As much as I kind of want this to be true, it sounds like US capability and defence (aggression) spending is being underestimated by you. They are not a country who will accept lagging behind anyone. So if this the current status quo, I don't expect it to stay static for long. The US will get the upper hand (if it doesn't already have it).
US are way behind on hypersonic missile and air defence technology, Roch. This is not even debatable. Aircraft carrier groups have been made obsolete with hypersonic missiles. US have not even successfully tested a single hypersonic missile yet. They are nowhere near putting them into service. Russia and China are not standing still while the US catches up, they are forging further ahead. There is nothing to suggest that the US will quickly catch up and no good reason to believe they will. The opposite is in fact the case.
US/NATO defence spending(a truly Orwellian term) is and has been geared towards the wrong war. Lots of overseas military bases and aircraft carrier groups makes for long and vulnerable supply/logistics chains. Missiles with pinpoint accuracy change these supply chains from vulnerable to indefensible.
Even if the US did catch up on missile tech, what then? Their aircraft carriers are still obsolete against a peer rival. The cost of sustaining so many overseas bases means that military spending and research is fighting the last centuries wars. We are in a new paradigm and this is understood by US military planners.
What did the US do in the aftermath of the Iranians targeting their bases in Iraq after the Soleimani assassination? After threatening the Iranians that they would be obliterated if they harmed a single US soldier followed by 100 Americans injured by Iranian missiles, they pretended that no Americans were harmed and did nothing. Why? Because the Iranians demonstrated that there was nothing that the US could do.
The US could not stop the missiles. They hid in their bunkers, helpless. Iran could have fired 100 or a 1000 missiles. They could have put powerful warheads on them. What could the US do about that? When you are the aggressor, as the US is, then you face a different set of problems to the defending force.
Iran have no intention of invading US in order to control their natural wealth. Nor do China, Russia, Venezuela or Syria. They do intend to defend their resources from those whose intention is to steal them. Good air defence and accurate missile technology is all that is required to defend aggression. US/NATO have no answers.
David posted in response to this that the the US Navy have ordered 10 new super carriers that will be able to withstand hypersonic missiles. Well that sounds good, super carriers
He then posted a link to an article so we could "read all about it". I hope you did. I did and it is hilarious in its delusional thinking. Here is a snippet below in red;
The US Navy's aircraft carrier Gerald R Ford has successfully withstood an impact trial test of underwater detonation of 20 tonnes of explosives, which observers say could effectively reduce the threat posed by China's “carrier killer” missiles.
The US' newest and most advanced nuclear carrier's third and final full ship shock trial was completed on Sunday off the coast of Florida, following the previous such trials on June 18 and July 16, the American navy said in a press release on Monday.
Service officials described the shock trial testing – where the Navy detonates 40,000 pounds of ordnance in the water near the hull to test both the ship and its systems – as a success, with no major injuries, no fires and no flooding, the US Naval Institute's news portal USNI News reported. The article further down makes this startling admission;
The trial proved the Ford-class aircraft carriers could withstand some water mines or nearby missile strikes, but did not show their resistance against a direct hit, he said. This is laughable. The super carriers are nothing of the sort and the article even admits that they are defenceless against hypersonic anti shipping missiles.
Attack budgets are more expensive than defence budgets, as is apparent in this current impasse.
They had no answer to Iran attacking their bases and still have no answers. The answer to carrier killer missiles is not more carriers. How long to build a carrier? How much? How much is an anti carrier missile? How long to produce them?
Why are the US drawing down their bases in the Middle East? Anything to do with the above? Why don't they quickly catch up if they can? The US/UK NATO war criminals are in check everywhere on the board. They cannot move forward. That is why they didn't respond to Iran. Every US base and ship in the Middle East would be decimated/sunk within hours of hostilities beginning and the US would be powerless to prevent this.
There are deeper rooted problems in the West that go back decades. Gutting manufacturing industries means we are reliant on other countries and supply chains. Our defence industries are no longer self sufficient. Ships are built elsewhere, we barely produce any of our own steel. Our defence budgets are not spent on defence, but attack. This is why we are so far behind despite the money spent dwarfing that of China, Russia etc.
Arguably China, Russia, Iran spend way more on defence than us and have for years. Whilst they have been developing and spending money, time and research on actual defence, we have blown our entire budget on attacking defenceless countries, maintaining expensive overseas bases and nothing on actual defence. Despite the disparity in budgets, it is plain to see that Western defence spending is a euphemism for attack spending.
The current gap in capabilities will not be bridged quickly if at all. It may have appeared suddenly, but it happened over decades whilst the West was otherwise engaged in aggression encouraged by their belief that they were unstoppable. Until they were stopped. Venezuela, Syria, Yemen etc. The US cannot just nip out to get some hypersonics and improved air defence from Walmart. These things are years in research, development and testing before being deployable. Russia and China are not waiting for the US to catch up.
Western economies will collapse before that happens. When your economy relies on plunder and you suddenly get stopped in your plundering tracks, there will be consequences. The weakness and unsustainability of the western system is being demonstrated in real time.
It is understandable that many find it unthinkable that the balance of power can have shifted so dramatically and seemingly so rapidly. We are all used to the US/UK band of pirates being able to do as they please with no country being able to prevent them. These changes though happened over decades and only appeared to happen suddenly.
History is full of paradigm shifting events. Before the 1917 Communist revolution, Lenin, from exile is attributed with the following;
"There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen"--Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. That is where we are now. In the very midst of decades, perhaps centuries, happening.
