re: US military could lose a war to China or Russia, study for Congress finds

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If the country was about to be over run and we would be subjugated to communist Chinese rule, would you want your leader to use nukes?


On our own soil? fricking yikes man, I have no idea what I would want him to do.

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No nukes...ever

We win by the merits of our will to be free lest we deserve to be oppressed

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we're drunk, quarrelsome, and heavily armed. It's like fighting a big retarded guy. You win nothing and he might eat you.

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You, sir, have a splendid way with words.

Russia is a land power, that is why they have more than double the tanks than any other country in the world. They could not come and attack us on our homeland at this point but they have land bridges to Europe, the Middle East through to Africa, and Asia. The reason we need such a massive Navy is because we are geographically separated from the old world. Not to mention Russia has the best anti aircraft weapon systems in the world. If they could find a way to neutralize our navy through hypersonic missiles or some other technology we would be in trouble in a war we were trying to contain them in Europe.

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US military could lose a war to China or Russia

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Yeah, and I guess Alabama could lose to Citadel this weekend.

The bigger question is what is our geopolitical strategy and is it worth the expense of constantly maintaining a military industrial complex that is capable or winning EVERY type of conflict across the entire globe or not. Why are we bearing the burden of being capable of defeating Russia, China, rogue states, non-state actors, and regional competitors to our vast breadth of allies across the globe into perpetuity? Is that wise policy? Is it sustainable? Does it ACTUALLY protect our long term interests to continue practicing this policy dogmatically?

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China and Russia are seeking dominance in their regions and the ability to project military power globally

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Major powers seeking regional hegemony in their geopolitical backyard is the natural state of being for major powers. The question then becomes, are we inflaming situations and setting ourselves up for massive and never ending resource investment in preventing the inevitable growth in influence of other major powers and potentially getting ourselves into a catastrophic war that ultimately doesn't serve our national interests well, win or lose?

The United States should find more limited foreign policy goals and should encourage other regional powers to invest more in their own security *cough* EU *cough* NATO.

Is going to war with Russia over former Russian states worth trillions of dollars in U.S. military investments that may prove futile anyhow? Is it worth a war with a non-Communist power like Russia which has the natural desire to reestablish itself as a major political and economic force in their region? Are we willing to go to war so that China does not grow into its obvious geopolitical potential as the leading regional power in Asia? Do our allies share the same commitment and if not, is it worth it for us to take on the costs and risks alone? Can we not mitigate these threats through other means and narrow the scope of what constitutes our vital national interests, thereby allowing room for a natural redistribution of power and influence incrementally and peacefully while maintaining our fundamental security and interests? Threatening war at every global crossroads from Syria to Ukraine and the Korean peninsula to the South China sea is a recipe for mutual disaster. At some point the United States has to grow out of the Cold War mentality and adopt a foreign policy tailored for the 21st century. It may require us to relinquish a bit of our self-righteous and self-serving hubris, however, and both major American political parties are equally bipolar and uncertain of what our role in the world should be.

The United States is setting itself up to make all the same mistakes former global hegemonic powers have made which is to seek to maintain its power everywhere at the steadily apparent cost of its own domestic political interests and stability. Multipolar worlds have existed before and will again. Global power dynamics are always fluid and with all major actors possessing the power of nuclear weapons now, it is incumbent on all actors to find diplomatic means of readjusting the international order. The United States has not been very good at that over the last 20 years or so and has contributed to both Russia's desperate state of mind and China's steadily increasing power through our own bad policy making.

Supreme hegemons are not supreme hegemons forever. How they manage the shift in global power distribution is what separates those that relinquish a degree of relative power judiciously from those that do so disastrously and tragically.

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The only area the US military lags behind is cyber.

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I was told differently by a gentleman who works with the US military in cyber.