The United States emerged from its victory in World War II as the world's preeminent superpower. Its annual military budget—about three-quarters of a trillion dollars a year—exceeds the aggregate of the next ten countries in the world.
Yet despite America's apparent global military supremacy, of the approximately dozen wars the U.S. has fought since 1945 (depending on how you're counting) the U.S. has lost every real war it has fought. (Its only "victories" have been minor military incursions to overthrow unfriendly governments in Grenada, population approximately 120,000, and Panama, population approximately 4.2 million.)
After millions of deaths of Americans and foreigners and trillions of dollars lost in places like Vietnam, Afghanistan, and the Middle East, is the U.S. any safer and secure because it fought these losing wars in far-off lands? No.
Have the American people benefited from these wars? No. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have been killed or wounded and trillions of dollars have been spent.
So if the American people don't benefit from these endless losing wars, why do we keep fighting them? The short answer is that there are powerful forces in America that get rich from endless wars: The military-industrial complex and its political and economic servants and enablers.
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Opinion | Despite Trillions Spent, the US Military Hasn't Won a Real War Since 1945 | Miles Mogulescu
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