The objective is the same for every superpower in the world: to try and establish military hegemony and retain it for as long as possible.

I'd believe that if we won the wars instead of losing them all.

This is just looting.

South Korea's doing pretty well.

Germany's in one piece.

The Balkans aren't on fire.

Granted, the Middle East is still its perpetual religious/sectarian/ethnic clusterfuck...

How's America though?

Still democratic and #1/#2 in the world, by most measures. Was there something specific you were looking for?

We pay a european level of taxes (and rising) in order to receive a "safety net" thinner than Cuba, mostly so we can drop bombs on brown people and shadowy "communists"/"terrorists"/"freedom haters"/"yellow cake enjoyers"/"nazis that arent Ukrainian". What's the metric for that?

Number of world wars or countries invaded?

You tell me if you don't know.

You’d have a point if you made this comment 15 years ago, but Russia invaded Ukraine 10 years ago. Around the same time, China started to make outlandish claims on the South China Sea.

You can make a lot of complaints about the defense industry like waste and corruption, but a lack of a clear objective is no longer an issue.

Hopefully I’m beyond the draft age of it comes to it but I don’t want a shooting war in my lifetime.

You should read the 4th Turning which is about the Strauss Howe generational theory

Something like: Strong people make good times, good times make soft people, soft people make bad times, bad times make strong people?

Looks interesting I’ll check it out, thanks!

Yeah, but it’s more about another shooting war.

This is an absurdity. The US did counterinsurgency brush fires and that's it since major combat operations ended in Iraq. Go look at Ukraine. THAT is what "being at war" looks like, and you should be thankful we haven't been forced to do that for 30 years.