Massive military spending highlights US vulnerability
AS the US forces could lose the next war to Russia or China, the Trump administration has set aside the biggest military spending ever for 2018 while setting a record in deploying its Special Operations troops in as many as 149 nations around the globe this year.
A new in-depth report from the US-based strategic think-tank RAND Corporation has suggested that under the threat of open confrontation with Russia and China, the US is likely to suffer sufficient losses and eventually will be defeated.
Thanks to their major technology advancements over the past years, Russia and China have now reached a level that they can top the US in certain areas of military prowess, the 190-page document’s authors said, warning that limited budget and a lack of enough forces to support the “ambitious” US military plan were hindering American forces.
“Put more starkly, assessments in this report will show that US forces could, under plausible assumptions, lose the next war they are called upon to fight, despite the US outspending China military forces by a ratio of 2.7:1 and Russia by 6:1,” the document continued. “The nation needs to do better than this.”
Despite spending billions on sending troops and equipment to Russia’s borders in the Baltic region, the NATO military alliance could not withstand a “determined, short-warning Russian attack” either.
“In short, we concluded that, as currently postured, NATO cannot defend the Baltic states against a determined, short-warning Russian attack,” the document said.
The US-based think tank also stressed that along with Russia and China, North Korea, Iran and Salafist jihadist groups also pose a threat to US national security.
The US faces a nuclear and missile tests from North Korea which Washington and Asian allies “lack satisfactory answers.”
Analysts in Facebook pages say what the US under President Trump has done to keep its dominant leadership in the world is to spend more on its military and send more troops into other nations.
The US military budget of US$700 billion for the Fiscal Year 2018 was just signed into law on December 12, 2017 by President Trump. Military spending is the second largest federal government expenditure after Social Security at $1 trillion.
U.S. military spending is larger than the next nine countries combined and perceived to be the among world’s most powerful nations including Russia, China, Germany and the United Kingdom.
Analysts also added that aside from huge military spending, the Trump administration has also set a record in deploying its troops around the world in an ever-widening net of American outreach at the end of a gun barrel.
According to latest data, US Special Operations troops, including Navy Seals and Army Green Berets, were deployed in 149 nations in 2017, a 150 percent jump from the administration of George W. Bush, and a modern record for shipping US military policy around the globe.
“We operate and fight in every corner of the world,” recently boasted chief of US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) General Raymond Thomas.
“Rather than a mere ‘break-glass-in-case-of-war’ force, we are now proactively engaged across the ‘battle space’ of the Geographic Combatant Commands,” Thomas proudly said, adding that US forces were globally “providing key integrating and enabling capabilities to support campaigns and operations.
However, analysts said, after winning the World War II, the US clout has been dented by the fact that it lost ridiculously in the Vietnam war and just lately in the proxy war in Syria, whose government got a strong support from Russia.
So President Trump’s recent recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, reversing nearly seven decades of American foreign policy and setting in motion a plan to move its Embassy from Tel Aviv to the fiercely contested Holy City is seen as a move to create conflicts further in the Middle East region, analysts claimed.
CAPTIONS:
Top: US troops in Afghanistan. Photo: CNN
In-text: File- US soldiers stand in formation during a military ceremony in Illesheim, Germany, on March 9, 2017. Photo: AP via VOANews.com
By Kowit Sanandang
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