Yuri Selivanov. The myth of US military omnipotence
The other day, the official representative of the Pentagon said sad for this department news: “The Ministry of Defense no longer has the sole access to the most advanced technologies or the ability to control their development, as before.” Who exactly is responsible for depriving the US of the monopoly position in the field of military know-how, said First Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Wark, who at a conference at the New American Security Center in Washington said that because of the growing capabilities of Russia and China, NATO countries need to invest in innovative weapons.
The military achievements of the two countries mentioned above deserve a separate discussion. And now it seems to us important to assess how this is the case in the United States. And not from the point of view of innovative exoticism, about which the grandmother said in two, it will give some effect or not, but taking into account the existing, the most essential components of their military power.
In addition, we will try to consider the power capabilities and prospects of America in a somewhat unusual perspective - not in an abstract global context, but exclusively in relation to the particular case of the so-called projection of force - in relation to the Russian Federation. After all, only the lazy is not talking about the growing likelihood of such a development of events in recent times.
So, what is the American military power in the context of its possible use directly against Russia? This is indeed a key issue on the military agenda, since no other country in Russia can even theoretically threaten, and after the collapse of the USSR, America also tried not to abuse direct projection of military power against the Russian Federation.
As a result, it turned out that everything that we know about the combat capabilities of the US Armed Forces is associated with the use of these forces against countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya or Yugoslavia. What, you see, in comparison with Russia is not the same thing. And from this it follows logically that the relative success of the American military formations in these local wars does not prove anything from the point of view of the Russian Federation, since they dealt with qualitatively different objects of force influence.
So how does the US Armed Forces look like in relation to the tasks that they may have to solve on the front of the fight against Russia? At once we will say that, in our opinion, they look rather pale. Especially if we put the nuclear-missile potential out of the brackets, according to which the United States and Russia maintain approximate parity, and its actual use is pure suicide from the military and state point of view. Especially for the United States, as a state, is more complex and extremely fragile.
Among the non-nuclear means of waging so-called conventional warfare, the first place in the United States is, of course, naval fleet. Which is quite natural from the point of view of the geographical position of this power, separated from most of the rest of humanity by two major oceans. Since the time of Admiral Mahan, who developed the theory of American sea power at the beginning of the 20th century, it was the navy that bore the main burden of conveying American “ideals” to all corners of the planet. The navy’s fundamental importance as the main military force was also emphasized by its own aviation (deck-based) and ground forces - in the form of a marine corps. That is, in fact, the US Navy is such an army in the army, which has everything necessary for an autonomous warfare even at the ends of the world. This strategy of the American long arm was fully completed in the middle of the XNUMXth century after the final formation of the aircraft carrier fleet, with the help of which it was possible to ensure the combat stability of military groups at any distance from the United States itself.
The Americans very successfully used their fleet during the war in the Pacific with Japan, where in conditions of an extremely large and comfortable ocean carrier theater for deck-based aviation, a real “aircraft carrier revolution” took place, following which these huge ships became the main striking force of the fleet and means of warfare.
In the post-war period, the justification of aircraft carrier strategy in the eyes of Americans was repeatedly confirmed during US military interventions in Korea, Indochina, Latin America, the Middle East and even in Europe (Yugoslavia).
It would seem that America has no reason to be discouraged. In her hands is the most powerful instrument of global military-political dictate, which has repeatedly confirmed in practice its highest effectiveness. Moreover, Russia, in any case, so far has no analogous counter force, and its possibilities for successfully combating aircraft carrier groups in the ocean are quite hypothetical.
However, one has only to take a close look at the globe of the planet Earth, as doubts immediately arise about the high effectiveness of the use of the US aircraft carrier fleet against Russia. Unfortunately for the American admirals, the Russian Federation is geographically located in such a way that it is practically impossible to approach it at a distance that provides at least the minimum efficiency of the use of aircraft carriers to support ground forces. Judge for yourself. In the south, the maximum that the American carrier-carrier strike group (AUG) can reach is the Turkish straits of Bosporus and Dardanelles. Further the continuous headache begins. Firstly, the passage of aircraft carriers into the Black Sea is legally prohibited by the Montreux Convention of the 1936 year. Secondly, it is far from a fact that Turkey, which has become very independent in recent years, will let them through there. The Turks have recently had quite a few additional motives for respecting Russia, which cannot be said about their attitude to the United States.
But even if Washington manages to persuade Turkey by hook or by crook and force it to let the aircraft carriers through, this in no way changes the fundamental fact that the Black Sea is simply too small for the successful operational activities of such naval units. And this is not to mention the fact that Russian Crimea militarily reliably controls the entire Black Sea basin, and the aircraft carriers currently deployed there missile and aviation weapons are quite sufficient to solve the “aircraft carrier problem” in a matter of minutes.
Thus, the use of American AUGs from the south against Russia can be considered practically excluded. True, in addition to aircraft carriers, the US Navy has a fairly large number of smaller ships - the so-called amphibious assault helicopters with expeditionary forces of the marines on board. But the whole hitch lies precisely in the fact that without the support of carrier-based aviation from aircraft carriers, these essentially large floating barges do not represent any independent military value, and an attempt by them to land a naval landing without a full air cover will inevitably lead to a complete collapse of such an adventure. Of course, America always has the opportunity to achieve the deployment of its air force on the airfields of the states neighboring Russia. But this is a little different and also not easy storyIt has no relation to the topic of using the most powerful non-nuclear component of the US Armed Forces - the carrier fleet.
Exactly the same sad picture for Americans we see in other potential marine theaters. In the West there is a narrow neck of the Baltic Sea, which even now the aircraft of the Russian naval and long-range aviation are constantly being ironed. The attempt to introduce aircraft carrier fleet into such narrowness is not only aimless from a military point of view due to the presence of a number of ground bases of NATO, it is also extremely risky because of the extreme discomfort of the “Baltic puddle” for these ocean-going ships. That is, in this case, the US Navy will remain out of work. To the north, the American AUG is better not to go at all. This is a traditional patrimony of the Russian Northern Fleet, which, despite all the losses, is still able to reliably control the sea area within a radius of at least thousands of miles from its shores.
And even in the Pacific, where the US Navy traditionally feels masters of the situation, the outline of the maritime borders of the Russian Federation is so uncomfortable for American naval commanders that they can only bite their elbows. And indeed, in order to approach the main habitable spaces and centers of resistance in the Russian Far East, the American fleet would have to overcome the narrowness between the Kuril Islands, well swept by Russian anti-ship missiles and aircraft, or, by degree of risk, is approximately the same as the situation with Crimea on the Black Sea. Moreover, Russia is now actively equipping militarily these key island territories for the defense from the sea. And Japan, despite all the US harassment that is very understandable in this light, cannot solve the issue of control over the South Kuril Islands, which would provide the US Navy with a relatively safe passage to the mainland of the Russian Federation.
It turns out that although Russia is a country of three oceans and a half dozen seas, the main military force of America - the carrier fleet - is practically unable to approach its territory from sea directions. But it is precisely this fleet that is the basis of the entire Navy, and the Navy, in turn, is the main non-nuclear trump card of the United States. It turns out that Russia quite effectively neutralizes this trump before the start of its real use.
As for another key non-nuclear component of this supposedly “invincible armada” - dozens of ships equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles, the combat effectiveness of this technology forty years ago with regard to the vast experience gained in the fight against such means of air attack causes more and more reasonable doubt. Let us say that the huge US missile fleet is close to exhausting its combat capabilities. However, in the best of times, its combat effectiveness raised many questions. Beautiful fireworks on CNN with the launch of cruise missiles on Baghdad and Belgrade had, of course, a psychological effect, but there were never any real results in the form of defeating important, especially mobile, military targets.
What, besides this, remains with America, so to speak, “for the soul”? In fact, very little. The Americans, who always relied on the super-power ocean fleet, initially assigned the traditional land army a secondary role. So it was, so actually remained. The US Army is clearly not something that can be considered a serious threat to modern Russia. Fewer than a dozen deployed divisions and combat brigades, combined with the National Guard, which is very conditionally prepared (and mostly for the dispersal of demonstrations), and large, but already quite rusty, stocks of military equipment, to put it mildly, are not very impressive.
Americans in the period of their highest power did not attach any importance to this. Because they always and quite reasonably believed that cannon fodder for any land war they were plotting should be supplied by their numerous allies in all parts of the planet. So it was for many decades. But this mechanism, which worked flawlessly in those times when the global influence of the United States was indisputable, began to give noticeable failures as soon as it became clear to the same allies that Washington’s ability to control the world situation was far from limitless. This was especially vivid in the case of Ukraine, where the Americans, no matter how hard they try, cannot convince the Europeans to drag chestnuts out of the fire for them and for them. Europe this time is absolutely not eager to send its "big battalions" to the east at the whim of an increasingly decrepit America. And the United States itself, which is used to appearing for all the world wars only to divide production, clearly feel at ease and understand that they simply have nothing to replace the European cannon fodder.
Recently, the realization of this sad truth for Washington has begun to reach even before the American generals who had no doubts about their omnipotence. Who began to speak out in the sense that with all the wonders of military thought and the most remarkable achievements of digital hi-tech, the last word in the war always belongs to a simple soldier, whose foot is firmly in enemy territory. Russian soldiers (in this case it does not matter - Russian or Novorossiysk), in the opinion of the same Americans, now quite successfully confirm this eternal truth in the Donbas. Whereas America has no equivalent counter-arguments and, it seems, is not expected. In any case, aircraft carriers will definitely not help here.
Information