Since Trump took office in January, hurling insults and threatening devastating tariffs and U.S. drone strikes, Mexico has been seized by a nationalistic fervor.
we don’t have to capacity to maintain this soft power empire at the gun point like Russia does
Wait, what? We have easily 10x the military capacity of Russia and quite a few more friendly foreign governments ready to indulge Trumpism (if not downright giddy at embracing it). We absolutely have the capacity to lean in harder on our warmongering.
The only problem is we’ve already been doing that. Iraq and Afghanistan burned out the post-Cold War military’s logistical capacity. Ukraine’s burned through the old NATO arms reserves. The modern US military is profits-first, and that’s what is ultimately unsustainable. You can’t go around spending $100M in money and manpower on a single aircraft, particularly if something in the $100k range can take it down. You certainly can’t go to war with giant floating bullseyes like our modern aircraft carrier fleet unless you’re ready to take a few losses.
And that’s the real danger America’s military faces. We can’t handle the appearance of losing. So long as you can keep selling people on the war (and the US media kept up appearances for two decades in Afghanistan, so its certainly not impossible) you can do Russian-style power grabs forever.
Wait, what? We have easily 10x the military capacity of Russia and quite a few more friendly foreign governments ready to indulge Trumpism (if not downright giddy at embracing it). We absolutely have the capacity to lean in harder on our warmongering.
The only problem is we’ve already been doing that. Iraq and Afghanistan burned out the post-Cold War military’s logistical capacity. Ukraine’s burned through the old NATO arms reserves. The modern US military is profits-first, and that’s what is ultimately unsustainable. You can’t go around spending $100M in money and manpower on a single aircraft, particularly if something in the $100k range can take it down. You certainly can’t go to war with giant floating bullseyes like our modern aircraft carrier fleet unless you’re ready to take a few losses.
And that’s the real danger America’s military faces. We can’t handle the appearance of losing. So long as you can keep selling people on the war (and the US media kept up appearances for two decades in Afghanistan, so its certainly not impossible) you can do Russian-style power grabs forever.