It is “terminal” because the controlling power, the U.S. regime, now spends approximately half of the entire world’s military costs and hides much of that by paying it out from federal Departments other than the official ‘Defense’ Department so as to (in comparison with other nations’ military expenditures) be spending ‘only’ around 37% of the entire world’s military costs.
In January 2023, the U.S. Naval Institute’s magazine, PROCEEDINGS, headlined “Bigger Fleets Win: In naval warfare, a smaller fleet of superior quality ships is not a way to victory. The side with the most ships almost always wins.” It opened:
I’ve heard a lot of people saying recently, ‘Quantity has a quality all its own.’ And I just want to be clear: No, it doesn’t. That’s one of the dumbest damn things I’ve ever heard.”1 With respect to the quoted speaker, not only does quantity have a quality all its own, but it also almost always proves decisive in naval warfare when professional competence is equal.
Using technological advantage as an indicator of quality, historical research on 28 naval wars (or wars with significant and protracted naval combat) indicates that 25 were won by the side with the larger fleet. When fleet size was roughly equal, superior strategy and substantially better trained and motivated crews carried the day.2 Only three could be said to have been won by a smaller fleet with superior technology.3
When professional naval competence and strategic acumen were equal, the larger fleet usually won, even when the smaller fleet possessed technological advantages at the start of the conflict. A primary reason is that technological advantages were inevitably short-lived.4 In a war between equally competent technological near peers—absent a series of amazing strokes of luck—the larger fleet always won.5 (See Table 1.)
table 1
With the growing potential of a naval engagement between a shrinking U.S. fleet and a growing [Chinese] People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), the three examples of technologically advanced but smaller fleets’ victories are not reassuring:
• The Byzantine Empire’s naval forces versus Vikings, Slavs, Turks, and Arabs to about the year 1000 AD/CE. At that time, the Arabs learned to employ the equivalent of Greek fire.
• The Portuguese in the Indian Ocean versus Mamluks, the Ottoman Empire, and Indo-
regional allies, 1500–1580.
• The British East India Company and various European nations versus Imperial China circa 1840–1900.
All other wars were won by superior numbers or, when between equal forces, superior strategy, or admiralship. Often all three qualities act together, because operating a large fleet generally facilitates more extensive training and is often an indicator that leaders are concerned with strategic requirements. In the Napoleonic wars, for example, Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson may have been more brilliant — and braver — than his French and Spanish counterparts. His captains and crews were better trained. However, Great Britain dominated the war at sea because it had a larger fleet it could concentrate or disperse as conditions warranted. French warships were superior in the technology of ship design and construction, but ultimately, it was the large numbers of Royal Navy ships that prevented Napoleon from crossing the channel.6 …
On 3 November 2021, the USNI (U.S. Naval Institute) News headlined “China Has World’s Largest Navy With 355 Ships and Counting, Says Pentagon” and reported that:
China has the biggest maritime force on the globe with an inventory of about 355 vessels, according to a Defense Department report released Wednesday.
With 355 ships in its fleet, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is slated to expand its inventory to 420 ships within the next four years, the Pentagon’s annual China military report estimates. By 2030, the PLAN is expected to have 460 ships.
The 355 estimation accounts for “major surface combatants, submarines, aircraft carriers, ocean-going amphibious ships, mine warfare ships, and fleet auxiliaries,” according to the report, which covers events in 2020.
“This figure does not include 85 patrol combatants and craft that carry anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs). … Much of this growth will be in major surface combatants,” the report reads.
The report, which is mandated by Congress each year, describes China’s navy as having growing ambitions to operate with more versatile platforms beyond the Indo-Pacific region. …
The specialized Website military-today.com keeps a current rank-order list of the “Top 10 Navies in the World”:
In 2018, these were the rankings:
1. U.S.; 2. Russia; 3. China; 4. Japan; 5. UK; 6. France; 7. India; 8. S. Korea; 9. Italy; 10. tie Taiwan&Indonesia.
On 6 March 2023, these were the rankings:
1. U.S.; 2. China; 3. Russia; 4. Japan; 5. UK; 6. France; 7. India; 8. S. Korea; 9. Italy; 10. Taiwan.
If China doesn’t have the world’s best navy, then it almost certainly soon will.
Overall, perhaps the world’s strongest military power is Russia. It has been spending around $70 billion per year on its military while America has been spending around $1.4 trillion per year on its.
However, one thing that seems virtually certain is that no nation comes anywhere close to America as being the most corrupt, at least in regards to its military spending.
What, then, about America’s ‘allied’ or vassal nations, America’s colonies? Is it possible that they are less corrupt than the imperial nation — their boss — is? If you work for a corrupt boss, then can you be less corrupt than your boss is? Or, do you have to be, instead, at least as corrupt as that person is? You take what your boss pays you, and keep getting it so long as you don’t violate your boss. If the result displeases the boss, then might the boss blame you instead of blame himself for that result? So, how can you be less corrupt than your boss is? Only by double-crossing him. But would that really be less corrupt than he is? And, if your boss basically requires you to cheat your customers — or to violate the welfare of your country’s ‘citizens’ or subjects — in order to achieve what he tells you to, and you obey him, then are you less corrupt than he is, or more corrupt? After all, he isn’t obligated to serve your subjects, but you are. So: if you obey him, then which of the two of you is the more corrupt?
By Eric Zuesse