The renewed hostilities, including the ramping up of pressure on China by pumping up Taiwan and directing carrier groups to the South China Sea, are worrisome. No argument from me. Military hardware, some of it nuclear tipped, running around frantically means the danger of an accident that could burn the whole world down.
But here’s my two cents, and maybe that’s all it’s worth: the US top military elite, the four star and 3 star establishment and top admirals, are well aware that the US military is not in any shape to make war, especially with China or Russia. They aren’t crazy, they are just rotten. And they are worried, not about war, they are worried by growing disaffection in the ranks. The Marines, including some top generals, and the National Guard troops and probably much of the Army and its field grade officers, are sullen and near mutiny, or at least inclined to be passively non-co-operative. There is a huge sector in these branches of support for Donald Trump – if it were not so the new Sec Def would not have announced the suspension of business to roust officers and ranks into Critical Race Theory classes to weed out “White Supremacy”. A new round of drum-beating and orders flying is jut the thing to smarten up the ranks, they think.
This will not work. It will fail because the ranks, especially the occupation troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria, are cynical, exhausted and sullen. They want out and they want to come home and they see absolutely no reason why the useless daily slog in foreign parts continues, since they well know it’s futile. The Navy is similarly riddled with exhausted sailors and officers and well aware that the US naval strength is almost in a state of collapse from worn-out boats and worn out equipment and antiquated repair facilities. They are also aware that the F-35 and the Littoral Combat Ship and the Zumwalt and similar systems are junk. And if US Naval Intelligence were not aware that both Russia and China have superior fast small missile firing boats and superior hypersonic missiles with far more range, while they still rely on Tomahawks and other 40 year old antiques, these Intelligence services would have to be crazy or asleep. Scuttle-butt and the Grapevine are eternal in naval and land forces. The rankers know the score.