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
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.