Reply #22: Have you learned nothing in the last 7.5 years...? [View All]

[edwardian]

Russian military forces had a bad time in the last decades but have improved their capabilities and are much advanced from what they had to offer as part of Warsaw Pact. They field one of the most amazing fighter jets in the world (model eludes me), have anti-ship missiles that are nearly unstoppable (see Jane's Military ratings , google it) and have access to more oil than we can ever hope to have. Their handheld anti-tank and anti-aircraft bazookas are superior to US make. No nuclear exchanges, just a slow starving away of all that the US and Europe have been building for decades. Don't fuck with Russia, she plays hard and she can play for keeps...and she still has civil defense drills and air-raid and bombshelters. We ain't got squat to challenge them with unless we want to die as a people (MAD nothing but a deterrent, remember). Saber rattling is most effective when you can back it up with real military power. Just this week we read that 3 battalions needed for Iraq and Afghanistan are mot availabel because they don't exist. America has got to wake up and realize that all the former belligerence and coersion are poor strategies for living in the future. Technology does not win wars, wise strategy and prudence are the keys to victory. The incompetent in the Oval Office only has his failed "strategery" and faith in weapons systems that have failed repeatedly. The fruits of a military/industrial/social construct that enriches the corrupt while leaving the nation vulnerable. I suggest a review of history's empires to understand what happens in the waning decades of a failed empire. The financial disaster we are facing is the typical first step of a bloated, incapable system. Military might has done nearly zero in the last decades except reveal the Army's weakness and display their weapons. GulfWar1 was a cake walk against a vastly inferior and weak opponent, The illegal invasion of Iraq by B'rer Bush has resulted in almost nothing. (I base that last statement on my refugee Iraqi friends who have nothing good to say about USA.) Immediate and abrupt consequences? Try foreseeable impotence.