Alert: Americans to be Nerfed in next Expansion

It is often noted that the American government spends an inordinate proportion of its funds on the maintainence and improvement of the armed forces. To the socially conscious, this seems like money better spent providing health care and food to the needy. I respectfully disagree.

Let us begin with the Great War. From 1914 until 1918, much of Europe, along with parts of Africa and Western Asia, was embroiled in what in retrospect would come to be called World War I. My former roommate is a History major, and is of the opinion that everything about the situation of the world today can be traced back to World War II, but if that is true, then everything about World War II can be traced back to World War I. In general, it was a gruesome, bloody, and generally grimdark affair, fought in mud-filled trenches surrounded in barbed wire and filled with corpses.

However, several new military applications of technology saw their first use in WWI. The military aircraft, first used for reconnaissance in 1911 during the Italo-Turkish War (a war which I'm willing to bet you didn't even know happened), was fitted with machine guns and given the role of controlling enemy airspace, both to obtain surveillance and to protect bombers. The first tanks were used to cross no-man's land through withering hails of machine-gun fire and break the enemy's lines (also notice how the British Mark I tank looks exactly like a Space Marine Landraider...). German U-boats terrorized the British shipping fleet, and the HMS Furious was the first aircraft carrier.

Likewise, these technologies came into the fore in World War II. The Battle of Britain consisted of weeks-long aerial dogfights to protect London from the German Luftwaffe. The German Tiger Tank allowed the German blitzkrieg to sweep through France. And American aircraft carriers proved the deciding factor in the defeat of Japan in the Pacific. Submarine warfare would not truly come into its own until the 1950s, with the advent of the nuclear sub, but it too was advanced greatly during WWII.

During the Cold War, both American and Soviet weapons designers raced to develope better and better military technology, in preparation for the inevitable Russo-American War-to-End-All-Wars. But rather than nuclear armageddon, the Soviet Union collapsed (a mere eight months after my birth; coincidence?). Nevertheless, though we no longer had our old foes to compete with, we still had our impressive military technology, and development of new tech continued on pure momentum.

The result is that we now have weapons so advanced they render warfare against us not only costly and unattractive, but downright impossible. Take, for instance, the M1A2 Abrams battle tank. During the Iraq invasion, a single Abrams found itself surrounded at point-blank range by 7 T-72s (Russian battle-tanks). It destroyed the opposition one after another while taking numerous hits, which were deflected by the Abrams' armor. There was no American loss of life.

It has reactive armor in addition to its 1500 mm RHAe (rolled homogeneous armor equivalent - basically, its as tough as a meter and a half of steel plate), and an automatic internal fire suppression system to immediately douse any fire which may occur. The main gun, a smoothbore 120mm, can fire, in addition to standard HEAT rounds capable of defeating any known opposing armor, tungsten canister rounds that produce a shotgun-like effect for anti-personal use, and cannon-launched seeking missiles. And the gun can traverse fast enough to shoot down helicopters.

Speaking of helicopters, the Apache Longbow is the best attack helicopter in the world (though the Russian Ka-50 Blackshark is also notable). The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier is the largest and most dominant warship on the planet. The Seawolf attack submarine can defeat any sub currently deployed or in development, and the fleet of 14 Ohio-class nuclear subs can launch around half of the USA's nuclear arsenal anywhere on the planet in a matter of hours. And don't even start me on the F-22.

I don't mean to say that the United States military is invincible, or even unbeatable, but we are rapidly moving towards an age (if not are already in an age) where a military conflict involving the US is simply a non-starter. The Gulf War was prehaps the first example of this; wheras Saddam invisioned a second Vietnam, the conflict was over practically before it began, with unprecedentedly few American casualties. This against an army that was, for all its Middle-East-ness, was one of the largest (1.2 million troops) and most well-armed (with Russian technology only a few decades old) in the world.

The result of all this is a world where only an asymetric combatant has any chance of doing us harm. Gone are the days of dueling air-superiority fighters. No naval battle will ever again consist of two battlefleets raking each other with fire. And for all the carnage of the Iraqi Occupation, compare the death toll to that of Vietnam. Thanks to our superior technology, the American warfighter is currently the safest in the world, and the mere threat of US involvment is enough to end many conflicts before they begin.

Simply put, American military dominace will (has already?) usher in a new era of peace on the global scale. Similar to the Pax Romana and the Pax Mongolica, the Pax Americana has saved and will save countless lives. This more than anything else seems should justify our current military budget.

Next Time: Dunbar's Number & the Tragedy of the Commons

P.S.
I had intended to use the F-22 as my example for a completely dominant military device, but ended up ranting about the Abrams instead. Alas. However, expect it to come up again at some point, as strictly speaking it's a far better example.