Am murican, love it here and want us to be the best we can be. That said, we lost in Soccer after being dominant, we lost in Basketball, and even fucking Baseball. Is it because the quality of our teams became worse? No. It's complacency. If you watched those USA teams lose, you would see they didn't move around at the same intensity as they would if they were playing a home game vs their rival. The mentality wasn't there. Now what the fuck does that have to do with the military? Well we're number one! And we have the best technology! Well the USA certainly didn't win wars by being expensive and technologically superior. We have more tanks! - They have more people with cheaper anti tank equipment. We have more tonnage!- The war in Ukraine has proven you only need a few missiles and sea drones to take down even the biggest ships. Wars would be limited by manufacturing capability, something the USA sold away and China embraced. It would take decades to build anything near with our political system. China's fast food worker equivalent is electronics assembly and or soldering. We would be absolutely fucked if wars came down to who could make more drones and anti tank equipment. For now it's not predicated on that and we have whole other arsenals of freedom we can reign down on our enemies. I firmly believe we could scrap with anyone but I also think we may be overestimating our successes and underestimating our potential losses. It certaintly doesn't help being a lurker for years and seeing the bs bureaucracy yall have to deal with. Shitpost out.