There's recently been a lot of loose talk about the looming possibility of a global great power conflict being foreshadowed by the Russia-Ukraine War.  Of particular concern is the quality of American readiness — or the lack thereof. 

We were warned back on January 17, 1961, when outgoing President Dwight D. Eisenhower referenced the "Military-Industrial Complex" as an independent force within our nation.  If anybody could've been an expert on that subject, it was he.  As in most aspects of our government's operations, achievement is not often measured by actual results, but by the amount of money appropriated.  Outfits such as Boeing and General Dynamics have long been sucking up a huge amount of the federal budget.

Next to frigates, destroyers are just about the most expendable type of warship.  But now we have the stealth destroyer USS Zumwalt...which cost about 4 billion dollars to construct.  Yeah, it's hard to locate with radar, but still, it's way too expensive to throw into harm's way.  A classic demonstration of this dilemma concerned the WW2 Japanese super-battleship Yamato.  Yeah, it had 18-inch guns — but it went out to sea only once, before they realized how dangerous things were.  For the rest of the war, it was kept close to the Japanese shore.

Some pundits warn that aircraft carriers are obsolete for the same reason: too many eggs in one basket.  For example, our newest carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, cost $12.8 billion to construct plus $4.7 billion in research and design.  Meanwhile, we are seriously short of the manpower necessary to put enough boots on the ground to actually make a difference in a real conflict — largely due to non-competitive military pay and benefits when compared to other lines of work.  Conscription as a back-up has become fairly obsolete.  Our military is now so technologically sophisticated that conscripts can't be adequately trained within their compulsory time of service...but "lifers" can be trained, long before they retire.

One may think radio-controlled drones are now the cutting edge of war-fighting technology, but a Croatian immigrant to America named Nikola Tesla published an article in the June 1900 issue of Century magazine that accurately described such technology.  This was three years before the Wright Brothers.  Drones, however, are nowadays quite significant, as they are both effective and fairly cheap.  Imagine a window left open at the Kremlin, which allows a small drone to enter and then seek and destroy ol' Vladimir.  Just hypothesizing.

Though sabers are being rattled all over the world, there is little true enthusiasm for a major conflict.  The problem is that there are few, if any, convenient escape routes from the battlefield available to the various regimes pounding the table.  Any reasonable cost-benefit analysis would conclude "don't do it."  This is roughly the scenario, laced with profound dread, that preceded the first World War...yet history teaches us that it wasn't a sufficient deterrent.

What is not mentioned enough is that, in conventional war, the advantage tends to be with the defense.  I learned this while reading about the Battle of the Bulge, AKA the Third Reich's last gasp in WW2.  The Yanks and the Brits started taking serious casualties only once they turned around and went on the offensive.  This seems to at least partially explain Ukraine's numerical success thus far.

Then, of course, there's the nuclear issue.  What prevailed during the Cold War remains in place.  Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) effectively kept the Soviets and the USA from going to blows...directly.  Yeah, proxy wars were fought, but we're all still here to talk about it.

What is scary about Russia and China is not actually their military capabilities, but rather their lack of internal political conflict.  They are dictatorships and are thus devoid of the constraints imposed by the need to constantly maintain public support.  Hitler and his ilk relished their opponents being "flabby democracies."

Back to the Cold War.  We spent decades under the threat of nuclear annihilation.  During the Cuban Missile Crisis, I remember being in algebra class when the teacher announced that she was not giving us a homework assignment...since we may not be on Earth tomorrow.  At least one student shrieked.  A neighbor, just up the street, had a fallout shelter built beneath his driveway.  Being structurally unsound, it collapsed and left a huge crater that kept cars from getting into and out of the garage.

What's in store for us?  Of course, it's a crap shoot.  But I will continue to rely on the normal human tendency to try to avoid catastrophe.  The real danger, as mentioned, is the continuing existence of powerful dictators.  Some countries are still tightly controlled by such vicious fiends...but some are fortunately not able to project much in the way of destructive force.  North Korea and Iran can be added to Russia and China, just to round things out.  Oh, yeah, there's also Venezuela, but it's mostly just capable of sending out streams of political refugees.  

Technology has long aided totalitarian despots.  Hitler was a pioneer in the use of amplified public address equipment to mesmerize enormous outdoor audiences.  Nowadays, the "surveillance state" is rendered more protected from organized dissent than it ought to be.  But there are limits.  Radio Free America was a serious challenge during the Cold War.  Cell phones and the internet are making sort of a dent in today's world.

Image via the Department of Defense.