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by natded 1636 days ago
US isn't technically drumming up war on China and Russia; they are promoting war to the last Ukrainian against Russia, and probably the last Taiwanese against China. A difference, but probably enough to help US hitch a long as superpower couple of decades if either of these events take place.

Direct confrontation between Russia, China vs. US is not even in the question. US couldn't defeat couple of goat herders and they're going to level up to S-tier opponents? I wouldn't even bet on US against Venezuela or Iran at this point.
1 comments
systemvoltage 1636 days ago
> US couldn't defeat couple of goat herders and they're going to level up to S-tier opponents? I wouldn't even bet on US against Venezuela or Iran at this point.

Operation Desert Storm was a success and completely overwhelming. The amount of power projected was incalculable. Here is an extremely detailed account of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxRgfBXn6Mg

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natded 1636 days ago
OTOH, US did just this year lose its longest war and it was against Afghanistan. I rely on this closer event. Granted, admitting the loss there was the first step in road to recovery.
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systemvoltage 1636 days ago
It wasn't a conventional war. I don't think there is any defense to the massive fuck up in the Afghanistan exit strategy though. But, to say that US military is incapable of doing anything is a pretty lousy argument.
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sudosysgen 1636 days ago
What is conventional war? Do you think that the Chinese or Russians will play nice and play war ship for ship, plane for plane and tank for tank against the US like the Iraqis did at the beginning?

The US military generally has a very "meh" track record.

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xxpor 1635 days ago
Otoh, the us was able to maintain the status quo with the taliban being relegated to the mountains with 3500 troops against ~75000 taliban. The DOD has over 1 million troops at their disposal. If you seriously think Afganistan was more about absolute power vs political willingness.. I just don't know what to say.
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sudosysgen 1635 days ago
That isn't actually right. Yes there were 3500 actual soldiers on the ground, but they also had tens of thousands of afghans they would use for a lot of the dirty work, and multiple thousands of other support personnel necessary outside of Afghanistan. And that was just during the drawdown, during surges there were even more at various points in time.

As for sheer numbers of troops, the US doesn't have the capability to actually outfit, support, and deploy anywhere near a million troops in, for example, the middle east.

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