February 2, 2025

US President Donald Trump presents an executive order during the inaugural parade. US January 20, 2025. Photo: Reuters/Carlos Barria.
By Atilio Boron – Jan 22, 2025
Donald Trump’s return to the White House and the signals he sent from the moment of his inauguration (which continued late into the night at the unexpected press conference that took place in the Oval Office) were tinged with an alarming mixture of arrogance and overconfidence. If anyone still doubts that the United States is the center of an empire, the show put on by the New York tycoon dispels all doubts. But the radical nature of his proposals and his verbiage express, better than anything else, the harsh reality that US imperialism is experiencing an inexorable decline.
This is not a subject that the hegemonic media and the parties of the ruling plutocracy usually talk about, except in hermetic conclaves when the imperial administrators cannot lie to each other. They know that the great world chessboard, to use Zbigniew Brzezinski’s graphic image, has changed and that with the illusion of eternal unipolarity that would characterize the entire 21st century—“the American Century”—vanished, what remains is the laborious construction of a damage limitation strategy to preserve something of the once uncontested hegemony in an international arena characterized by the insurgence of new players in global economy and politics.
Trump’s campaign slogan since 2016, MAGA, reveals this need for the United States to be great again, a tacit confession that, even though it is still an enormously important actor—especially in the military arena—it no longer has the omnipotence it had in the past. China, the main commercial or financial partner of almost one hundred and fifty countries, is undoubtedly the power that sets the pace of the world economy and the planet’s industrial workshop. Russia has risen from the ashes and the almost twenty thousand unilateral coercive measures taken by Washington, especially after the outbreak of war with Ukraine, have had a paradoxical effect: its economy is the fastest growing in Europe, well above Germany, France and the United Kingdom. And, even more importantly, Moscow said goodbye to Europe, producing, together with China and India, its partners in the BRICS, a significant reorientation of the world economy. The original BRICS, not counting the new countries that have recently joined, already surpass the G7 countries in terms of economic output and the projections for the next five years are even more encouraging. Trump plans to fight them with tariffs and duties, but that will only deepen inflationary pressures within the United States.
In this new terrain, where Trump has made all kinds of threats, the White House will also have to deal with the technological backwardness of its country, especially in relation to the formidable progress of China in the broad field of computing, robotics and the so-called “computer sciences,” a topic that was underlined in the memorable speech that Jimmy Carter gave at the Sunday school of the Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, in April 2021. He said that “in the 242 years of its existence, the United States has only been at peace for 16 years. Since 1979, do you know how many times China has been at war with someone? None.” And he concluded: “we have wasted some 3 trillion dollars on military spending instead of investing it, as China did, in technological and scientific developments, and that is why they have taken the lead.”
The obsession with China had clear repercussions for Latin America and the Caribbean. The threat to take back the Panama Canal for the United States because “we gave it to Panama and not to China” reveals a lack of knowledge of the current reality and of the long negotiations that culminated in the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which guaranteed the neutrality of that waterway but also Panamanian control of the Canal. The attempt to sanction countries and ships that operate in the Peruvian mega-port of Chancay, built by the Chinese and operated by a Chinese state-owned company, Cosco Shipping, in association with a Peruvian company linked to mining, is another example of this.
China’s commercial projection in the Arctic, as well as Russia’s military one, precipitated the claim to buy Greenland, which was responded to with an undignified response, due to its groveling, by the Danish government. More serious has been the insinuation that he would designate the Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations, which according to US legislation (in violation of international law) arrogates the extraterritoriality of its jurisdiction and could give rise to an armed attack on Mexican territory. Or the desire to deport millions of undocumented immigrants and militarize the southern border, which would cause a severe economic crisis in states such as California and Texas, to name just two, and a humanitarian crisis of major proportions on both sides of the Rio Grande.
The word “invasion” used to describe the entry of migrants, and his description of them as “criminals, drug traffickers and rapists” reveal the profile of a xenophobic and racist character, as well as a misogynist, homophobic and deeply authoritarian one. He already showed this face of his character in his first term, but then he had an environment that partly moderated these aggressive impulses. Not today. Marco Rubio is a man consumed by his hatred of Cuba and its revolution, just like Mauricio Claver-Carone. His cabinet is dominated by hawks, the hucksters of the military-industrial complex, financial crooks and diehard supporters of Zionism. It was no coincidence that at the ceremony at the One Arena there was a delegation of relatives of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas. On the other hand, there was absolutely no one representing the more than fifty thousand deaths caused by the genocide unleashed by the Israeli government. Finally, in his immediate circle of advisors and officials, there are thirteen billionaires, starting with Elon Musk, an admirer of the German neo-Nazi party who just yesterday saluted the crowd with a Hitler salute. There is no precedent for such a significant downgrade in the history of the US democracy.
There was a striking silence regarding Cuba and Venezuela, although it was clear that one of the first decisions he would make as soon as he was sworn in as president would be to reintroduce the largest of the Antilles to the list of countries that sponsor terrorism, an unspeakable infamy only understandable in the light of the bicentennial US aspiration to take over the island of Cuba. Regarding Venezuela, he said that the United States does not need the South American country’s oil because they, US nationals, have even more oil and are going to extract and export it. There he will have several problems because there are six states, including California and New York, where fracking is banned.
In an arrogant tone he said he is not worried about Latin America because he made the crude error of saying that “they need us, but we don’t need them,” so he expects their governments to accept whatever Washington decides without question. In short, there would be many more issues to analyze in a bombastic, foundational (“today is Liberation Day,” he said), warmongering speech, where he proudly announced that the United States is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on climate change and also from the World Health Organization (WHO). You don’t have to be a fortune teller to predict that as soon as he has to move from words to deeds, the obstacles he will encounter in that change [of approach] will be formidable, both inside and, above all, outside the United States because, despite the conservative right and the colonized spirits that abound in Latin America, the structure of world power has changed and that transition, now complete, is irreversible.
Trump can continue to make his threats and continue with his denial of climate change while a dreadful fire destroys part of Los Angeles, which should force Trump and the techno-feudal barons who accompany him to seriously reflect on climate change. But they won’t. We must prepare for very hard times, not only in Latin America and the Caribbean; but all over the world.
(Atilio Boron Blog)
https://orinocotribune.com/trump-fast-and-furious/
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Under The Dome Simpsons
In major expansion of U.S. nuclear buildup, Trump orders construction of nationwide missile defense system
Originally published: Defend Democracy Press on January 29, 2025 by Andre Damon (more by Defend Democracy Press) | (Posted Feb 03, 2025)
On Monday, President Donald Trump ordered the construction of a new missile defense system covering the United States, the latest move in a years-long drive spanning multiple administrations to massively expand U.S. nuclear capabilities.
Speaking later on Monday, Trump said he would “immediately begin the construction of a state-of-the-art Iron Dome missile defense shield.”
Trump added,
We’re going to ensure that we have the most lethal fighting force in the world.
The executive order “directs implementation of a next-generation missile defense shield for the United States against ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missile, and other next-generation aerial attacks.”
Despite the terminology, nuclear missile defense systems are inherently offensive, not defensive in character. The purpose is to facilitate nuclear first strikes by allowing the country building the shield to carry out a nuclear attack on another nuclear-armed nation, then shoot down the nuclear missiles that are sent in response to the attack.
The announcement comes amid the stated threats by Trump—in addition to continuing the U.S./NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and escalating the military buildup against China—to seize the Panama Canal and Greenland, a territory of NATO member Denmark, through military force. Trump has also threatened to wage war against Mexico and turn Canada into an American state, transforming North America into a battlefield.
The executive order signed by Trump is titled “The Iron Dome for America,” referencing the Israeli Iron Dome missile defense system, which has enabled Israel to attack most of its neighbors—including Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Iran—over the past year, while suffering only limited damage from counterattacks.
The United States is 40 times larger than Israel, and any missile defense system covering the whole of the United States would cost, at minimum, hundreds of billions of dollars—a figure fully in keeping with the multi-trillion-dollar nuclear modernization program that has been underway for years.
Commenting on the scale of the plan, The Wall Street Journal wrote approvingly:
None of this will be cheap, and Mr. Trump will have to seek much more than the $10 billion or so a year that the U.S. now spends on missile defense. He’ll also need champions in the Pentagon and Congress to push it through a bureaucracy that would prefer to spend on other things.
The implication, as the Journal indicates, is that the allocation of resources for this military buildup will entail massive cuts to domestic social spending.
The order instructs Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to submit to the White House within 60 days a “reference architecture, capabilities-based requirements, and an implementation plan for the next-generation missile defense shield.”
It envisions a program for the “Defense of the United States against ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks from peer, near-peer, and rogue adversaries.”
The program would be vast in scale, deploying a new array of sensors for tracking missiles as well as the “development and deployment of proliferated space-based interceptors.”
Trump’s threats to use the American military to carry out his annexationist foreign policy has triggered alarms in Europe. Robert Brieger, chairman of the European Union Military Committee, the bloc’s highest military body, told the German newspaper Die Welt that the EU should deploy military forces to Greenland. “That would send a strong signal,” Brieger said.
Meanwhile, Denmark has announced the allocation of over one billion euros to expand its defenses in the Arctic region, including Greenland. “We must face the fact that there are serious challenges regarding security and defense in the Arctic and North Atlantic,” said Troels Lund Poulsen, the country’s defense minister, on Monday.
Trump’s missile defense program is only the latest move in a massive expansion of U.S. nuclear forces, initiated under the Obama administration, in what U.S. military planners call the “second nuclear age.”
Last October, the New York Times published a feature story, based on over 100 interviews, analyzing a secret plan dedicated to “making America nuclear again” through the creation of a “modern arsenal for a volatile new nuclear age.”
“If you don’t live where the submarines are welded or the missile silos are dug, there’s a good chance you wouldn’t know it’s happening,” the Times wrote.
The federal government has said little about the plan in public, outside of congressional hearings and strategy papers, or the vast amount being spent. There has been no significant debate. The billion-dollar programs move under the radar.
The plan for the “second nuclear age” transcends administrations. The semi-secret nuclear modernization plan, first conceptualized in 2010 under Obama and initiated at scale in 2014, continued and accelerated under Trump and Biden, and is to be further escalated in the second Trump administration.
Against the backdrop of Trump’s proposal to build a new missile defense system for the United States, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer and University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons, warned that the world’s risk of nuclear destruction is the greatest it has ever been.
The Bulletin wrote that “in 2024, humanity edged ever closer to catastrophe… Consequently, we now move the Doomsday Clock from 90 seconds to 89 seconds to midnight—the closest it has ever been to catastrophe.”
The organization warned:
The countries that possess nuclear weapons are increasing the size and role of their arsenals, investing hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons that can destroy civilization. The nuclear arms control process is collapsing, and high-level contacts among nuclear powers are totally inadequate given the danger at hand. Alarmingly, it is no longer unusual for countries without nuclear weapons to consider developing arsenals of their own—actions that would undermine longstanding nonproliferation efforts and increase the ways in which nuclear war could start.
Manpreet Sethi, PhD, speaking for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, warned that the U.S. “seems inclined to expand its nuclear arsenal and adopt a posture that reinforces the belief that ‘limited’ use of nuclear weapons can be managed. Such misplaced confidence could have us stumble into a nuclear war.”
In a detailed annual review of the US’s nuclear forces, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists warned that “The United States has embarked on a wide-ranging nuclear modernization program that will ultimately see every nuclear delivery system replaced with newer versions over the coming decades.”
It concluded:
Based on the Congressional Budget Office’s 2017 estimate, the effort will cost $1.2 trillion (Congressional Budget Office 2017). Notably, although the estimate accounts for inflation, other estimates forecast that the total cost will be closer to $1.7 trillion (Arms Control Association 2017). Whatever the actual price tag will be, historical trends and chronic delays to the modernization program indicate that it is likely to increase over time.
The massive buildup of the nuclear arsenal over the past decade has now been put in the hands of Trump, whose targets for nuclear coercion include not only the former Soviet Union, China and the former colonial world, but also Washington’s imperialist rivals, against whom he has threatened to use the American military.
https://mronline.org/2025/02/03/in-majo ... se-system/
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The US Mafia Boss Lashes Out At His Made Men
Roger Boyd
Feb 03, 2025

The beginning of the end of any mafia boss is when his made men start to question his power, and when he starts to distrust and lash out against those made men. He thinks that he is disciplining those made men and keeping them in line, but he has crossed a line into insulting them and making them question his temperament and decision making. That’s when the made men start looking to make alternative arrangements, while they carefully back away from the mafia boss. One day he finds that he has a lot less made men on his side than he thought he had.
The US in its relative decline had a number of paths to take (i) retrenchment and national renewal (ii) retrenchment and controlled decline (iii) extract value from the vassals to try to renew the imperial heartland (iv) attempt to undermine the development of China and defeat Russia (v) some version of WW3.
1.The profiteering, rentier and extractive US oligarchy that is the product of five decades of neoliberalism utterly blocks a national renewal that would require them to give up so much of their power and profit. The same with a general retrenchment.
2.Retrenchment would negatively affect both the security state and the ability of the US oligarchy to profiteer and exploit across the world. It would also directly clash with the US oligarchy+courtier class view of themselves as the elite of a civilizational-supremacist project; as would a consciously controlled decline.
3.This is the path chosen by the Trump administration
4.This was the previous path chosen by the US oligarchy and it has failed spectacularly. Russia is stronger after three years of war, and has already taken over half of the vast resources of Ukraine to add to its own vast resources. It will take much more. China is overtaking the West across the technological board, and is only accelerating away with its vastly superior political-economic development model. The allied combination of Russia and China is greater than the sum of their parts. ASEAN, India etc. refuse to take sides and are happy to enjoy the growth and development that trade with Russia and China brings. Iran and North Korea find themselves more and more aligned with Russia and China.
5.With nuclear weapons wars will only ever be of a limited nature and through the use of third parties, unless an utter mad man inhabits the White House.
It is hard at the best of times to trigger a truly nationalistic response within the Canadian populace, but what I observe as Trump tariffs and insults Canada is a wave of nationalism across this nation. This wave may also very well destroy the political hopes of Canada’s Trump, Pierre Polievre, as the Liberals jettison the past-his-sell-by-date Trudeau and quite possibly select the central banker Carney. The same nationalist wave is certainly also evident within the Mexican leadership. There will be no quick rollover as with Colombia and Panama, and the relationship between the US and its two neighbouring nations is being damaged for good. And Europe stands by knowing that they are next. Trump has even attacked a UK that runs a trade deficit with the US, but facts do not seem to be a major input to Trump’s decision making nor his ridiculous public statements.
To add to the foreign picture of the US as descending into banana-republic levels of oligarchic dominance, corruption and incompetence we have the lunatic Musk and his little band of helpers causing utter chaos within the core of the US state apparatus. We may celebrate the neutering of the regime-change agent USAID, but this is just a drive-by impact of chaos within the US state apparatus. This is utter music to the ears of the Russian and Chinese leadership, as the rest of the world comes to grips with a US that has become an utterly abusive narcissist both through its policies and the actual personage of the US President. To simply appear as sane, reasonable and agreement-capable is to shine like a bright light against the darkness, corruption and sheer unpredictability of US foreign policy. With a US soft power that was already deeply undermined by the unconditional support of the Zionist genocide now being thoroughly torn asunder. Any manager of US brands abroad can only be in anguish as the US President destroys what is left of brand USA. Tesla already had a huge target on its back after the Musk Nazi Brand Suicide, and Musk’s close alignment with the new bully Trump can only further turn the Tesla brand into a negative.
The Imperial Mafia Boss is now displaying its weakness to the made men, and to the members of the other gangs who can see the internal chaos within the Westerns. The other gangs will be watching for those Westerns gang members who are looking to hedge their bets and will be welcoming to their approaches. The Decline of the West has moved into a new stage, where the imperial core starts to trigger the collapse of its empire through its own selfish and short-sighted actions. But that is all it can do when it is now fully dominated by a profiteering, rentier, short-sighted, delusional and ever-greedy oligarchy.
With his delay of the Mexican sanctions for a month in response to a purely public affairs response by Mexico, Trump has shown even greater unpredictability and weakness. His use of the “nuclear-option” of tariffs for such a small gain shows a very bad card player. Now what can he do with a Canada that is in no way a major source of fentanyl or illegal immigrants, and has been a very loyal vassal for years? And what about even his domestic credibility? Flailing around needlessly is not an effective imperial management strategy. And now Canada has offered a few extra promises and got a one month delay. What a joke.
https://rogerboyd.substack.com/p/the-us ... out-at-his
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Why anti-imperialists and anti-war people should welcome Trump’s “FAFO diplomacy”
Finian Cunningham
February 3, 2025
Ron Ridenour, a veteran anti-imperialist activist and writer, says he is happy to see Donald Trump as the US President. But not for any positive reasons about Trump as a politician or his administration. Ridenour has contempt for the 47th president (and many of his White House predecessors.)
[youtube]https//youtu.be/1pF20HrH6FM[/youtube]
Trump’s bullying foreign policy could be coined as FAFO diplomacy: “F..ck around and find out”.
Ridenour, the author of the book The Russian Peace Threat, believes that Trump is “good” in that he is exposing the charade of American claims about democracy and “protecting its allies” of the so-called “free world.”
Trump is so reckless and unhinged he is exploding the myths about Western allies and supposed Western values of democracy and respect for international law.
The claims about US and Western virtues are so absurd. In the eight decades since the Second World War, the United States and its allies have waged more wars than any other nation – and yet they dare to call Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, and so on, “threats” to global security.
Ridenour refers to the latest debacle (among many) of Trump demanding the acquisition of Greenland territory under the control of the United States. His threat to take the Arctic island by force, if necessary, from has-been European colonial power Denmark is throwing the whole transatlantic alliance between the US and Europe into utter uproar and chaos.
In so doing, Trump is, unbeknownst to himself, accelerating the downfall of the US-led Western order, says Ridenour. That order was always about the imperialist dominance of a minority of privileged nations over the majority. Out of that dominance were born endless wars, conflicts, degradation, and poverty.
Trump is no different in terms of being another arrogant imperialist president who thinks the United States has an exceptional right to dominate. But what makes him different is the unvarnished and bombastic style that blows away the charade of the “benevolent” US power and its Western allies.
Kicking ass as Trump is doing is raw imperialist thuggery which is showing up the reality of US foreign policy and its supposed Western allies as nothing more than pathetic lackeys.
Trump is unintentionally but very effectively showing the real nature of US brute power and also showing the craven nature of European governments as abject lackeys that are servile to US power rather than representing the democratic needs of their people.
Sooner or later, American and European working people must realize the illegitimacy of their rulers and the rotten, war-driven system of capitalist exploitation – and hence fight to organize better societies and a better world of peace, justice, and genuine development.
Ridenour maintains that the new multipolar order promised by the BRICS nations of the Global South (the world’s majority) led by Russia and China, and others is offering a historic challenge to the corrupt Western order.
According to Ridenour, the new US president is the first one in a long while who is brutally undiplomatic about American power and how it relates to the rest of the world. That brutal reality makes the Western order and NATO untenable and unsustainable. That is why veteran anti-imperialist campaigner Ron Ridenour is cheering Trump on to do his worst. Out of chaos and disaster may arise a new politics of resistance to make a better world.
The first order of business is to clear away the lies and false pretenses of Western democracy and virtue. Trump is such a wrecking ball, he is hastening the process. There may be a lot of disturbance, hardships and pain ahead, but at least out of the chaos unleashed by Trump something good may arise if people know what is at stake and what they have to fight for.
Trump bombastically declares he is Making America Great Again. More like it, he is hastening a revolution without even realizing it, one where billionaire oligarchs like him are eventually taken down.
That’s if Trump is not taken out by the US Deep State, who may view him as too reckless and an unbearable threat to the American empire and its hegemonic global racket.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... diplomacy/
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2.2 billion gallons of water flowed out of California reservoirs because of Trump’s order to open dams
By Ella Nilsen, CNN
Published 6:50 PM EST, Mon February 3, 2025

Lake Kaweah, a reservoir formed by the Terminus Dam, in Lemon Cove, California, in 2022 during a period of drought and low water levels. Bing Guan/Bloomberg/Getty Images
CNN
—
The US Army Corps of Engineers opened two dams on Friday in Central California and let roughly 2.2 billion gallons of water flow out of reservoirs, after President Donald Trump ordered the release with the misguided intent to send water to fire-ravaged Southern California.
Trump celebrated the move in posts to Truth Social post on Friday and Sunday, declaring, “the water is flowing in California,” and adding the water was “heading to farmers throughout the State, and to Los Angeles.”
There are two major problems, water experts said: The newly released water will not flow to Los Angeles, and it is being wasted by being released during the wet winter season.
“They were holding extra water in those reservoirs because of the risk that it would be a dry summer,” said Heather Cooley, director of research for California water policy organization the Pacific Institute. “This puts agriculture at risk of insufficient water during the summer months.”
On Friday, Trump posted that 1.6 billion gallons was being released adding that “in 3 days, it will be 5.2 billion gallons.”
About 2.2 billion gallons were released from Friday to Sunday, local water districts said in a statement released Monday. That water was discharged into the dry lakebed of Tulare Lake, according to a letter from Sen. Alex Padilla to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
“Downstream entities used these releases for limited irrigation demand and groundwater recharge,” the statement said.
CHICO, CALIFORNIA - JULY 30: The Park Fire burns through the night on July 30, 2024 near Chico, California. The Park Fire is now the fifth largest wildfire in California history, growing to 385,064 acres with 14 precent contained. The fire was started by arson on July 24 and grew to more than 70,000 acres in the first 24 hours. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
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“This release is extremely concerning,” Cooley said. “It’s providing zero benefit and putting California farmers at risk of water supply constraints in the coming months.”
California Department of Water Resources director Karla Nemeth told reporters that there was little coordination between federal officials and the state and local water managers for the Army Corps releases at the Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah and Schafer Dam at Lake Success.
“These reservoirs were federal reservoirs, and the state of California was not part of the decision making in this instance,” Nemeth said. “We traditionally have a high degree of coordination at the operational level, which really wasn’t a part of this decision.”
California’s State Water project supplies water from Northern California to Southern California, including to Los Angeles. Los Angeles’ water supply comes partly from state reservoirs and partly from the Colorado River.
But Los Angeles’ water sources are completely separated from the water system that Lake Kaweah and Lake Success supply. That water system flows into the agriculture-heavy Central Valley — where large farms grow nuts, citrus and grasses for animal feed, among other crops. The water-stressed region is heavily reliant on groundwater and winter precipitation stored in state reservoirs to irrigate crops.
The US Army Corps of Engineers and the White House did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
https://us.cnn.com/2025/02/03/climate/t ... index.html
The arrogance of ignorance on full display. Most ignorant people are so through no fault of their own but Donny chose to squander the opportunities available to him cunningly banking on the reality that the mega-rich largely make their own reality and can always hire an answer when their 'gut feelings' and 'common sense' fail to.
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In Related News ...
... water is wet, the fire is hot, and Trump Admin has no clue what is going on. Neither does Pentagon and CIA.
Feb 3 (Reuters) - U.S. shipments of weapons into Ukraine were briefly paused in recent days before resuming over the weekend as the Trump administration debated its policy towards Kyiv, according to four people briefed on the matter. Shipments restarted after the White House pulled back on its initial assessment to stop all aid to Ukraine, two of the sources said. There are factions inside the administration that are at odds over the extent to which the U.S. should continue to aid Kyiv's war effort with weapons from U.S. stocks, said one of the people, a U.S. official.
How many times--it is all about the US trying to prove itself which it never was and could never be--a serious continental warfare power. I will repeat (again)--the Army which venerates Patton as a serious military leader--it is long overdue for studying real warfare.
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2025/02 ... -news.html