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
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.