I assume there would be a lot of people that research and make plans about hypothetical scenarios, and that would help inform the state on how to defend imperialism from possible threats. With the development of more advanced technology, I feel like if these guys were really good at what they were doing they could probably come up with horrifying methods of mass control or something.

But also, my impression is that as with most things under capitalism, the bureacracy could just be totally incompetent and end up being a paper tiger. When the day comes where the status quo has to be sustained by extreme violence, all of the fancy tech and plans break down and everything devolves into regular war.

Reality probably lies somewhere in between the two, I just really hope the technocracy isnt competent enough to be that good at doing evil, cause if thats the case we have a very bleak future in front of us.

  • TankieTanuki [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I read this this sober assessment of the US military recently:

    [An old school, dissident Deep State intel analyst] sees [the US-UK-Australian alliance] as all dressed up with nowhere to go: “As it stands now, China is in command of the Pacific and Australia and Britain mean nothing. Russia can overrun NATO in two weeks, our adversaries’ hypersonic missiles can destroy all NATO airfields within five to ten minutes and the battle for Europe would be over.”

    He’s adamant that “the US cannot project power into the Pacific. Chinese submarine missiles would finish off the US fleet in short order. The Australian submarine issue is really irrelevant; if the CIA had an organization that was worth anything they would know that our adversaries already can spot and destroy our nuclear submarines without the slightest difficulty. The entire US Navy is obsolete and defenseless against Russian missiles.”

    And it gets worse – at least for the cheerleading Knights: “The F-35 is obsolete. The Air Force is largely worthless, as Russian and Chinese missiles can finish off their airfields or aircraft carriers in short order. The woke US Army is more worthless than the French Army with their Maginot Line. The Joint Chiefs of Staff are paid less than 200k a year, and are second or third rate talent. The US is a sinking ship.”

      • TankieTanuki [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        The article is written by Pepe Escobar, an analyst I follow. I only read it because he tweeted it out. I found him on the Moderate Rebels podcast.

        I don't trust ZeroHedge either. I seriously don't know what to make of that site. I would probably describe them (Tyler?) as reactionary with broken clock syndrome.

        I'm aware of the phenomenon of military brass underselling their strengths for more funding. I took this assessment seriously only because it was supposedly the private opinion of someone that Pepe trusted and identified as a dissident.

        Edit: I probably should have shared this syndication of the same article instead.

              • TankieTanuki [he/him]
                ·
                3 years ago

                Thanks for explaining. I can see how the comment about containing Chinese power could be misinterpreted if you didn't know that Pepe was pro-China. The "Asiatic tyrannies" comment was just a joke about Americans' racist perceptions; he understands that their partnership is only strategic.

            • NaturalsNotInIt [any]
              ·
              3 years ago

              Anything that gets too deep into older geopolitics is going to set off some people here. There's definitely some hints of "US was the bad guy in World Wars" which is gonna make people tune out.

    • Owl [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      The thing about military equipment is that nobody is actually fighting a great powers war right now, so we don't actually know what works, what doesn't, and how systems will interact to create new conditions that have never been seen before. There are some obvious losers (the F-35), but there's no real-world testing. If a war were to happen, we'd probably find that the US's military is a whole lot of excuses to shovel money to defense contractors, but we'd also find that every other military is full of hardware and doctrines based on no better epistemology than "somebody convinced their superiors."

      So, yes, the US military is probably garbage. But that doesn't mean anyone else's is doing great.

      • TankieTanuki [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        True. But if nobody can project power overseas then that's still a net bad for the US military, because they're the only ones trying to do that.