Losing Military Supremacy: The Myopia of American Strategic Planning

Time after time the American military has failed to match loftydeclarations about its superiority, producing instead a mediocrerecord of military accomplishments. Starting from the Korean Warthe United States hasn’t won a single war against a technologicallyinferior, but mentally tough enemy.The technological dimension of American “strategy” hascompletely overshadowed any concern with the social, cultural,operational and even tactical requirements of military (andpolitical) conflict. With a new Cold War with Russia emerging, theUnited States enters a new period of geopolitical turbulencecompletely unprepared in any meaningful way—intellectually,economically, militarily or culturally—to face a reality which washidden for the last 70+ years behind the curtain of never-endingChalabi moments and a strategic delusion concerning Russia,whose history the US viewed through a Solzhenitsified caricaturekept alive by a powerful neocon lobby, which even todaydominates US policy makers’ minds.This book• explores the dramatic difference between the Russian andUS approach to warfare, which manifests itself across the wholespectrum of activities from art and the economy, to the respectivenational cultures;• illustrates the fact that Russian economic, military andcultural realities and power are no longer what American “elites”think they are by addressing Russia’s new and elevated capacitiesin the areas of traditional warfare as well as cyberwarfare andspace; and• studies in depth several ways in which the US can simplystumble into conflict with Russia and what must be done to avoid it.Martyanov’s former Soviet military background enables deepinsight into the fundamental issues of warfare and military poweras a function of national power—assessed correctly, not throughthe lens of Wall Street “economic” indices and a FIRE economy,but through the numbers of enclosed technological cycles andculture, much of which has been shaped in Russia by continentalwarfare and which is practically absent in the US.

"Martyanov's must-read book is the ultimate Weapon of Myth Destruction (WMD). And unlike the Saddam Hussein version, this one actually exists.” PEPE ESCOBAR, AsiaTimes

"Andrei Martyanov's book is an absolute 'must read' for any person wanting to understand the reality of modern warfare and super-power competition." THE SAKER

"The arrogant hubris of American exceptionalism and the myths that sustain it are subjected to devastating analysis in this long overdue book..." PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

ANDREI MARTYANOV is an expert on Russian military and naval issues. He was born in Baku, USSR in 1963. He graduated from the Kirov Naval Red Banner Academy and served as an officer on the ships and staff position of Soviet Coast Guard through 1990. He took part in the events in the Caucasus which led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. In mid-1990s he moved to the United States where he currently works as Laboratory Director of a commercial aerospace group. He is a frequent blogger on the US Naval Institute Blog and on unz.com.

The coming of the revolutionary S-500 air-defense system may completely close Russia and her allies' airspace from any aerial or even ballistic threats. These developments alone completely devalue the astronomically expensive USAF front line combat aviation and its colossal investment into the very limited benefits of stealth, a euphemism for primarily “invisibility” in radio diapason, the mediocre F-35 being a prime example of the loss of common engineering, tactical and operational sense. Radiophotonics detection technologies will make all expenditures on stealth, without exception, simply a waste of money and resources. No better experts on how to waste resources exist than those sponsored by the US military-industrial complex. The situation is no better at sea. The introduction into service in 2017 of the 3M22 Zircon hyper-sonic missile is already dramatically redefining naval warfare and makes even remote sea zones a “no-sail” zone for any US major surface combatant, especially aircraft carriers. Currently, and for the foreseeable future, no technology capable to intercept such a missile exists or will exist. The US Navy still retains a world-class submarine force, but even this force will have huge difficulties when facing the challenge of increasingly deadly and silent non-nuclear submarines which are capable, together with friendly sea and shore-based anti-submarine forces, to completely shut down their own littorals from any kind of threat. Once access through littorals and the sea and even some oceans zones that matter are shut down, as they are being now, one of the main pillars of American naval doctrine and strategy―the ability to project power―collapses. With it collapses the main pillar of American superpowerdom, or, at least, of its illusion. The late Scott Shuger formulated an American naval contradiction:

"Because navies can go quietly over the horizon in ways armies can't, naval development presents a country with unique opportunities for going wrong. When a continental power like the United States disregards its natural defense barriers and builds big battle fleets, it has turned from geopolitical realities towards a troublesome kind of make-believe. This kind of navy exists only to defeat other navies that are similarly inclined. That's justifiable only if other navies like that already exist."

No carrier-centric navies, other than the US Navy, exist, nor will they exist in the nearest future ...