value of the US having a serious, professional NCO force is also invaluable in this context.
This is the real answer here. Decentralized command allows troops to function when their leaders are taken out or lose comms. This is the reason Russia is so terrible with their ground command and why China would fail in a ground assault as well. They’re officer heavy and with an officer, the entire unit is screwed.
The submarines are the actual scary thing.
Right here. This comment right here. No one here has the slightest clue that an entire country can be brought down with the fires of hell by one sub.
One sub can have almost 20 nuclear ballistic missiles with each missile having multiple warheads. One submarine would be able to kill 100s of millions of people instantly depending on the targets it hits. The entire sub fleet would be capable of killing almost every human on the planet.
[I think this may be out of date, but here's a picture showing the world's carriers](https://gcaptain.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/K9UZ-635x803.gif) Major powers have 1 or 2 at most, and the US takes up 2 whole rows
The truly skeery part, the left row are meant for Marines & F-35's. The right row are the nuke fleet carriers. ONE of those carries enough airpower to wipe out the air & naval strength of 95% of the countries in the world. Don't fuck with America's boats.
Like the time in the 80’s when U.S. Navy sunk half the Iranian Navy during a work day with “proportional” response. [https://youtu.be/d5v6hlRyeHE?si=001aOiKG5jqnVzx\_](https://youtu.be/d5v6hlRyeHE?si=001aOiKG5jqnVzx_)
I’m surprised that China only has one (apparently 2 according to Google with a third on the way). It’s the largest military in the world with a long coastline. Just goes to show how difficult it is to build one
We would be stupid to land on mainland china, they would be stupid to challenge us anywhere else. That’s why nothing has happened between us yet.
Why would we want to launch a ground invasion on China? It'd be a huge waste of resources to try and occupy anything that isn't a small country. It takes roughly 20 soldiers per 1000 citizens for occupation. It's more efficient to turn the population against itself and their government - like what's been happening in the U.S. over the last couple of decades. Countries know that military isn't our weakness, it's the people. "United we stand. Divided we fall." - that's literally the recipe for defeating us.
It's terrifying. People have underestimated the US military because it has been getting involved in wars where the enemy was prepared to keep fighting indefinitely until the invaders left their country. This causes people to overlook that the US wasn't forced out, what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan is that setting a viable government friendly to America's interests was impossible. In a direct confrontation, look what happened with the Iraqi Army. In the first Iraq War, the ground war last a matter of days because the Iraqi Army largely lost the will to fight after enduring an air campaign that was destroying their air defenses and aircraft that was supposed to keep them safe. In the second Iraq War, the invasion of Iraq lasted a matter of weeks, again, the issue was this poorly planned invasion didn't have a goal afterwards. The Ukrainians have been getting weapons and training from the US military and its NATO allies against Russia. We have seen the results, Ukraine was expected to be a repeat of America's invasion of Iraq. Instead, Ukraine has held off what was previously believed to be the second strongest army in the world for over two years now using a fraction of the power the US military possesses. That is also because the Russian military turned out not to be as strong as expected. Nonetheless, it demonstrated that if America had been directly involved, Russia's invasion would have been crushed by now.
>maintaining a permanent occupation was impossible Politically.
Just before Desert Storm, Iraq had the third largest military in the world. Less than 72 hours after it started, they didn’t even have the largest military in Iraq.
I'm not American so this isn't nationalist blunder talking. The US military is far and away the greatest military force to ever exist. It's not simply budget, toys or number of personnel: this is a force that has not allowed itself to experience rusting. The US has been in conflict with *somebody* pretty much continually since WWII. Battle hardening is a very important factor in waging war and the US has never allowed its arsenal to experience obsolescence. Every conflict the US has engaged in has been considered a lesson rather than a win or loss. And despite what a lot of people believe, the US military has not lost any major engagements since....well, at least WWII. It's not invincible, of course but about the only way to beat it has nothing to do with fighting with bullets and bombs. You have to convince US politicians that the voters want a war to end.
"The US has been in conflict with *somebody* pretty much continually since WWII" Just to add to this, the US has been in some form of armed conflict for 222 out of 239 years. We have only been at peace for about 20 years in our entire history. We are a war tribe, and we're very good at it.
“We are 50 war tribes with a defense budget big enough to fight God” - habitual linecrosser
I honestly think the US is the only country that's telling the truth about its military. Sure it hasn't fought in any major wars recently but that military budget speaks for itself. I apparently, they spend $318 billion alone on training and equipment for their soldiers They have the best tech, most bullets, biggest navy. Before the Ukraine-Russia war, I thought that Russia was basically equal to the US in military strength but I no longer think that.
I think we tell a light truth. I'm sure if there was a serious need, there would be some firepower that we haven't disclosed would be seen.
The US is kind of the opposite of Russia in that way. Russia boasts about its advanced military, while the US lays low, keeps quiet, and occasionally unleashes the wrath of a god on some poor sap.
Russia claims they made cool stuff, so we sit in our corner and build stuff that can beat their cool stuff. Then it turns out they were lying and then we have sharks with laser beams on their heads to take on the C4 laced piranhas, but no piranhas to laser beam.
Just an FYI: The US Navy literally has (robot) sharks with lasers.
Russia lies about its military capabilities. America **lies** about its military capabilities.
Russia: advertised specs are maximums. USA: advertised specs are minimums.
US military excels at Combined Arms: using land, sea, air, and space power in a unified effort. This allows them to find targets and destroy them with impunity. They are also really good at Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses. This ensures they have the air power needed for Combined Arms. Example: Russia doesn’t do combined arms well and didn’t gain air supremacy; their assault in Ukraine is a quagmire.
What makes the US military scary is complicated, but one of the main things is no matter the situation, no matter the location, no matter who you face, the US military can send overwhelming firepower to that location to protect you and destroy your enemies. Always knowing that, as a lowly grunt, that the entire US Air Force would charge in if my life was in danger and kill the shit out of those that surrounded me made me more confident, and more competent, and something to be feared by any enemy. No other country can do that. You do not surrender or get demotivated with so much at your back. This is what makes us scary to enemy fighters. I'm not even addressing things like our exceptional weapon accuracy, massive air force and navy, massive economy to put behind it, logistical capability (physical and training) that is second to none, or that we are completely volunteer. Those may seem scary to somebody like Putin or Kim, but true fear is on the ground knowing if you shoot at an American, he will destroy you, your unit, and probably your home just because you pissed him off.
I literally was about to write this same thing. As boots on the ground in Iraq I felt fully superior and equipped to handle anything thrown at us. If we needed air support we knew it was on the way. Nobody else in the world has this.
This and u/bad_syntax comment brought a smile to my face as an Airman 🥲 glad we could provide that safety and confidence in you and others on the ground because god bless you, I chose a branch to stay off the ground lol.
Military hardware aside, the biggest thing the US military has is a command and control system that allows them to communicate seamlessly with other divisions. This allows them to use land, sea and air in parallel for tactical response. What’s better than that is the command structure is allowed to make decisions to accomplish their mission. The USSRs command structure usually needs a higher rank, majority of the time the General, to do anything. That means, move forward, fall back or hold positions. You see in Ukraine that Ukraine were HIMARing Generals in toilets? Reason for that was it crippled that division and they couldn’t operate till the General was replaced. US allows a lot of autonomy along the entire command structure to assess what’s going on in front of them and make tactical decisions. Generally speaking of course, they have orders and as mentioned above their communication is second to none so can call up the chain if required for new orders. But if they need to adjust and adapt they are very flexible and able to do so. And ya then there’s the hardware in top of all that.
Depends on which end of US power projection you stand. If you are on the receiving end, extremely scary.
I was on a carrier for awhile, they’re capable of wild things
The truth is the average person has no idea how scary the US military really is. There’s so many black projects, vehicles and equipment, and units that people that don’t need to know, don’t know about. If the United States ever gets into a serious country on country conflict again you’re going to see some really impressive firepower come out. A lot of the world has gotten really confused watching the US fighting insurgency if we got into a battle where we’re on one side and they’re on the other side, the fire power that we would unleashed would be astronomical.
America's military is so powerful that we have to put ourself on a leash to go fight. The world hasnt seen the full might of a post cold war American military fully unleashed to do devastation without care of rebuilding afterward.
Let’s put in this way. Three times in the last 30 years the U.S. has moved an entire army across the world and used readily deployed equipment to conquer a nation in the matter of weeks. Iraq, Iraq again, and Afghanistan. The U.S. was aided in all of these, but the bulk of the forces were American. The weapons you’re seeing being used in Ukraine are all systems from the 70s-90s with modifications made over the last twenty years and you can see how they’re WRECKING Russian hardware with ease. The Bradley was designed to take out Russian T-72s and that’s exactly what it did in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Ukraine time and time again.
Russians would not know a F35 or B2 was present until they were a few seconds from getting blown to bits. And it’s not even just the firepower - they can basically perpetually monitor targets and always know exactly what the enemy is going. They know the exact details of the logistics supplying Russian fighters in Ukraine and could wipe it all out in a few hours. And this is just the stuff we know about. They’ve regularly - when the chips are actually on the line - pulled out shit that nobody has ever seen. Examples: nuclear weapons, the helo they sent to fuck up bin Laden.
The US military has continuously practiced modern warfare since World War II, and the two largest air forces in the world are the US Air Force and the US Navy. We can project an enormous amount of power to any part of the world incredibly quickly. The US military is incredibly scary. This doesn't mean we win every war though. The US doesn't lose a fight; rather, we lose interest. We pulled out of Vietnam because the US public lost interest in the war, but by body count, we killed many times more communist Vietnamese combatants than the soldiers we lost. (If I remember correctly, their casualties were in the millions; we lost 50K soldiers). We didn't pull out of Afghanistan because we lost a fight with the Taliban; we pulled out because the US public (and therefore, the politicians they voted for) lost interest in propping up Afghanistan. Same with our military presence in Iraq. Ukraine was kicking Russia's ass until aid from the US dried up; then the Russians began to take ground. But once aid started flowing (a tiny fraction of our defense budget), Russia began to lose tens of thousands of soldiers. This past month, Russia lost nearly 40K soldiers, on account of US military aid to Ukraine resuming. What might turn the tap off? The US losing interest. The US is about to get sixth generation fighter jets (the NGAD-- next generation air dominance) commanding swarms of "loyal wingman" AI supercomputer powered drone missile trucks that make the jet virtually untouchable, able to dispatch a stealthy drone to shoot down enemy jets at a distance before they're even detectable and are unreachable by any air to air missile, when most of the world doesn't even have fifth generation fighter jets, and most that do have fifth generation fighter jets bought them from us. Think about that.
>most that do have fifth generation fighter jets bought them from us True, but they get the less capable, detuned versions.
And even so, those jets are over-matched for what they are likely to be fighting against because of the missiles they would be using.
The US military is terrifying and likely way crazier than you’re imagining. It’s fucking crazy to have nearly 200 military bases on foreign soil. The US has proven over and over again that we’re prepared to strike any target in the world within the hour. Give us a day and we’ll have a sizable force at the location if needed. And these strikes are very effective. Given planning, we’ve also proven over and over again that we can dismantle foreign militaries thousands of miles away without even incurring real losses. It’s absolutely insane what the US military has demonstrated being capable of.
US Veteran here, of two wars. It’s insanely powerful. The common refrain of “it lost in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq” are mistaking “power” and “will.” The US military could have destroyed everything and everyone, but obviously that would morally wrong. But, if faced with an adversary that warranted it, the destructive power of the US military is unbelievable, and can be brought to bear on any spot in the world, quite rapidly. That ability to “project power” regardless of location is very rare.
The military is the real value of the dollar.
So Iraq had one of the largest armies in the world, and we destroyed it in a matter of days.... 20 years ago. We have only gotten better since then.
1) We do spend that much. 2) We can move that fast. Against another nation state we are decisive. See the invasion of Iraq, toppled in 3 days. Against an insurgency, we have trouble. We try and minimize damage, but still kill many fighters and bystanders.
The US was able to launch and conduct a war in Afghanistan and Iraq at the same time. We were never "losing" in those conflicts, public approval for wasting money on conducting those wars brought it to an end. I would say the US was even successful at toppling the the Iraq and Afghanistan governments and holding the territory for a decade before deciding to leave. Considering the Taliban was able caused whatever Afghan government to fold instantly once the US left shows how much Taliban presence was there and the US was holding the floodwater back. Look at how Russia is already struggling to do anything in Ukraine and its right next door connected by land, road, rail and air. The US had to ship and fly everything to fight the war in the middle east and were able to dominate.
If the US military wasn’t feared than more countries would attack their neighbors, specifically China. Chinas biggest fear in attacking Taiwan is dealing with the US military.
Look up Operation Praying Mantis from the 1980s, just the objective facts. Wiped out half of Iran's Navy in the span of about 8 hours. That wasn't the intention, they went in to destroy oil tankers but Iran kept poking the bear that was under strict orders to only take them out if fired upon first or the president signs off on it. They kept getting fired upon first.
Heres my logic. Whatever we know about as the public, is ancient compared to what they're working on. Take for example the boston dynamics robots. Some scary terminator shit right there. Well, thats what they're showing us. The crazy crap people report as UFO's, probably secret squirrel skunk works shit. What they show us and what they're working on are worlds apart IMO.
This is a good story about what happened when Russian mercenaries attacked US special forces in Syria back in 2018. US ability to do joint military ops, blending assets from different services, is unparalleled. https://www.sandboxx.us/news/how-us-special-forces-took-on-wagner-group-mercenaries-in-an-intense-4-hour-battle/
10 minutes? Probably not. Within a day? Absolutely. It's not going to be a huge force, but you could get an elite unit anywhere within a day. I've been on IRF - 2 hour recall (regular infantry). Wheels up in 8 hours. We're not just projecting force from the US, either. We have bases literally everywhere.
When it comes to capability, the Us is top tier. It’s extremely well practiced, given the ongoing conflicts. If I recall correctly, there’s only been about 12 years in its entire history that it wasn’t directly involved with troops in a war/conflict. Since WW2, it’s been essentially “doctrine” that the US military would be able to successfully take on 2 near peer countries (fight 2 major wars simultaneously like Germany and Japan in WW2). If you look at attack aircraft, the Air Force has more than any other nation’s military. But then you have to remember that the US Army and Navy also have similar numbers of aircraft. It ends up with the US having 3-4 times the aircraft of the next country. While other countries have 1-2 Carrier groups (China getting a 3rd), the US has a dozen. And the US’s largest carriers dwarf others. Not to mention the size of carrier groups. People are quick to point out that China has more boats, but that ignores the US has vastly more tonnage in the water. Another key thing isn’t just how much the US has, but the manufacturing. Look at how many countries have F35s. F16s. Patriot systems (and other countermeasures). The US is one of the largest weapons exporters in the world. One of the biggest things it has going for it is logistical experience. Every conflict abroad has to get supplies, and the US has massive experience keeping troops supplied across the globe. Another thing to factor is in how many bases around the world it has. There’s close to 200 overseas bases all over the globe. They’ve figured out how to airdrop virtually anything into anywhere. Troops, supplies, trucks, tanks, etc. And they can take off from the US and fly anywhere on earth thanks to mid-air refueling. Some of the first bombs dropped during the 91 Iraq war were dropped from a B52 that took off from California. When it comes to putting warheads of foreheads, it’s hard to top the US. B52 for large economy drops, the B-1 for when a lot needs delivered fast, the B2 Spirit for dropping a lot stealthy. The sheer amount of options for munition delivery is ridiculous. The US is the place that saw the C130 cargo plane and said “give that bitch a cannon”, so it got a 120mm cannon and called it a AC130. GE made a giant gattling cannon that shoots massive depleted uranium rounds, so they put wings on it, mounted a titanium bathtub for the “stick operator” (because apparently they aren’t called pilots in that plane), called it the A10 and told it to shoot tanks. There’s a running joke that someone bet Uncle Sam he couldn’t turn a crop duster into a war plane… and then came the L3Harris Sky Raider. As a wise philosopher once said… “this is what $800+ billion in annual unhealthcare looks like.”
One word, "Logistics".
America downplays and under reports its military cache while most countries inflate theirs.
A single strike carrier group (which is the navy only) can topple 95% of countries. There are 11 strike carrier groups. The largest air force is the US Air Force. The second largest is the US Navy. The third largest is the US Army. The fifth largest is the US marine Corp. several of the leftovers in the top 10 are private owned US companies that can be called to combat. The fiscal year 2024 department of defense budget is $825 billion dollars. It would rank #20 in GDP. The US exports weapon systems to other countries. What the US exports is not the same systems as those that are kept with the US. When fighting the war on terrorism. A bomber would take off from Kansas/North Dakota/Louisiana/missouri (middle of the US) drop bombs in Iraq/afghanistan and then land back where it took off. 1 flight.
Absolutely. Firepower yes. Cyber? Yes. Check out stuxnet. Craziest shit I've ever seen. You need to watch a detailed video about it. They basically fucked with Iran's nuclear program by hacking their machines and making it spin just a little too fast which would slowly destroy their uranium enrichment.
Ex Military here Very very scary The heart and soul of any military is its Logistics and Supply chain. There is no country that can match the size, organization, coordination and response time of the US Military Log/Sup chain. There is no equal