AND THE WINNER IS!

AND THE WINNER IS!

(Less Waiting, Top Yaps, Asian Times)

(Anita Dancs, Tom Engelhardt, Jim Garamona)

(American Forces Press Service, Frazer Chronicle)

 

Protecting the United States, our way of life, spreading democracy, and protecting much of the free world from…..basically itself is one costly proposition. There are so many hidden expenditures that whatever figure is cited is little more than a shot in the dark! The U.S. military global presence today is vast as well as costly, and as the people who are bankrolling that presence, taxpayers, we should be about to know the cost to the penny.

The U.S. is in a kind of catch-22 situation, on the one hand without some sort of spending control mechanism to hold military, U.S. security, and our global presence, what we spend a year will eventually break the bank.

There are those people in the Pentagon, the White House, the Tea Party and some Congressmen and Senators who say that we must maintain our military might at any costs. There also are those foreign partners, both old and new, who say that they want to increase their partnership with U.S. military forces.

These types of attitudes, both domestically as well as globally with regards to the U.S.’s military might, and the accompanying maintenance cost has been, and is a bone of contention, and one that is visited annually.

Did you ever wonder exactly who is number one in the world with regards to military power, most would say the United States in a landslide win, and they’d be right, but what about the rankings of the others in a top ten type of listing. Who has a standing military that could stand up to America’s might on the battle field, who has the guns, the air force, and the naval armada that could run with the United States in a military encounter?

NO OTHER NATION…..

At the present time there is no other nation on the face of the planet that can match the military might of the United States. In terms of projectable power, there’s never been anything like what the U.S. can bring to bear in a confrontation. In fact the U.S. military has divided the world…..the whole planet, into six commands, or sectors.

Our naval fleet, with its eleven aircraft carrier battle groups, rules the seas and has done so largely unchallenged for almost seven decades. The Air Force has ruled the global skies, and despite being almost continuously in action for years, hasn’t faced an enemy plan since 1991, or been seriously challenged anywhere since 1973.

Our fleet of drone aircraft has proven itself capable of targeting and killing suspected enemies in the backwaters of the world from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen and Somalia with little regard for national boundaries, and none at all for the possibility of being shot down. We fund and train proxy armies on several continents and have complex aid and training relationships with militaries across the planet.

On hundred of bases, some tiny and others the size of American towns, U.S. soldiers garrison the globe from Italy to Australia, Honduras to Afghanistan, and on islands from Okinawa in the Pacific Ocean to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

U.S. weapons makers are the most advanced on earth and dominate the global arms market. Our nuclear weaponry in silos, on bombers, and on our fleet of submarines is capable of destroying several planets the size of earth.

Our system of spy satellites is unsurpassed, unchallenged, and can listen in on phone calls or read emails of almost anybody in the world from top foreign leaders to obscure insurgents, The CIA and its expanding paramilitary forces are capable of kidnapping anyone, anywhere, at anytime. For its many prisoners it has set up (and dismantled) secret jails across the planet and on naval vessels.

The U.S. spends more on its military than the next 13 most powerful countries combined, and if spending for full national security is added, the U.S. towers over any conceivable group of other nations. In terms of advanced and unchallenged military power, there has never been anything like the United States armed forces since the Mongols swept across Eurasia.

WITH THIS MASSIVE MILITARY BUILD-UP YOU GET DESTABILIZATION

What the United States is capable of, at least on the battle field, the recent record is clear: it can destroy, pulverize, kill, maim, blow up, immobilize, conquer and kick down has only grown in the 21^st century. Whenever there is a discussion of American decline and the waning of its power in a multipolar world, destabilization is a key element in any dialogue that addresses the U.S. and its perceived power.

The U.S. has a track record on this issue, and in recent times, whenever United States military power has been applied, if there has been any lasting effect at all, it has been to destabilize entire regions. Afghanistan and Iraq are recent perfect examples, as is the entire Middle East (to an extent).

In terms of advanced and unchallenged military power, there has been nothing like the U.S. armed forces since the Mongols swept across the Eurasia, (land mass of Europe and Asia). No other military force today comes close to what the United States has in its arsenal. None has more than a handful of foreign bases (the U.S. has hundreds), none has more than two aircraft carrier battle groups; the U.S. has eleven. None has more than 60,000 special operations forces, the United States has 13 schools and 70 special operations units with more than half a million members.

Despite this stunning global power equation, for more than a decade the U.S. has been given a lesson in what a military power, no matter how overwhelming, can and mostly can’t do in the 21^st century. Recent history shows, no matter how staggeringly advanced does and mostly does not translate into on the current version of planet earth.

Let’s take a quick look at what exactly this high priced, overwhelming military force that we call are armed forces can do. The United States military…..right now is a huge destabilization machine, every time U.S. military power has been applied in recent times, if there has been any lasting effect at all…..it has been to destabilize whole regions.

THE BUSH FACTOR

Back in 2004, almost two years after the United States troops rolled into a Baghdad looted and in flames, Amr Mussa, the head of the Arab League, commented ominously, “The gates of hell are open in Iraq.” At the time the statement seemed over the top and even outrageous, however today, with the scientific estimate of invasion-and war-caused Iraqi deaths at a staggering 461,000, and thousands more a year still dying there, the statement seems something of an understatement.

It is now clear that President Bush and the top military officials fervent fundamentalists when it came to the power of U.S. military to alter, control, and dominate the Greater Middle East (and possibly the planet) did launch the radical transformation of the region. The invasion of Iraq punched a hole through the heart of the Middle East, sparking a Sunni-Shiite civil war that has spread catastrophically to Syria. The Bush invasion helped turn the region into a churning sea of refugees, gave life to the meaning to a previously nonexistent al-Qaeda in Iraq…..and now a Syrian version of the same.

MONGOL EMPIRE

The Mongol Empire came to power in 1206 and wasn’t diminished until 1368, one hundred sixty two years. The empire and movement relied on the Khan family as Genghis, Ogedei, Guyuk, Mongke, Jublai and Toghan Temur Khan ruled over the empire.

The driving force and the single mindedness of the Mongols, and their Khan’s was to conquer, conquer at all costs. By the time of Kublai Khan’s death the empire had split into four Khanates or empires, each pursuing its own separate interests and objectives.

It wouldn’t be until 1368 when the Mongols were overthrown by the Han Chinese Ming Dynasty that the Mongol Empire finally dissolved.

The United States would do well to learn from the Mongol empire, and how they operated their business of war oppression and the spread of what America perceive has freedom. There are other armed forces that either are, or have established themselves. Although they can’t carry the United States might, they would still be advised to cast a wary eye.

The Turkish Armed Forces, the Israel Defense, the Federal Defense Force of Germany, the French military, India with its 2.5 million troop force, the Russian Navy, air force, and 1.5 million ground forces, and the 3 million member PLA force all would be a tough nut to face, no matter the advisory. And then there is the Japanese who consider their military a self defense force, their only job to protect the mainland of Japan.

Being the world’s policeman not only is an impractical job, it ends up being a messy job, and nobody likes the biggest and baddest kid on the block. And the cost of assuming this policing role will eventually break the U.S. mint.

Some of the fools that we have voted into office in Washington have led us down a path with no return, and now we’ll suffer the consequences. It’s sad, it’s wrong, and it could have been avoided, but now we’ll just have to sit and take whatever punishment others feel is appropriate.

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!