I really don't like measuring muscle strength with money.
What if the US is not very efficient with their defence spending? In Ukraine, we found out that the US made shells cost 10x more than the Russian ones and do more-less the same. How many drones Chinese can build at the cost of just one US Aircraft Carrier? How much of the cost of the US defence is actually firepower and how much of it is salaries and operating costs of all the bases all over the world?
There's this idea that Trump was elected to dismantle US from its current world order. America did not step in against Russia to fulfill its guarantees to Ukraine, even before Biden and Trump Obama folded when US was challenged in Syria. They only fulfilled their obligations to Israel and that's against orders of magnitude weaker forces. Trump is also known for threatening his allies with not upholding the US obligations unless something extra is given to him.
US removes its presence from the world and deals with internal issues instead, China takes over as the high-tech world order enforcer and Europe goes into soul searching.
US has budget deficit now. It's far more important to fix the budget. Spending few trillions in Afganistan so few friends get extra rich is not being superpower :) It's literally opposite.
Okay, let's follow this thought. The US, and the whole western world, rely on advanced weapons that blitz attacking forces, literally try to attack weapons only to the point that some weapons try to spare the operators of said weapons, and certainly try to avoid hitting innocent bystanders, but have trouble sustaining an attack. The idea is essentially to discourage attack by destroying anything that moves in the opening phases of a war, if possible in the first 10 minutes.
BUT it has massive advantages: it doesn't kill many people, it does minimum damage, even to military hardware. Even their high prices are a security measure: they require a massive diversified economy behind them to produce these weapons (so even if the US gave Iran engineering specs for nukes, Iran can't build those weapons, and can't build the infrastructure required to build them either. The same goes for most weapons. Iran and Russia have no use for Western weapons, despite what they themselves think)
The "dream" Western weapon is a "space laser", when Khamenei comes out of his hole and has a meeting with his commander ordering deaths in Syria ... that before he even finishes the sentence, a hole develops in his face. We can't do this (yet?), but that's the dream. One death, thousands to millions of people saved, and yes, billions of dollars saved too.
What western weapons want to avoid at all costs is what's happening in Ukraine and Russia: society vs society, economy vs economy, war of exhaustion, what's also happening in Israel-Iran. Decades-long sustained economy-destroying wars. Redirecting entire countries' output towards military for prolonged periods of time. Economic output. Cultural output. Even the output of women's wombs.
The alternative is what communists (and "ex-"communist states that inherited such weapons) do (Soviets, North Korea, ...). Mass, sustained wars of exhaustion. Dedicating all of a country's entire resource base to war, for decades. Economy. Culture. Everything. Including babies, including population, including you and me if they can. Their weapons are very different: their weapons are cheap, easily concealed, worthless, and follow the philosophy of "kill, kill, kill". Weapon can't reach target? It still blows up. You are cheap and can't get component X? Just stick a wooden block into it. Weapon still fires, still kills, probably not the enemy, but it still kills. Artillery out of shells? The human meat wave running towards the enemy STILL leaves. For some reason the aim is off to the point you have no hope of hitting the target? Still fire, still kill, just not the enemy. Weapon gets intercepted? It tries to do maximum damage, even to their own forces. The point is sustained killing in a war of exhaustion, maximum misery, maximum damage. This demoralizes the enemy. It also demoralizes their own troops, but that's why you have barrier troops, security services and torture. That's why hamas and Iran keep getting caught torturing their own people, occasionally even their own soldiers.
And, of course, they consider enemy civilians a weapon. That's why Putin gives interviews in the west, friendly, laughing, pointing out all the problems in Western societies while being extremely understanding of the concerns and worries of the person in front of him. That's why Nasrallah was a "friendly grandpa". He is nothing of the sort, obviously, a ruthless killer and rapist. That's why Sinwar is "a family man", a "hero that fought to the end" (he hid in a pre-prepared cellar safely away from his forces, then got found and killed outside of the combat zone, literally accidentally when trying to rob Palestinians for food after running out, after sending out his lieutenants to try to do it for him). That's why Putin even finances Greek extreme-right political parties, and Iran uses Qatar to finance social science departments in the US. Believe it or not but in reality neither the Iranian nor the Qatarese governments see the use of studying psychological effects of gender-switching and LGBTQ preferences of pre-adolescents. They are paying for weapons, to be used against western societies, nothing else.
Communist doctrine consider even womens' wombs advanced cannons: they produce and launch weapons at the enemy. Russia has not changed doctrine. Same with hamas and Iran.
Socialist's reaction to any setback is the same: throw more people at the conflict to die faster, at an ever increasing rate. That's what Putin is doing now in Ukraine. People think last months' increase in deaths/day (over 1500 Russian victims per day, sustained for >40 days now, up from ~100 per day at the start of the war) is Putin's reaction to Trump's election. It's not. It's Putin's reaction to the war stalling, according to communist doctrine. More death, faster. If the Russian army stalls again, and it will, Russia will throw more bodies at Ukraine. Until India put a stop to it they even kidnapped Indians and put them to the frontline. If Hezbollah fails to achieve anything against Israel, and it will, Iran's leaders will respond by killing more Iranians, killing more Syrians faster, killing more Lebanese faster. Or they will try to.
And, as people are reporting, you should not make the mistake of thinking this is stupid: it's working. It's at least a partial success in Ukraine. Well, it is if you consider territorial and possible future financial and geopolitical gain at the cost of hundreds of thousands dead a success. And you can be pretty sure Putin doesn't just consider the resources and territory gained in Ukraine a success, but that he considers the deaths a success too (less effort for the Russian state towards these minorities, more war, "less trouble people" as he put it in one answer).
A nice illustration of this difference is US vs Russian nukes. The US published their plans. If a US nuke were to get intercepted, it blows up in a mode to AVOID a nuclear cascade, it blows up chemically to "salt" the fissile material. It self-destructs, not just to avoid a nuclear explosion, but to make all components of the bomb, including the fissile material, utterly unusable for weapons. They even keep the casing intact in hopes of avoiding even radiation poisoning if someone were to collect the warhead and put it under their pillow. Russian nukes that get intercepted blow up. The Kremlin has confirmed that if a Russian Nuke is intercepted, even if it's still over Russian soil ... it initiates nuclear detonation. Famously, if the Kremlin is destroyed, Russia threatens it will automatically launch Nukes ... including at Russian cities. Not just Russian cities, Brussels and Washington too but including Russian cities. And of course, he considers it the job of Western armies, not his, to protect Russian cities against this. You can be sure that the IRGC has orders to start massacring Iranian cities' population if the central government were to fail, and that hamas will massacre Gazans and WB Palestinians when they feel really their hold over them slipping.
Do you really want the US and/or Europe to switch to this way of fighting? I don't. You don't either.
Your writings pass the sniff test, but are based on many false premises that undermine your agenda.
Poor countries are forced to commit more of their resources, be it monetary or human, to the war at hand.
This is not because our moral system or military doctrine is better than theirs. We don’t want to avoid human suffering in any greater capacity than them. We’re not levitating above them in any sense.
Once the aliens who overpower our militaries 10 to 1 arrive here, we will be forced to commit everything we have to that war.
I don't, I really really dislike Chinese and Russian way of doing things but the "west" is quickly adopting it.
EU is still on the naive side but the US begin adopting Chinese policies the moment the free global trade wasn't on its advantage. It's the new American dream to ban apps, limit freedoms to travel and seek better life, it's the new American dream to create institutions based on loyalty instead of meritocracy, its the new American dream to have the right paperwork or GTFO, its the new American dream to ben an oligarch. We also have seen the "moral superiority" of US in the middle east and now in Gaza. You need to be brainwashed to say that Americans weapon systems were a gentle hand in Gaza.
Even if not perfect, the US used to have ideals, after everything that happened - those don't hold anymore. The world is disillusioned with the US, these ideas are not contained among radical leftists anymore therefore gone is the soft power. If we(the Europeans) don't share a common ideal and vision for the world, then it means that the relationship is transactional.
The kinetic power is also seriously challenged and it doesn't appear to have the grit to use it even if still has the muscle.
> You need to be brainwashed to say that Americans weapon systems were a gentle hand in Gaza.
They were. Putin would just have used a month or two of sustained artillery bombardment from within Israel until everything stopped moving for a week or two. And done the same to the West Bank for good measure.
Being out of touch is what destroys the US. You operate in imaginary world that is shattering and whataboutism is not a good argument. If I say compare the civilian deaths in Ukraine and Gaza you will give me rationalization, if I tell you to look at how hypocritical the response by the US was on Gaza and Ukraine you will give me sime nitty gritty details that somehow makes this OK.
None of that matters, US is no longer the force for freedom or democracy or anything really. I'm sure the leftists will say that this was always the case but the disillusionment has gained mainstream steam. Its possible that with Trump a new story begins but this story is going to be about high status men doing great things, which is a fascist theme and always ends badly.
What if the US is not very efficient with their defence spending? In Ukraine, we found out that the US made shells cost 10x more than the Russian ones and do more-less the same. How many drones Chinese can build at the cost of just one US Aircraft Carrier? How much of the cost of the US defence is actually firepower and how much of it is salaries and operating costs of all the bases all over the world?
There's this idea that Trump was elected to dismantle US from its current world order. America did not step in against Russia to fulfill its guarantees to Ukraine, even before Biden and Trump Obama folded when US was challenged in Syria. They only fulfilled their obligations to Israel and that's against orders of magnitude weaker forces. Trump is also known for threatening his allies with not upholding the US obligations unless something extra is given to him.
US removes its presence from the world and deals with internal issues instead, China takes over as the high-tech world order enforcer and Europe goes into soul searching.