The U.S. destroyer USS John Finn (DDG 113, left) and the aircraft carrier USS Roosevelt (CVN 71, right) cruise in the Western Pacific as the U.S.-China confrontation continues in 2021.
In recent years, Chinese communist forces have continued to try to expand in the Indo-Pacific region and eventually compete with the U.S. for supremacy, but it has not yet changed the dominance of the U.S. military. The U.S. military is not only the protagonist of the Pacific, but also the military protagonist of most regions around the world.
The United States is the only country in the world that implements a global military strategy. The U.S. military has pushed the defense line to the forefront far from the national territory, truly defending the enemy from the national gate. The U.S. has also assumed responsibility for maintaining stability in the regions and deterring regional military conflicts, and has gained the approval of most countries.
As a result, the United States has the largest number of military allies in the world, which also ensures the implementation of a global strategy that significantly amplifies the U.S. military’s ability to deploy and operate with mobility. Of course, the U.S. military is first and foremost the most powerful force in the world, ranked number one on the Global Firepower scale.
In World War II, the U.S. Army fought on two fronts, Europe and the Pacific, and won them all, thus establishing its position as the world’s number one. In the Cold War, the U.S. military did not fight directly against the former Soviet Union, but led the allies in demonstrating the critical deterrent power that ultimately won the Cold War.
After World War II, the U.S. military has been through the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the War on Terror, and has maintained the richest real-world combat experience, with an overall quantity and performance of weaponry that is unmatched.
General Overview
The U.S. military has approximately 1.4 million active duty personnel; the reserve component is dominated by the National Guard, and the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps each have reserve units, totaling approximately 850,000 personnel; the U.S. military also employs over 720,000 civilian personnel. The U.S. military is permanently stationed around the world.
The U.S. mainland is located on the American continent, bordered by the vast Pacific Ocean to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, making it a relatively typical maritime nation; it borders Canada to the north and also assumes part of Canada’s defense, while half of its southern border is bordered by Mexico and half by the wide Gulf of Mexico, looking out over South America. The U.S. Alaska is separated from Russia by the Bering Strait, which should be considered the greatest national threat. The U.S. also has strategic islands in the Pacific such as Hawaii and Guam, which serve as key bases for the U.S. military in the Indo-Pacific region.
After the War of Independence, the continental United States has not really suffered from the threat of foreign aggression. The U.S. and Canada are both NATO allies and within the Five Eyes alliance; the U.S. is also largely free of threats from Central and South America, and potential U.S. enemies are far away overseas, making it a natural condition for the U.S. military’s global strategy. For many Americans, this should be a divine arrangement, and successive U.S. presidents have prayed “God bless America.
At $740.5 billion in 2020, the U.S. military will spend more than the combined military expenditures of the world’s 2nd through 11th largest countries, or about 3.39 percent of GDP. With a GDP of approximately $21.85 trillion, ranking 1st in the world, and a per capita GDP of over $65,895, the U.S. economic strength ensures the source of huge funding for the U.S. military.
The U.S. is the number one developed industrial country in the West and the most technologically advanced, developing and producing almost most of the world’s advanced weapons and supplying them in large quantities to its allies.
The Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. military is a popularly elected president, but is also bound by Congress. The U.S. military has the most specialized management in the world, is largely interoperable with NATO countries, the Five Eyes Alliance, and Japan, and consistently dominates most major military operations on the planet.
The U.S. military has six regional commands around the world. Northern Command is responsible for the defense of the U.S. homeland and North America; Southern Command is responsible for the defense of the South American region; European Command, in concert with NATO, is responsible for the defense of Europe; Indo-Pacific Command is responsible for the defense of the Indo-Pacific region; Africa Command is responsible for the defense of the African region; and Central Command is responsible for the defense of the Middle East, West Asia, and parts of South Asia. The global deployment ensures timely warning, response, and prevention of problems before they occur.
U.S. B-1B bombers flying from the homeland train jointly with F-16s based at Misawa Air Base, Japan, and Japanese Air Self-Defense Force F-2s in the Sea of Japan, April 22, 2020.
Global Strategic Advantage
After World War II, U.S. forces were stationed in mainland Europe and Japan for a long time, implementing joint defense with NATO and forming a U.S.-Japan security system with Japan. After the Korean War, the U.S. military was also permanently stationed in South Korea, as well as military bases around the world, with over 230,000 troops stationed overseas.
After the Cold War, the U.S. military had lost its adversary and gradually cut its military budget and reduced its arsenal. 10 years after the War on Terror, the U.S. military realized that the Chinese Communist Party had been trying to challenge it, and the U.S. military is accelerating its withdrawal from the Middle East, readjusting its global strategic layout, strengthening joint allies, and doing its best to deal with the biggest threat of the Chinese Communist Party in the Indo-Pacific region.
The U.S. military’s close relationship with its many overseas allies has ensured the operation of forward-deployed U.S. bases, a globally linked military warning, response and readiness system, and a strategic advantage that is unique in the world.
Most U.S. allies around the world also rely on the presence of U.S. forces to maintain regional stability, rely to varying degrees on the United States for weaponry and military training, and generally take the initiative to cooperate with U.S. military operations. When regional challenges arise, most countries will even deepen their cooperation with U.S. forces, expecting them to help contain the risk of regional conflict.
U.S. MQ-9 drones and the Independence-class Littoral Combat Ship USS Coronado (LCS 4) conduct a joint exercise, April 21, 2021.
Military Equipment Superiority
U.S. military equipment is second to none in the world in terms of quantity and quality, ensuring not only the combat effectiveness of U.S. forces, but also to allies and, to some extent, the versatility of joint warfare.
The U.S. military maintains the world’s largest carrier fleet to date, with 11 aircraft carriers ensuring a global deployment capability that can respond quickly and in a timely manner to regional conflicts, with both sea control and land strikes. The U.S. front-deployed carrier fleet also maintains military deterrence and deters military risk-taking by a few nations. With 14 Ohio-class strategic nuclear submarines and Trident submarine-launched missiles, the U.S. remains the world’s most potent nuclear strike force.
The U.S. Air Force is not only the first in the number and variety of warplanes, but the F-22 and F-35 fifth-generation mainstay fighters are at least one generation ahead of all countries. The U.S. military’s B-1, B-2, and B-52 bombers can travel long distances to all corners of the world, and military bases and aerial refueling aircraft at all locations can provide strong support for long-range bombing.
The U.S. Air Force is not only able to ensure air superiority, B-2 stealth bombers, F-35 fifth-generation stealth multipurpose fighters, M-Q9 drones, so that countries’ air defense systems are defenseless, once launched air attacks, it is likely to make the enemy defenseless. The advanced E-3 early warning aircraft, RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft, P-8 anti-submarine aircraft, EC-130H electric warfare aircraft, E-8 command structure has a complete combat system that is unmatched in the world.
The U.S. also has the world’s most powerful Marine Corps, and the U.S. Army’s amphibious assault fleet is also front-deployed year-round. 9 amphibious assault ships and 23 dock landing ships can be deployed at any time to launch counterattack operations soon, and V-22 rotary-wing helicopters can quickly drop troops from the air to constitute a triple-amphibious landing, and the highly mobile M142 Seamaster rockets have become a powerful counterattack weapon. The U.S. Army has long maintained combat readiness, and the reserve component is equally strong, with M1 tanks and Apache attack helicopters that can be quickly put on the front lines.
The newly established U.S. Space Force is in charge of the world’s largest and most advanced satellite system, providing the most powerful detection and warfare management capabilities. U.S. space weapons are mostly classified, and their actual capabilities are feared to be beyond imagination.
The U.S. military industrial complex continues to push the envelope in the competitive marketplace and is able to continuously build high-performance weapons based on current and future battlefield needs, ensuring that U.S. military equipment is far ahead of the rest of the world.
The U.S. Army conducts parachute training in Alaska, Feb. 18, 2021.
Specialized training and experience advantage
The U.S. military’s training comes from real-world combat experience. Since World War II, the U.S. military has also had the most combat experience in the world. Professional military management ensures that the best military personnel serve as officers at all levels, both in peacetime and on the battlefield, and that lessons are learned in a timely manner to continuously improve the military’s combat capabilities.
The U.S. has high-level military academies that constantly train high-quality military personnel, and the U.S. Army’s systematic military training subjects and planning also ensure soldiers’ tactical literacy and combat readiness.
The U.S. military’s live fire training is not only extensive, it is also the closest training in the world to real-world combat situations. Exercises between the U.S. and its NATO and Indo-Pacific allies are never-ending. The annual Rim of the Pacific military exercises, in which all countries actively participate, are constantly learning from the U.S. military. In each exercise, the U.S. military provides decommissioned large warships as live fire targets to verify the performance and reliability of various weapons. Countries around the world have also been studying and emulating the U.S. military’s training.
The U.S. military has also been leading the way in new warfare concepts. In the Gulf War, the U.S. military demonstrated a new generation of high-tech warfare to the world, and is now leading the way in new concepts of future warfare such as drones, unmanned ships, unmanned vehicles, AI artificial intelligence, and directed kinetic weapons.
The U.S. military serves the country and will not become the private army of someone or a party, which is the basis of the professional management of the U.S. military. The level of education and the quality of the American nation also ensure that the U.S. military has a constant supply of talent. The U.S. concept of competition is also reflected in the military, and a distinct mechanism of winning and losing has long been formed in the U.S. military. The U.S. military is well compensated and is a completely professional endeavor, which has been the key to ensuring that the U.S. military continues to be the strongest in combat.
The U.S. military is divided into six major services: Navy, Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The first five military services are under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense, and the Department of Homeland Security has jurisdiction over the Coast Guard in peacetime. A brief description of the advantages of each of these military services will follow.
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