I’m not sure about the troop readiness these days, but afaik, USA is currently very close to its military capacity.
For everything it’s doing by having a quarter of 1 million troop stationed around the world and having between 3 and 5 Aircraft carrier groups floating around the world if they fully commit to an armed conflict with Venezuela they are basically spent.
That’s the moment any army can decide to do whatever the fuck they want and the USA can really basically only bark and look on. (Technically they could of course fight, but that would mean they sacrifice actual defence of homeland). So that would mean that China could take Taiwan, Russia could really take Ukraine or even poke further into Europe. Not to mention the Middle East would basically be without a guard dog.
If this happens this most likely would be the final nail in the coffin of the US Empire and almost analogous with how the Roman empire crumbled. (And of course the ultimate payoff for Vladdy to have helped Donnie get in the White House).
I don’t think there’s a whole lot of risk that the USA will try to take Canada or Greenland because of this.
There are people who are saying that we are at the same point as we were in Germany In the 1930s. I would argue this is much closer to Hitler having just taken all of Europe and now deciding to also go and take on The Russians.
Also don’t forget that Trump is truly one of the dumbest strategists we’ve ever had. The only success he’s having is because he has a very well oiled machine but even a well oiled machine has absolute nonnegotiable thresholds which Donald and Drunk Pete will probably try to ignore by renaming a department from defence to war and by hoping that will work.
Curious what others think about this situation?
E: spelling
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Well, first of all… no, the US military is absolutely not about to run out of manpower or firepower. The US could simply pull some troops from certain areas to fight in Venezuela. Even if it completely removes troops from, say, the South China Sea, this is not a huge “loss” to the US, as the US doesn’t really own anything there - it just functions as a semi-paternalistic peace keeper and guard for its allies.
Second of all, the US is probably not about to engage in a full scale occupation of Venezuala. Instead, someone responsible (maybe a bad person - but responsible) will untangle the US from this mess and say “actually, no, we didn’t really mean it. Sorry for the trouble - it’s just one of those things, you know?” And everyone will be confused and uneasy, but will shrug and move on.
Russia could really take Ukraine
The Russian military is barely functioning right now.
I don’t think there’s a whole lot of risk that the USA will try to take Canada or Greenland because of this.
There isn’t a risk of this because Trump is a dumbass, but more responsible people around him would get in the way and stop it.
If this happens this most likely would be the final nail in the coffin of the US Empire and almost analogous with how the Roman empire crumbled. […] people who are saying that we are at the same point as we were in Germany In the 1930s. I would argue this is much closer to Hitler having just taken all of Europe and now deciding to also go and take on The Russians.
No… if there is any pop-historical analogue, it would be the change of the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire. The US has one of the largest gdps in the world, a large population, and a massive military industrial complex. The idea that it will cease being one of the main players in global geopolitics is absurd.
I think it really is hard for the average person to grasp just how much the US has invested into warfare. Heck, I’d argue the absolute powerhouse of the military isn’t even weapons, it’s logistics.
It’s simply not even plausible that the US military industrial complex comes grinding to the proverbial halt over Venezuela.
If any other country tried to invade the US, they must first cross oceans to do anything effective, and with modern equipment, I doubt any stealth tech could slip in unnoticed, and everything else would be intercepted by the navy or, assuming the navy has largely become ineffective from being over-extended, national guard, coast guard, and just plain old home defense structures.
Keep in mind, several buildings around DC house anti-air sites and other defensive structures. They’d be last-resort type things though, home defense would be priority (or would be in any other administration) so you can bet in case of an attack, non military traffic would be grounded and jets would be scrambled, since no matter how bare-bones some squad in Caracas is, the personnel and equipment at home are fully stocked.
Unless the rest of the world completely cuts off the US, and honestly unless we actually strike at a major EU country I don’t see that happening, the US will keep chugging along,
conscriptingkidnapping people for the Orphan Grinding Machine. The 0.01% will never feel it, and will keep the poors fighting until the rest of the world turns their backs and nobody is left standing to fight.I’m not singing the praise of the US military. This isn’t “American exceptionalism” here. This is shameful overspending on death machines while citizens starve. This is disgusting abhorrence for humanity that will result in loss of life on an unimaginable scale unless things change.
How many people would still be alive today if we had just decided to mind our own business after 1945? How many regions would be far more prosperous?
If you made it to the end of my rambling, I’m sorry for wasting your time. I might be a little baked right now. Thanks for reading though
Yeah, spot on. Even in the event of the US vs the rest of the world combined, the US navy is so disproportionately overpowered as to be able to keep the war off American soil. I think that’s a good demonstration of the egregious irresponsible mismanagement of priorities over a sustained amount of time by the malicious sociopaths making decisions in the American government.
Well, I don’t know what that says about me, but I found your baked analysis quite well written and making a lot of sense.
I agree logistics is at the core of their military success. I think their leadership quality has never been this low though.
You vastly underestimate the value of the United States’ holdings in the South China Sea. They allow the United States to project power throughout the entire globe as well as have a significant degree of control over international shipping.
There isn’t a risk of this because Trump is a dumbass, but more responsible people around him would get in the way and stop it.
He’s just a figurehead with rapidly falling mental facilities. It’s the people around him who are the ones planning and doing this stuff. Who are the responsible people who’d stop it?
The same people who let it happen in the first place, who don’t want an occupied Venezuela with massive international scrutiny, but a stable Venezuela with exploitative oil contracts.
I don’t quite understand. The people who planned the attack on Venezuela and have planned the coming attack on Greenland are also the same people who will intervene to stop it? Who are they? What are their names or positions?
Haha, no.
I hate America but they’re barely using their military power as is. A few jets bombing around the world is shit all to their force projection capabilities.
us military force projection doesn’t mean shit when a couple drones can cripple their navy.
USA as a whole is one bay of pigs fiasco away from civil war itself
Thing is, Venezuela may be a done thing because of Trump’s cozying up to Russia. They are dividing up their areas of influence as well as toppling the old world order of norms so they can do things like this. Next thing you know might be Russia invading yet another neighbor, say one of the Baltic states or even Finland near where they’ve built, and then the US dangles the NATO card to claim they need to move into Canda and Greenland to bolster their defenses and deployment strength in the region “to help Europe” and begins bulking up their military bases in the region until they begin “securing” the spots with all the natural resources they are interested in. Then they broker a “Ukranian ceasefire” that has hastily been translated from Russian with the rest of Europe, Russia gets a bit more land and the US gets Greenland and parts of Canada.
At least in the short term, because dictators are poor bedfellows when they are the only ones and have to fight against themselves. Trump won’t care, he’s been cozying up to oligarchs, despots, and criminals all his life.
The US is also providing the excuse for China to invade Taiwan while they’ve been making deals with TSMC to begin transitioning their foundries over to the US and have been using AI BS along with “these are totally going to be future AI data centers and that’s why we have been hogging RAM, chips, and SSDs even though we are decades off before we would theoretically have the power to run them” warehouses that will allow them to continue to have supply while their foundries are set up.
It topples the world order based on diplomacy and makes the whole thing a strong arm loyalty test for the US where countries either submit to them completely under the flimsiest of rhetoric or they deny the imperialism and colonialism of the past only to be consumed by it in the present. The plan is getting pretty obvious because Trump is a pretty flat caricature who can barely stop himself from blurting it all out.
Very interesting take. Thanks
Militarily? I don’t think so. Politically? Sure, it’s quite out of left field.
Personally I think covering the airspace for Israel has done a lot more damage to American military stockpiled resources and defense capacity than the Venezuela stuff over the last months.
That link is hilarious, but it shows my main point: the incompetence at the top brass is all you need to spread yourself too thin. People point out the sheer size of their Navy, the insane logistics capability, the virtually unlimited money.
I have worked in the equivalent of this in the IT world. Non of these are remedies against abject stupidity. Drunk Pete just spend his first day back at work to demote a Democratic veteran who called on soldiers to not follow illegal orders.
Lots of very good points have been made by everyone here, and I’ve learned a lot, I doubt the US military can survive this level of incompetence for 3 more years, let alone if they actually coup and stay in power.
I’m not sure what you mean by the US being close to “military capacity”, but if you mean that the US has degraded capacity to sustain military action to the point of effectively being spent by a hot war in Venezuela, then I’m gonna have to strongly disagree. The American military hasn’t had a draft in a very long time and the economy is nowhere near being fully diverted to war efforts. Where I will grant that American domestic manufacturing capability has been in serious decline for a few decades now, along with current supply stockpiles being much lower due to foreign material aid, it would still be silly to say that America’s ability to sustain multiple military actions across the globe is completely wiped out. Logistically speaking, the US capacity for expanded military action in addition to a hypothetical hot war in Venezuela is still unreasonably large.
Saying that the US is like nazi Germany in the middle of ww2 is extremely hyperbolic. Hard agree that the conditions are similar to Germany during the rise of the nazis, but they don’t have full control and it’s not a guarantee. The fascists are not in control, do not give into the bullshit idea that they are and we should just give up. Things are bad, but they will absolutely be much worse if the fascists do indeed take over.
Also, it may seem nitpicky, but I think there’s an important distinction I would make between the US and the trump admin in how you asked your question. Is the trump admin about to overplay their hand? They may have already with the kidnapping of another head of state on bogus charges, although the hegemony of American political power still shouldn’t be underestimated despite the steep drop-off in recent years. Trust in the trump admin abroad has certainly been irrevocably transmuted into aggressive distrust, and the moves being made domestically have only led to further intensify domestic polarization and tension. Where the public won’t necessarily move too much in their opinion over the kidnapping of Maduro, those in decision making positions in government are undoubtedly having some serious internal turmoil over how close to the line the trump admin is stepping. This is enough of an outrageous move that we might be hearing about some internal organizing in the US government to make some unprecedented and very destabilizing moves against the administration.
I know some edgelords are probably saying the line was crossed long ago for any number of atrocities the trump admin has perpetrated in the past, however, they VERY severely underestimate the risk of catastrophic consequences in removing the trump admin from power by force, whether done legally or not. The sheer amount of human suffering from a possible civil war as a result is extremely daunting and is absolutely not something to be considered so lightly, even in the face of the despicable actions of the trump admin.
^ I know this may be a long response, but this person makes a lot of sense. Well argued.
I would say that civil war has already begun inside the states, and we’re just waiting for the other side to also take up arms and defend themselves.
The stretching of the military is particularly because of the various active policing roles they are running in parallel, with an unprecedented warmongering “I ended 8 wars” CIC and gross incompetence at the top. Not just drunk pete, but all the qualified generals they replaced with yes sayers, plus the military being deployed domestically.
From the stats I’m seeing it doesn’t look like they currently can take on 2 full scale gulf war size conflicts.
But you made a very good point about the war economy. I can’t qualify how well the USA’s nitro boost button (the one they pressed after Pearl Harbour) would work today in a divided country where MAGA land hates the liberal left more than whatever enemy you could throw at them.
Hey, thanks for the legitimate engagement. These are some pretty important things to consider for a larger context in how we move forward as a species in anticipation of potential gigantic shifts in international power dynamics. While definitely unjust in it’s unequal distribution, American hegemony has brought pretty unprecedented stability for the world as a whole. That unprecedented stability appears to be in jeopardy with the rise of fascism in the world, imperialist invasions of Ukraine and Gaza, increasing expansionist ambition from China, and general lack of cohesive competent leadership in de-escalation worldwide. While European leadership finally appears to be scrambling to find a way to not be so overly dependent on American political influence, much of the rest of the world(some within Europe included) appears to be turning more isolationist. A continuation of this trend makes the world ripe for expanded conflict, and we’re already seeing an increase in major conflicts worldwide.
All that to put into context the kind of world an American war economy would be hypothetically firing up in. While industrial capacity in the US could certainly sustain a hot war in Venezuela and then more, domestic industrial capacity is extremely degraded in terms of ability to sustain a war effort against even one near-peer adversary. It would take years to spin back up the necessary factories and material production that may prove futile in the attempt to break the inevitable stalemate resulting in the wait for production to ramp up. Pre-2000, America could absolutely stomp anyone in the world. After the offshoring of industrial capacity and recent alienation of those receiving said capacity, the US will find itself with an extremely challenging number of logistical problems. With the distrust the American people have for their government growing in intensity, I don’t see much domestic will to solve these problems. While domestic production issues would be a huge problem for America, exacerbated by the grossly incompetent actors in power, it would still be a stretch to say any foreign conflict would end up on American soil. And while American industrial capacity would certainly be hampered by proletariat resentment of the ruling class, the circumstances of whatever kicks off a war could very quickly change that factor. Like, say a Chinese invasion of Taiwan or Russian invasion of a NATO country.
Either way, American military domination isn’t going away any time soon. On top of that, American naval domination won’t even be remotely challenged for decades. The trump admin has legitimately done a ton of damage to the US in terms of military logistical capacity through mind-numbing incompetence and just straight up stupid geopolitical moves, but the erasure of American military hegemony would take muuuuuuuch more than the dumbfuckery of this limp-dick admin. I would be much more focused on the damage these dipshit fascists are doing geopolitically. Where the Biden admin demonstrated the soft power of American hegemony with the ease of mobilizing a good amount of the world against the Russian imperialist invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the trump admin has also demonstrated their baffling capacity to rapidly erode that soft power forrrr… no apparent reason. Although, as a side note, many of the isolationist and imperialist moves of the trump admin sure do seem suspiciously convenient for the fascist putin regime.
While all the above is important to keep in mind for our current world context, I think it remains most important for us to all recognize that the enemy isn’t the vague concept of “other nations”, but the irresponsible sociopaths in power. Workers in America and China have a hell of a lot more in common than the jackasses that rule over us. Why the fuck should we kill each other over their dick measuring contests? We need to shut the fuck up about their programming of “america bad”, “china bad”, “russia bad”, and start putting the pressure on those weilding their power irresponsibly starting with exposing the fucked up narrative and building solidarity.
Dude, a single aircraft carrier battle group can take over an entire region/hemisphere without putting a dent in manpower.
USA has NINE of these fuckers, and they barely sent a singular carrier ship with a couple frigates to Venezuela. They can have these things, if needed, to be self-sustaining fleets that stretch across rhe horizon of the open ocean and never need to resupply fuel for thirty-years because they are all nuclear powered.
No one else has this shit, nor can afford it. That’s just their Navy. Ignore their Army and Air Force.
They can conduct regime-changing warfare across three different regions of the world simultaneously without issue.
Cough… Afghanistan Cough… Iran
They have 11 of those fckers and they barely use 4 or 5 of them simultaneously. They have never done why you claim, nor would they ever be able to. They provide air support to ground forces, and their primary role is to be a regional deterrent force.
They are whole units, you can’t “barely” send a carrier group, so 20% of the Navy is currently spent on one double kidnapping in Venezuela.
USA military has never been stretched this thin abroad and domestically during peace time, so it’s a reasonable question to ask ourselves.
Dude.
Topping the government in Afghanistan was done very swiftly. The failure in Afghanistan was the inability to understand the country and its culture leading to a failure to build sustainable power structures.
The Taliban changed as well. They don’t support international terrorism anymore and focus on their own country, mostly.
The reason the US went into Afghanistan was 9/11. Al Quaida had bases inside Afghanistan and was supported by the Taliban. The US succeeded in squashing Al Quaida. Several Arab states like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates went after their religious extremists internally pretty successfully as well.
The US defeated their enemy in Afghanistan, but failed at nation building afterwards.
I mentioned Afghanistan because a carrier group had little to do with overthrowing the government. Anything done in substantial land gains was because of ground troops (with awesome air support maybe) but not just a carrier.
I thought the reason for Afghanistan was poppies.
Yeah… True.
What is the question we are asking ourselves again? That they are spreading thin? Where are you reading this? Im curious.
I’m reading it in the way they pulled out Afghanistan, and now are just kidnapping a head of state and talking about taking Greenland and Canada, while threatening Mexico, Panama and Venezuela and deploying troops domestically.
These are not rational options. They can’t be chapter 5 ready and standby, do domestic law enforcement, occupy Venezuela, take Greenland and be there just in case China takes Taiwan too.
The hardware alone, even the manpower alone doesn’t mean much if it isn’t intelligently managed and deployed. The current guy is bought and paid for by the historically biggest military opponent of the USA, and managed to bankrupt casinos.
He isn’t even smart enough to bribe the Nobel Prize Committee and had to get the even corrupter FIFA to invent a prize for him.
I don’t think the USA is militarily as solid as you think, and this orange dude may go, but ultimately the next decade is managed by Peter Thiel (who knows about the anti-christ)
So… Do you think another country could try to solo the US mainland and win? Is this what you are trying to say here? I’m so confused.
I don’t think anyone would want to do that. Just that the guard of the world’s police dog is down and distracted, and several other players can have a fair go at each other.
Think the Koreas left without adult supervision, China and Taiwan. Russia could certainly maintain the frontline in Ukraine. Iran and Israel could be left to sort stuff out themselves, though I would assume protecting Israel is higher on the priority list than lots of other important priorities.
The US is pretty much in a near state of civil war thanks to the last decade of social media algorithmic execution of divide and conquer. So from China, India, Japan or Russia’s perspective they solidly fall within the “never interrupt your enemy while they are making a mistake” territory I think.
You think the US can sustain its military power projection with this level of incompetence at the helm? Especially if he (or the Thiel Executive Branch) goes for multi-term like Vladdy.
Given the fact that in the past 80 years no other country has stepped up to challenge the level of sheer firepower, infinite money, and influence the USA commands globally (i mean they literally patrol every major ocean trade route as a police force to deter piracy, no one else’s navy does this level of power projection that I’ve read about so far), I highly doubt it.
What are your thoughts?
That’s a good point. Past performance is not a guarantee for future success though.
In my view each major power has its own vertical speciality.
- USA: military might
- Russia: propaganda and asymmetric warfare
- China: economic warfare
- India: not quite up to any level, but edging towards copying China
- N. Korea: just wants to be left alone
- Japan: building up conventional military again, but not really a big player on any level apart from perhaps having the Yen as safe haven against economic turmoil.
Exactly because after 80 years, nearly 3 generations of humans have discovered you don’t challenge the USA militarily. Which is why Russia attacked them with Maga propaganda and China by pulling the entire world manufacturing pipeline towards them. That’s just the argument for why they aren’t challenging the US military, not why they are about to be stretched thin if they keep the current rhetoric going.
From what I see, if Venezuela becomes an active armed conflict it will require the same commitment of resources and time as Iraq II and probably have about the same outcome.
Once another country provokes them into another war, or they decide to go full nuts, then anyone can do anything, they won’t be able to respond effectively without jeopardising one of their other theatres, including the domestic one.
None of this is mentioning the real potential of an escalating second American Civil War. No idea how that would affect troop readiness.
If they are smart, we will see a continuation of hit and run (the Iran strikes, the Yemen strikes, Venezuelan kidnapping, and short burst efforts like that) to make them make look important, but really don’t know if they are, after replacing all the too brass with sycophants.
Nope.
I’m terrified to come to the realization that Trump took a gamble; rolled the dice on the idea that he could do whatever he wanted, and the rest of the world would be so terrified of economic chaos that they would just shut up and let him do it with only “sternly worded” statements to the contrary.
And the fucker was absolutely right. He know’s he was right. The moment no one immediately did anything about Maduro, he knew it was okay to do it again to any other country that he wants to.
We’re fucked. Not because of Trump. Trump could be done in fast and easy by a global embargo. His regime would last a week at most when faced with getting nothing from overseas.
We’re fucked because the rest of the world is to feckless to do that.
I agree, I was also shaking my head at the various (lack of strong) responses.
At the end of the day, looking from EU or AU, the orange idiot is helping them too secure a more stable oil supply.
But that all the economic reality and political consequence, while I was initially just talking about military, but this does frame it too.
Oof the best armchair generals are the uninformed ones
Thanks for coming to a discussion community with this valuable contribution.
Happy to help!
Maybe it’s a rush land and resource grab against China, our only real rival. Like an international game of Hungry Hungry Hippos.
Good point. China has been making lots of friends in the area in the last decade though.
Chile is very pissed that Chinese fishing fleets go into their waters and steal fish.
…but remember…Europe is a bunch of freeloaders…yeah…
Maybe there’s an understanding by the rising regional powers and America which is far from the global hegemon it was even 30 years ago and they’re all gonna focus on their local sphere of influence? And yes, that would mean NATO would cede Taiwan and it would be reunited with the mainland and something like a halfway takeover of Ukraine, with zones acting like a barrier between NATO and Russia. That would mean the EU can either normalize relationships with Russia like before the Ukraine coup and the start of the war, or they could double down and put boots and more on the ground. Of course I would love the former but knowing “my people”, it’ll probably be the latter.
I think America will try one or two excursions outside of the Atlantic and South America (there’s already an undergoing one in Iran, although they’re going the agitation and coup way right now and another one in Somalia and Somaliland through their colony/FOB, Israel) just to try things out and give the MIC their money, but I expect it to recede slowly (before inner strife and balkanization in the mid 60s? God willing, the world has had enough of the Burgers, from the moment they stepped into the native’s land they’ve done nothing but mischief).
