Wow where to begin.
On American being an empire:
The U.S. is an empire if not militarily then at least economically. We invade countries militarily for many reasons some noble others not. But economically our society has invaded nearly every nation. Source: The McDonaldization of Society by George Ritzer.
On Rome's relevance to America:
The founding fathers did based much on the Classics so i agree with that point.
zZz point b though: "B) America is an empire. 725 military bases in 130 foreign countries."
Wrong: The entire U.S. war effort almost came to a screeching halt over Turkey's conflict with the Kurds. American is an empire but not simply because it has bases in hundreds of countries.
And the Pax Romana? Do you know what Augustus did to establish the Pax Romana? He warred with about half the know world, evicted about almost all of the native Italian peasants from their lands because he promised his soldiers lands in Italy (adding to vast #'s of poor in Rome's cities), oh and most importantly eliminated the senate's role in the government and started a huge string of emperors to include the ever popular Nero and Caligula.
On military strategy:
Pedex is correct. We may have the strongest military in the world but...
Quote:
Originally Posted by pedex
You can have all the military might in the world but if you do not use it correctly it will fail.
Two choices:
go in and kill everything that moves
or
traditional counter insurgency means literally living with the indigenous and flooding the country with troops to a 20-30:1 or better ratio, controlling all borders, providing food, water, healthcare and aid and doing something about the refugees which is part of being an occupying power bent on doing "good"
building bases and patrolling is a well known failure, counter insurgency is up close and personal, long, grinding, and involves some attrition, comes with the mission, the original recommendations by the Generals, specifically Shinsecki was for in excess of 600,000 men, minimum.......thats 40:1
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Iraq is the biggest mistake of U.S. military politics/strategy yet. Thank god its at least a good testing ground, but we proved that in the Gulf War by testing the Maverick missile out there anyways.
On military spending:
This is what should be our main concern. I believe defense spending is critical but we waste so much money on these absolutely useless run around contractors that spend millions of dollars to pick their nose and stamp a paper. Now R&D is critical but what happened to having thousands of scientists or analysts on government payroll. We've downsized our influence over the R&D side of the game and we are losing money because of it. We have big business fighting for contracts and every inch of the way they are hiding costs. Fuck the F-35 is ready to be made but we've wasted so much time and money that just now we are coming to terms that we have to spend more money cause simple additions such as maintenance or base renovations or carrier deck protectants?! Christ you think something with a billion dollar budget could afford to spend less money on a bunch of nimrods and more time on finding intelligent human beings capable of thinking past their last breakfast. Christ we even had to buy the technology from the Brits that is now going into the "next gen fighter".
Oh and on whether the U.S. is the best military:
Yes.
Sorry I forgot that was such a realization to some.