On paper, the US still has by far the world’s strongest military. This is the case whether or not you measure it by military spending, by various indices of military power (e.g. MEU, CAP, or the CMP developed on this blog), or as pertains to the narrower if arguably more relevant naval sphere, by naval megatonnage (even if the gap with China rapidly shrinks as the PLAN adds the equivalent of a major European Great Power navy every single year).
However, there are increasing reasons to think that large parts of this superiority could be becoming illusory – a dangerous state of affairs, given the recovery of bipartisan support for US military intervention and American elites’ oft-stated confidence in their military supremacy.
-WiscoDave
