That might be true. However price is what you pay, value is what you get. Price is very high and value is very low. Give that money to Russians and see what they do with it. or give it to Taliban and see how much they can accomplish. In those terms American Military is either the worse in the world or simply the system itself is not serving purpose of the nation but of the war profiteers.

US military has been described and criticized as being overabundant firepower supported by overabundant logistics. This is not efficient warfare. This is efficient way to keep the military industrial complex alive and thriving. But when all is said and done, someone has to pay for all that. And someone will. Right now is the Afghan "Army" . Tomorrow it will be American people.

@Krunoslav Nobody complains about "too much" firepower when you come flying in from over-the-horizon to save their asses.
Warfare is not meant to be efficient. It is a "last resort" response to a failure of diplomacy. Cost effectiveness is not a factor in that situation... value is not the objective.
Eliminating an existential threat to national security is the objective, money is no object.
That's why it's so profitable for the "Military/Industrial Complex", and that is what incentivizes them to consistently overstate existential threats and recommend the most profitable solutions to the National Command Authority; at least some of the time, if not most of the time.
That quite predictable reality should be dampened by the elected, impartial civilian leadership that directs the military leadership regarding acquisitions, readiness, and deployment; and the elected, impartial civilian Representatives who pay for it on behalf of the citizens... with the citizens' money of course.
That arrangement has an Achilles' heel: accountability.
Their "impartiality" is for sale, like everything else in the world; certainly not for ALL of them... but enough of them can be bought or coerced into selling out their own constituents.
The entire framework of the American "system" relies on accountability among the players; accomplished through Oversight, Checks & Balances, and ultimately Elections.
When they collude among themselves to their own mutual benefit, and even corrupt the elections process to keep the game going... then all bets are off; and the whole framework crashes and burns.
The "military/industrial complex" is a good example... but it's just one of them.

@rway "Warfare is not meant to be efficient."

Actually the first rule of warfare is efficiency.

Sun Tzu says, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” He also says, “Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”

"It is a "last resort" response to a failure of diplomacy."

In normal terms that would be true. However American forign policy is preemptive war that benefits war profiteers. For them cost / benefit ratio is very different than for average American. The Military Industrial complex needs forever wars because that is how they make their money. And they need way too much firepower and logistics , wastefully so, because that is how they make the money.

By rewarding sweet deals to companies that later either hire them as "consultants", known as revolving door, or they get a cut during the deal. This has meant that corruption drains the money for not effectiveness in war but for personal gain.

Why Do So Many US Military Projects Fail?

"Their "impartiality" is for sale, like everything else in the world; certainly not for ALL of them... but enough of them can be bought or coerced into selling out their own constituents.
The entire framework of the American "system" relies on accountability among the players; accomplished through Oversight, Checks & Balances, and ultimately Elections.
When they collude among themselves to their own mutual benefit, and even corrupt the elections process to keep the game going... then all bets are off; and the whole framework crashes and burns.
The "military/industrial complex" is a good example... but it's just one of them. "

True.

@Krunoslav Sun Tzu taught that there are no rules to war.
Conflict by other means is obviously preferable... but we'd probably just call that "international competition"; e.g. Economic or Ideological warfare. Whereas the Chinese are more in-line with Sun, recognizing that it's all the same thing.

In the West, we used to be chivalrous and honorable to a fault... deception was actually avoided as armies met at the predetermined location and took turns shooting at each other; even breaking for lunch or to remove the wounded in mutual cease-fires.
Eventually, North American colonists learned the utility of guerilla warfare from the Natives, and used it with great success against the superior British forces standing all in a row with their bright red coats.
Once "America" was established, our original philosophy regarding international conflict was to stay out of it unless our own interests were clearly being threatened, as they were in the Barbary wars.

We in the modern West are more influenced by Carl von Clausewitz than Sun Tzu, though we study both in our military academies.
Clausewitz argued that "...of all the possible aims in war, the destruction of the enemy’s armed forces always appears as the highest.” He pretty much argued that if you've got an enemy... then gather everything you've got and attack until the enemy is destroyed; what we would refer to as "Total War".
In the nuclear age, we've shied away from "total war"; because "everything we've got" includes nukes, and nukes are "mean".

Also, we can't focus on "effectiveness"... because that would imply that a measurable goal exists in the first place.
We now approach every conflict as some sort of half-assed international "police action", liberation, or nation-building operation, in which we try to appear victorious while hiding under the auspices of a largely-token "Coalition", and without actually doing anything that will look bad on the News.
We are perpetually tip-toeing through the battlespace with one hand tied, conceding "temporary setbacks" and claiming minor, incremental "victories" that are presumed to be ultimately leading toward some nebulous and malleable End State objective that is never even defined clearly and succinctly; and so, is never realized.
Our Congress doesn't even bother declaring war anymore, which is their (and theirs alone) Constitutional duty... which they haven't exercised since WWII.
Instead, they cash checks and nod their approval for whatever the National Command Authority decides they feel like doing around the world; insofar as it is politically expedient of course... and the "donations" keep coming in.
That works out great for those who make their fortunes waging perpetual "conflict"... not so great for everyone else.

@rway "Sun Tzu taught that there are no rules to war."

Explain that.

@Krunoslav The concept of following prearranged Rules is antithetical to everything Sun wrote.
No tactical option should ever be considered "off the table".
...know your enemy, know yourself, know the goal and the current situation.
Your tactics toward the goal should be informed and adapted by that dynamic context, and only that context.
The more "humane" option is almost always more strategically advantageous, but when it's not... it's not.
To constrain yourself to a set of predetermined rules, such as the Geneva Conventions, is a ludicrous concept that would only limit your options and make you more predictable, and thereby vulnerable.
To agree to those Conventions could be advantageous... but actually holding yourself to them remains optional, and only desirable insofar as it achieves the desired effect without relinquishing any ground that is more strategically important.

@rway By Rules Sun Tzu was referring to the principles. When he does mention specifics, it is to illustrate the principles or to demonstrate difference between strategy and tactics. To disregard the principles he was taking about would be to lose the battle and ultimately war. He was all about the principles, rules of war if you like, not one invented by people participating in the war, but law of war that govern consequences. That is why his advice is still relevant after thousands of years.

If you talk about specific legal rules like for example "Geneva Conventions", than yes, I agree the other sides does not need to honor it if they want to win. But Sun Tzu was talking about another kind of rules, the rules of war that remain no matter what legalities are. Concepts and principles.

For example: The Art of War, By Sun Tzu. Chapter 1 Modern Interpretation

@Krunoslav exactly

If I'm not mistaken the old regime also lied to Trump about almost everything as well, like with so many things they try to undermined the outsider.

I think Trump would have done a better job, but he still depends on the people working for him and most of them are part of the establishment, seeing him as intruder. But Biden administration is special kind of disaster, so I can't argue with that.

@Krunoslav Trump still had a long way to go weeding those traitors out... but he was determined to keep at it.
And they knew it. That's why they threw out all caution to cheat, lie and steal... anything, just to get him out of there.

@rway Someone said something interesting about trump. He was an outsider so he rocked the boat sort of speak which meant that CCP and DC didn't always know how to respond, he was unpredictable. He often seemingly made good "mistakes" on instinctive. And they did not quote know how to get rid of him.

By not being career politician he did not act in predicable ways. That was his biggest strengths and biggest weakness. Stremght was that he was not corrupt in the same way. and in many ways he was a liberal and patriot. Not a globalist career politician.

The weakness was that unlike Obama or those other career politicians, he did not understood how everything works so he often surrounded himself with people who stabbed him in the back. He said he is loyal to a fault and often he assumed others would be as well, and that was a weakness in DC.

Second biggest weakness was probably that he did not understood institutional warfare. Obama and others left many of their followers in the public, civilian and military institutions and when their term was up, the policies left with their people. Trump did not do that , so when they got rid of him, they also got rid of his people.

His biggest legacy is that to get rid of him they were forced to come out of the shadows and show American people and everyone in the world just how corrupt the system is. And second thing he left behind is populism as they call it. Or we might call it Trump ism.

@Krunoslav

"they were forced to come out of the shadows and show American people and everyone in the world just how corrupt the system is."

Exactly. First time ever they exposed themselves. Now, because the sickness they represent is so widespread the wolves needed to move fast and that's precisely what they've done.

I personally am not optimistic about the outcome. The Biden Admin has been a disaster from the get go on every front, frankly I suspect they are tickled pink at how quickly they've been able to destroy this nation. We see disaster but they see victory.