
America's Military Supremacy Is Fading - smacktoward
http://www.nationalinterest.org/feature/yes-americas-military-supremacy-fading-not-its-superiority-13885
======
douche
A U.S. carrier group, by itself, would be a top-10 navy in the world, and its
carrier air wing would make a respectable national air force. Only two other
nations operate aircraft carriers remotely in the same class as a Nimitz-
class, and the United States has ten.

No other country has the same ability to project power that the United States
does. It's perhaps unprecedented in the history of the world. Perhaps its
military might is reduced from Reagan-era heights, but Russia is also a shell
of what the Soviet Union was, and China has not yet filled that void.

~~~
jonnathanson
Carrier groups are an extremely important projector of power, but they are not
invulnerable. See: China's significant investments in "carrier killer"
missiles. Such missiles don't even need to be fired in order to be effective
regional deterrants; the mere threat of a sunk carrier would give us pause in
the event of an escalating situation in, say, Taiwan.

The article doesn't argue that China or Russia are going to project power off
the coast of New York anytime soon; merely that our _relative_ capability to
project power off of their coasts is in decline.

~~~
dogma1138
This is why a carrier strike group will have Agies destroyers to combat
ballistic threats, and for other threats CIWS systems do a pretty good job.

Ship defense systems are quite advanced these days for the most part they can
knock out anything out of the sky no matter how low or high it flies.

~~~
hollerith
Ship defense systems are quite advanced, but to a first order approximation,
the US's carriers would be neutralized if China can sink a carrier for less
than the cost of a carrier (where the lives of the 4300 sailors and pilots on
the latest US carriers are to be considered part of the cost), and the cost of
a single carrier buys a lot of radars, satellites, subs, missiles and R&D.

~~~
dogma1138
In theory yes, in practice it's not that simple. You still need to be able to
produce enough launchers, missiles, and train enough crew to saturate the air
defense systems of a carrier group to be effective.

Yes it can be done, but it's just as easily can be countered through
asymmetric means by the US the only thing they'll have to do is to change
their doctrine.

SAM's were considered the end of air combat as well initially, in 1973 SAM's
pretty much devastated the Israeli air-force, the US learned from that
experience and developed made quite a bit of changes to their 'Wild Weasel'
doctrine which allowed them to routinely destroy soviet SAM's in Vietnam from
1975 onwards. The Israelis then took that and improved upon and 1982 destroyed
all of Syria's SAM sites in a single day of what then was the most advanced
Soviet SAM installations in the world outside of Russia by using drones as the
lead target aircraft instead of an F4E phantom with jamming equipment and
covering the sky with anti radiation missiles as soon the drones got painted.
Today you have solutions like these
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0acJ3xyhaJo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0acJ3xyhaJo)
that build on top of that and bring it to the next level.

Combat isn't a static game of RPS, if China has carrier killing missiles then
the 1st shot in the war will be to take those out, using, drones, submarine
launched guided missiles, electronic warfare or what ever else will be
developed to combat that threat. Once the threat has been reduced to a level
which allows the carrier strike group to operate it will be put into action,
yes not all missiles might be destroyed but any residual threats will be dealt
with by the air defense systems of the carrier and it's supporting vessels.

Now again this isn't claiming that this gives a US carrier group some super
immunity, fucks up can still happen, but if your doctrine is set up correctly
it's not going to be a case well gosh they've made some carrier killers now we
can't use our carrier anymore.

~~~
hollerith
Thanks for going into greater detail.

------
rrggrr
About as many major conflicts ignited from fear and desperation as from
territorial ambition. 90 years of US hegemony acted as an effective firewall
that prevented countless conflicts, although bloody, from becoming regional or
global wars. There is no record in history of any hegemonic power, League of
Nations or even knights of Camelot bringing stability and security to the
world as has the US. Celebrate your new multipolar world, if thats in fact the
transition taking place. But I am with Hobbes on this one... Without a
Leviathan we will descend into a state of nature where life is nasty, brutish
and short. On this point, history sadly agrees.

~~~
smacktoward
I hear you, but personally that strikes me as unduly pessimistic. Geopolitics
is not a zero-sum game, the rise of one power does not necessarily come at the
expense of another. Britain was eyeing the rising United States in 1900 as
warily as the U.S. eyes China today, but the emergence of the U.S. as a world
power eventually proved to be a development of great benefit to Britain.

~~~
bigdubs
The cultural differences between the US (especially in 1900 as you say) and
Britain, and the US and China today are much more significant. I don't think
these two periods are comparable.

~~~
smacktoward
I didn't say that it was _inevitable_ that a rising China would have as good a
relationship as the one that emerged between Britain and the U.S. In fact I
would classify it as unlikely, precisely because America and China lack the
cultural bonds. My point was more limited -- simply that waning hegemons
always see rising challengers as great threats, which they don't always turn
out to be.

EDIT: To see how the U.S.-U.K. alliance was not necessarily the sure thing it
appears to be in hindsight, look into War Plan Red
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red)).
The U.S. actively maintained a strategic plan for fighting a war with Britain
as late as 1939.

------
tsotha
This is somewhat deliberate. We have the resources to stay on top, but we have
other priorities. During the cold war we spent 10% of our GDP on the military.
These days it's more like 4%.

Personally I'd like to see the US pull back sharply from its global
commitments. There's no reason for US troops in Germany or Japan or Korea.

There's no reason for the US to get involved in land disputes in the South
China Sea. If the countries involved fight it out just let us know who wins so
we can update our maps.

~~~
smacktoward
_> There's no reason for US troops in Germany_

Russia. (see: Ukraine)

 _> or Japan_

China.

 _> or Korea_

North Korea.

 _> There's no reason for the US to get involved in land disputes in the South
China Sea_

The problem is that the U.S. has longstanding treaty commitments guaranteeing
the sovereignty of several other countries in that area, such as Taiwan and
the Philippines, and significant trade relationships with others, such as
Vietnam. A unilateral U.S. pullout from the region would therefore send the
message to other nations we have defense treaties with (such as NATO members)
that we can't be trusted to stand by our treaty obligations, which would
weaken those relationships substantially.

~~~
sanderjd
The question (which I wouldn't deign to answer) is whether having troops in
those places actually makes any strategic difference one way or the other
(see: Ukraine).

~~~
smacktoward
You will notice that when Russia invaded Ukraine they took pains to disguise
the fact that that is what they were actually doing: they limited their
engagement to levels small enough to be explained away as contingents of
patriotic volunteers ("little green men":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_green_men_%282014_Crime...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_green_men_%282014_Crimean_crisis%29))
who rushed to Ukraine to support the pro-Russian government that had been
turned out in the 2014 revolution.

This was almost certainly in order to make the intervention appear ambiguous
enough to avoid provoking a NATO reaction. In the absence of a countervailing
power, it's likely the invasion would have looked less tentative and more like
Hungary 1956
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956))
or Czechoslovakia 1968
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact_invasion_of_Czecho...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact_invasion_of_Czechoslovakia)).

------
fosk
I believe that the author scratches the surface and never develops in a deeper
reasoning about what we should expect from this century, what are the short
and long term consequences and how they will affect global geopolitics and the
current equilibrium.

The article only makes a flat "rise and fall" analysis, and even when
presented with the opportunity to explore more interesting arguments (US vs
India/China both from a military and economical standpoint, economical
repercussions of a weaker army, geo-political consequences in Europe, etc),
the author never chooses to do so.

~~~
Armisael16
I think that kind of analysis is what you use to fill books.

------
orionblastar
It is after all the Post-American would with the rise of the rest.

The USA has had an advantage after WW2 for not having anything destroyed in
the war, and being able to out produce everyone else. There came many
innovations in technology. The other nations buy that technology and now make
that technology because the labor is cheaper over there.

The USA had a good economy in the 1990s during the startup bubble rising
before it burst in 1999-2000. Good enough to build a military superiority.
Sun/Oracle had government contracts to make military systems using their
software. I worked as a federal contractor in 1996-1997 to help migration
systems from ATCOM to MICOM to save money and move the aviation databases and
systems down to the missile command base to save money and combine them so
they could work on the drone program.

The drone is remote controlled and not AI based, it is very effective. No risk
of our pilots in using them.

But the tech in other nations has caught up to match our military technology.
We lost the superiority.

The same with NASA, lost the advantage there due to mismanagement and
mistakes. No planned replacement for the space shuttle, have to hitch a ride
to the ISS with the Russians. Still using rockets to put things into space.

Many one of the commercial space companies will also make a better fighter jet
or something, who knows?

~~~
methodover
"Still using rockets to put things into space."

Is ... is there an alternative?

~~~
sudo_free_cake
Proposed? yes In use? no In addition to things like the space elevator, there
are some really cool projects like this, [http://escapedynamics.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/05/Escape-...](http://escapedynamics.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/05/Escape-Dynamics-External-Propulsion-WP.pdf)

------
ZenoArrow
The article misses the elephant in the room; the US Dollar is in trouble.

To get some view into why, take a look at the emergence of the AIIB (China's
equivalent of the World Bank) and take a look at the reasons why the US has
been in negotiations in Iran (Just about nuclear proliferation? There's a bit
more to it... [http://youtu.be/hs_2zzNyP_M](http://youtu.be/hs_2zzNyP_M) ).

In short, the strength of the US Dollar is seen by quite a few people to be
based on its position in international trade, and this position is being
challenged (past challenges have led to wars, but that's not going to work for
much longer, unless the US intends to start WW3). If the funding base is taken
away, the US military is unlikely to remain the dominant force it is today.

Kind of puts the TTIP/TTP/TISA deals into a new perspective too, international
deals to reassert the US position by boosting the role of big business.

~~~
jorgecastillo
Yeah I don't think so. You'd have to be a mad men to bet against the US Dollar
short term (couple of decades). After that who knows!

~~~
ZenoArrow
It'd only take a few of the oil producing nations to start trading in a
different currency. Back in the year 2000 one of those countries started
trading oil in Euros. That country was Iraq. What was one of the first actions
taken by the US after the US asserted control over Iraq? Replacing the Euro
with US Dollars for oil sales.

If one country doing this is enough to spook the US, what does that tell you?
Furthermore, this has not been an isolated incident, other oil-rich countries
have threatened to leave the US Dollar behind and have faced instability
shortly after (Libya, Syria, etc...).

------
jleyank
The US/China relationship going significantly south would have, umm,
interesting consequences. Would Wal-Mart survive? How much better would the US
financial position be if all of the Chinese holdings are abrogated? What is
China's political stability if the flow of money was interrupted? How can the
west resurrect a tech manufacturing sector (or any manufacturing sector)?...

It goes on and on. Given the inter-connectedness of the world vs. the
isolationism/autarky of the 30's the impact of conflict is magnified. Yes,
countries could recreate the various "changes" of the 20th century, but that's
not a quick process. And Paul Kennedy would (has?) argue that the US today and
Britain in 1900 are quite similar.

Edit/addition: The US political system is currently broken. However, it has
shown amazing resiliency when faced with an external threat. I would be
willing to bet that few will care what a Kentucky clerk says if it's Sputnik
all over again. And there's several strong military traditions in Europe which
bear remembering.

~~~
reustle
> Would Wal-Mart survive?

You seem to say this hinting at trading with China would be significantly
reduced. I think we need to worry less about Walmart and more about where
everyone will get their stuff

------
aburan28
How is America's military supremacy fading? Last time I checked we still have
plenty of nuclear weapons

~~~
fosk
Military supremacy means being able to effectively project power around the
world. The article states that this capability is declining.

~~~
jonnathanson
Correct. The author also draws a distinction between "supremacy" and
"superiority." The former means an overwhelming and almost unchecked ability
to impose our will militarily across the globe. The latter means a comparative
advantage over our would-be competitors. We are exiting an anomalous and
short-lived period in history in which we enjoyed supremacy, and we are
entering a period in which we will likely enjoy superiority. This is a
relative decline, not an absolute decline.

~~~
venomsnake
Will US have superiority though? The pentagon has the uncanny ability to re-
fight the last war.

Why is F-35 even existing - you could raise a 100 drones for the price of each
(or a 1000 with economy of scale) and just saturate any defense. And you
couldn't care less if you lose 99% of them if the objectives are met.

~~~
jtriangle
Their reasoning is that f-35 is nuclear capable, whereas the current drones
aren't officially. It's not a good reason though, if it came down to it, subs
with nukes would be more effective than aircraft.

------
bane
I disagree with this. The U.S. military has no single conventional opponent
that can reasonably oppose it, anywhere in the world. Keep in mind this
article is coming out after the U.S. simultaneously engaged in two decade-long
wars _simultaneously_ while still maintaining continuous presence in Asia,
Europe and with hardly a blip on the economic radar in the U.S. During WW2,
the U.S. shifted virtually the entire economy to a war footing, and
outproduced land, sea and air vehicles and munitions of several other combined
nations. The U.S. spends a remarkably small fraction of GDP on war goods at
present, but history shows that when it gears up in one direction, it can
rapidly turn into a highly militaristic society.

In fact, the U.S. military is optimized for external operations and force
projection, home turf is not the kind of advantage it was throughout history.
There is no tactical position on the planet that a conventional military can
assume that the U.S. cannot effectively target. Americans have absolute
dominion of the skies, with a multi-phased air force that can erode even
highly fortified air defense systems. American missiles can be launched from
ships, submarines, mobile launchers and so on and can strike, soften or
destroy armored stationary armored targets. American armor is so advanced, and
numerous, that it can fight in the middle of a chem-bio weapons attack, while
on the move, take multiple armor piercing rounds, and still fight. American
foot soldiers are heavily armed _and_ armored. They're among the best trained
in tactical fighting, and can fight in open battles to urban landscapes
equally well.

In unit on unit fights, the American military almost always absolutely
dominates. The Officer corps is trained at some of the finest military schools
in the world, with lessons on logistics, strategy and tactics that span
lessons learned from thousands of years of history. The schools are so good,
the other countries send their officers there for training. Americans are
pragmatic fighters, without doctrine of fighting to the last man or always
pushing ahead. It doesn't waste time training for tough-man parlor tricks.
There's minimal shame in retreating because it just means you can fight again
tomorrow.

On the flip side, the U.S., despite having huge borders, is a virtual
fortress. Two huge oceans means any non-American invader needs to project
massive military power around half the planet, something no other country can
do. Once here, the U.S. is packed full of military bases with something like
more than a million active duty soldiers, most of which are veterans of
overseas campaigns -- the U.S. has almost been continuously at war since its
founding. There's around another 800,000 reservists. Something like between
30-40% of all Americans have been in the military at one time or another.
Beyond that, there's another 70million fit for duty and there are as many guns
in America as there are people. This is a military of volunteers, people
_chose_ to join.

The problem is that conventional wars aren't what's likely to happen. The U.S.
maintains a massive conventional force, but also has decades of practice
fighting unconventional wars against guerrilla-style tactics. It's not
optimized for it, so it doesn't do it very well, but it's further along that
route than virtually anybody else -- for example, American air power now has a
non-trivial percentage of unmanned, long-dwell, drones, that are increasingly
armed and capable. The need to fight against conventional air forces is
dwindling.

Going forward, the U.S. is going towards unmanned drones, either autonomous or
piloted from thousands of miles away, exoskeleton and armored enhanced ground
troops, autonomous tactical walking ground units, auto-aiming and firing
weapons, enhanced mesh sensor networks, directed energy weapons, rail guns,
higher precision munitions, hyper-spectral computer vision enhanced vision
systems, live tactical coordinating AI, advanced 3d models of entire countries
down to cm-level precision, simulation systems that can predict everything
from enemy sniper locations to how many GPS satellites you're nav system will
be able to see from this position in a city, blocked by these buildings, 12
hours into the future.

The U.S. is conceivably 3-5 generations ahead of everybody else on the planet
in terms of technology and techniques and is on a path of bringing to bear
this future technology without having to put a single American on foreign
soil. Even U.S.-level advanced militaries like Britain and Australia are no
longer able to keep up. Hyper-advanced economies like South Korea license
2-generation older fighter planes, which are outfitted with lesser avionics
and radar systems.

The U.S. still struggles against asymmetric tactics, but its catching up fast.
SOF units are developing tactics and are training specifically to counter
asymmetric enemies. A combination of intelligence and precision strikes,
theories of human organization and communications, anti-enemy-logistics, anti-
improvised, anti-etc. If the U.S. can cover conventional and asymmetric
warfare reasonably well, there's no force on the planet that can withstand it,
not conceivably in the next few generations.

The rise of other powers is more likely to bring Americans out of the
complacency of the 90s, and reinvigorate military development and maintenance,
not threaten it.

------
loourr
But not the budget

