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 Why? Up until 2014, our defense contractors work building missiles in a way that maximized their profits but slowed down productivity . At best, we can sustain projectile-based fighting (offense and defense) for about a week . Also, a lot of the military budget is spent on Tricare .  Our stockpiles has been depleted (see also the above link) in other combat operations and replenishment is both costly and time-consuming (as in: would take years to replenish ).   All an opponent of the US Military has to do is survive the initial attack, kinda like:

 

Growing up, I was led to believe that the one thing stopping the entire planet from suffering a nuclear winter was that those in charge (aka the world leaders) cared too much about themselves or those close to them to ever put us all in that situation. Now (especially in light of what's happened over the last few months), I am not too sure. Back in January 2023, the US Navy Commander David Post for the US Naval Institute attempted to address the " value and limits " of deterrence. First he sought out a definition: Two leading deterrence scholars, Alex George and Richard Smoke, define deterrence as “simply the persuasion of one’s opponent that the costs and/or risks of a given course of action he might take outweigh its benefits.” Deterrence, therefore, hinges on a rational process of calculating costs and benefits and will succeed when the opponent concludes that the considered activity will not be worth the effort. Honestly, I like this definition, even though it implies...