Military

Yes, the U.S. Military Is In Decline. And There Is No Need to Panic

The question isn’t whether unipolarity will persist, or whether U.S. primacy will endure. “Unipolarity” and “primacy” do not necessarily include the military, economic, and diplomatic capability of dictating terms on Russia’s borders, or at China’s twelve mile limit. The United States will never feel as invulnerable as it did in the 1990s, mostly because the 1990s were a deeply weird period in the history of modern geopolitics.

Last week, Air Force General Frank Gorenc argued that the airpower advantage the United States has enjoyed over Russia and China is shrinking. This warning comes as part of a deluge of commentary on the waning international position of the United States. The U.S. military, it would seem, is at risk of no longer being able to go where it wants, and do what it wants to whomever it wants. Diplomatically, the United States has struggled, as of late, to assemble “coalitions of the willing” interested in following Washington into the maw of every waiting crisis.