Is The Age Of An All-Powerful Military Coming To An End?

The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan travels through the Pacific Ocean with other ships assigned to the Rim of the Pacific 2010 exercise, north of Hawaii, July 24, 2010. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Dylan McCord

An All-Powerful Military Isn't What It Used To Be -- Charles Kenny, Bloomberg Businessweek

As the U.S. government debates what to do about Syrian chemical weapons use—and the stated aim threads the needle between nothing at all and a strike that would markedly affect the course of the civil war—it’s a good time to reflect on the declining utility of overwhelming global military dominance. The good news is that this declining utility is likely to apply beyond the U.S., to any other country that might one day rise to military superpower status.

Brookings Institution scholar Robert Kagan has noted that the U.S.’s current military and economic position looks like Britain circa 1870, when the empire was at the height of its power. Of course, many people in 1870s Britain will have had distinct memories of the country’s disastrous invasion of Afghanistan. Even today on Kabul’s Chicken Street you can buy a Lee Enfield rifle with VR—Victoria Regina—engraved on it, copied from examples left over from the rout of the British army’s inglorious retreat in 1842. Being the top nation militarily or economically hasn’t ever meant you would always get what you wanted everywhere.

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My Comment: War has been a part of mankind since the beginning .... but the development of destructive weapons that can decimate the planet is a new development .... and one that has limited all-powerful armies from exercising the destructive capabilities that they can now use. Since the end of the Second World War we have not experienced a massive war .... but we have had numerous small wars and conflicts .... and this is a trend that I expect to continue. But if major powers should ever find themselves in a position where war becomes the decision of choice .... then heaven help us on what comes next.