So the taliban or the Vietcong were more powerful than the US military? They won because they were defending their own country which gives them higher motivation and an advantage as defenders. If you look at the military itself, the US was always much more powerful.

If you lose nobody cares about how powerful you are.

The Russian army is more powerful than Ukraine‘s, still no win. Same with Russia in Afghanistan.

Ok, but they still are more powerful. That’s what the discussion was about. Having a disadvantage and losing doesn’t mean it’s not the most powerful military that ever existed.

But it a useless measure if the results aren’t as expected.

That’s like saying I have the most expensive car in Formula 1.

Powerful is associated with winning that’s the whole point of pointing it out.

No, it's like doing a drag race with a formula 1 car against a mini but the mini is on a street and the formula 1 car is on a dirt strip. If you want to compare military power, you would have to look at "Who would win in equal situations", not "Who won a 1 vs 1 with different starting situations".

If you had to perform a military action and had to pick either the taliban or the US military to be your military to use, would you ever pick the taliban?

The only reason they had a chance was because of external factors, not the power of the military itself.

I'm not sure if you are joking or not, but anybody who measures military power doesn't actually looks at things like ability to do something. Talbian and co simply survive and don't give up. But they are totally incapable of anything else beyond that.

> Conventional armies have a hard stand against partisans.

No they don't. Its just not worth doing in the long run.

And whatever you may think of the US military forces, they have the ability to do lots of things.

Anybody who cares looks at the results.

Result beats potential.

And most of the US military except the special forces need time of from work and visit the army shop.

Anybody who actually cares, you know actual professionals, looks at things beyond a very limited set of real world results in very restrictive circumstance.

That's like saying, this NBA team after a 5d journey, and no sleep played a basketball game against a local team, with the whole crowd hostile, a complete broke court and a totally different ball.

And even then they would win for 20 years straight and the other team is only annoying to deal with. Until the owner decide there is no point in it.

And from this you conclude that that NBA team is bad at basketball because 'real-world results'.

guy forgot what he was told to never forget

So the Taliban have ten aircraft carriers and the ability to bomb any target on Earth without losing the plane?

You are delusional, if you think the USAF can bomb any target in any airspace without losing the plane. If losing the plane is allowed, you have to admit, the Taliban have been exceptionally successful, too.

> You are delusional, if you think the USAF can bomb any target in any airspace without losing the plane.

You're delusional if you don't think that. You could just launch a few dozen cruise missiles at the target and at least one will make it through.

Depending on the target your cruise missiles are out of range and your fancy aircraft will have to face air defense systems. (Especially, since you moved your fat ass carrier close-by...)

So, does your magical aircraft carry those dozens of cruise missiles, immune to every modern anti-air missile it will encounter? You know, instead of spending all that money on aircraft carriers, some countries have spent their money on air defense instead. Try to fly an F35 to Moscow.

Sorry, but this is laughable. If what you said was true, geopolitics would look very different. The US would break the whole nuclear deterrence game, since you could eliminate all nuclear launch sites, conventionally, before a strike. Why even have nukes then?!

> Depending on the target your cruise missiles are out of range and your fancy aircraft will have to face air defense systems. (Especially, since you moved your fat ass carrier close-by...)

Right, but the scenario was unspecified enough that I assumes peace time and the planes can retreat before the enemy notices the attack and shoots them down.

> Try to fly an F35 to Moscow.

I won't fly my F-35 to Moscow, I will drop some AGM-158 JASSM-ER over eastern poland and the pilots will probably be back on the ground before the russian air defense has even tracked the missiles.

> Sorry, but this is laughable. If what you said was true, geopolitics would look very different. The US would break the whole nuclear deterrence game, since you could eliminate all nuclear launch sites, conventionally, before a strike. Why even have nukes then?!

No, I don't get why people think that. That's the exact reason why countries have Nuclear missile subs. So they can retaliate, even after a first strike.

But even if they hadn't, what you said wouldn't follow. Because having the ability to strike whatever you want doesn't mean you can prevent a second strike. If you launch cruise missiles, the target can detect them and send a retaliatory nuclear strike before the cruise missiles arrive and destroy the silos.

> The US would break the whole nuclear deterrence game, since you could eliminate all nuclear launch sites, conventionally, before a strike.

I didn't say the US could hit all points on Earth simultaneously. Russia has a bunch of nuclear silos and submarines. Brighter Russians than you have designed their nuclear arsenal to survive this US capability.