[gloosx]

You assume that continuous combat deployments automatically translate to full-scale war readiness, but there's a big difference between counterinsurgency operations and peer-to-peer warfare.

The US military has been engaged in conflicts for decades, but most of them involved fighting non-state actors or weaker conventional forces, not a high-intensity war against an advanced military.

[no_wizard]

Advanced is doing some heavy lifting.

The US military is far a cut above everything else, in terms of tactical readiness, sheer firepower and especially effective size.

We outspend any other nation - China included of which we spend an estimated 2.5 times more than - and we have been in that lead position for decades, not just years.

While yes, US forces haven’t squared off against conventional militaries of any note in some time, the US military has at least been engaged in real conflict. To my recollection the Chinese military have undertaken no significant military campaigns in the last 20+ years and lack the air & sea power to functionally match anything the US military can throw at it by comparison.

Which leaves ground forces, which is both vulnerable to air power and is effectively the numbers game the Chinese can win outright in a protracted war that escalated to that level, and cyber warfare, which the Chinese have proven to be quite adept at but the US military has been aware and developing counter measures against that for a long time as well

This talking conventionally of course.

China being a nuclear power means it would be unlikely to escalate past a certain point if anyone is acting rationally. There’s no reason you want to give another nuclear power a reason to use those weapons, and certainly the US nuclear arsenal is not one anyone wants to see fired either.

So in all likelihood this continues as a Cold War

[ffsm8]

I agree with the spirit of your statement, I truly believe that the US military is the by far most advanced and well equipped force on earth.

Nonetheless, I feel the need to point out that it's budget is a terrible indicator for that.

I'm not even american and have heard just how massively overcharged everything is that's sold to the US military.

It's entirely possible that i.e. China, that can produce their military equipment could actually be way better equipped then it's budget implies. I don't think that Chinas military has caught up to the US yet, but the military spending feels like a bad comparison considering how differently they're financed.

[no_wizard]

As the comment from phillistine notes this doesn’t square with known data and I have no evidence to the contrary.

To which I want to add, that even though the DoD modes have its own (and worth addressing) budget process issues they’re at least largely getting what they are paying for in most circumstances as well as continuing to fund R&D at a fairly robust clip.

In the area of defense R&D in particular that large gap in budgetary spending will matter a lot more than building any “well known” military equipment as the next generation will come online faster than other nations can keep up without ramping their own spending

[philistine]

Doesn't square with any sort of real data we have. The West have better, and more, of everything. For crissakes, the Germans have artillery that fires while driving full speed with the same precision as any other nation's artillery.

[gloosx]

>China being a nuclear power means it would be unlikely to escalate past a certain point if anyone is acting rationally.

Well, Russia is a nuclear power, and not everyone is acting rationally. Russia got part of it's own territory occupied now, and some important oil and gas facilities are literally being bombed, not talking about regular cities and homes.

Russian nuclear doctrine is: Russia could launch nuclear weapons in response to an attack on its territory by a non-nuclear-armed state.

Their warheads are still at bay, why is that? I don't believe they will ever fly, because no-one is stupid enough to make the first move, and the war can go on neglecting them.

[kasey_junk]

Russia has proven it’s not a peer is the issue.

Prior to invading Ukraine one might have thought so, but the experience there shows the challenge in thinking that.

Meanwhile the last time the US military deployed to a traditional battlefield the opponent army lasted a matter of months.

Lord willing we’ll never know about these hypotheticals.