I'm beginning to think the entire concept of a "global superpower" is just a meme.
>Soviets get their asses kicked in Afghanistan
>US get their asses kicked in Afghanistan
>Russia getting its ass kicked in Ukraine
>US getting its ass kicked in Yemen
All these cases involve a giant behemoth of a country getting stuck in a quagmire fighting a technologically, economically, and militarily inferior enemy to the point of withdrawl (except for Ukraine but I think it'll end up like that innevitably). What gives? All of these should've been easy sweeps yet they always end up just being a huge moneypit, is China gonna break the trend or is it doomed to follow the same cycle?

>>509200463 (OP)
China is not interested in military imperialism or repeating the West's mistakes

>huge moneypit

yes, and it's very profitable for defence contractors. the expensive hardware does not win wars, but it does effectively transfer money from the poor to the rich

>>509200463 (OP)
>Yemen
Cope kek.

But yeah it's pretty much a meme, always has been. Especially in the absence of real empires, though even those are never invincible.

to win a war requires winning the support of the population; and in this, guerrilla war will always be superior and capable of an effective defence against a much larger foreign army, as history has proven

America could have just bathed Afghanistan in VX gas. But we abide by the Geneva Convention and other rules.

>>509200463 (OP)
The problem is, often, that winning in asymmetric warfare requires you to meet strategic goals and, using our misadventures in Afghanistan as an example, our faggot retard brass had no strategic goals. They just parked our boys in the sand to twiddle their thumbs until some brown people came out for them to shoot at. If we adopted War on Terror strategies against the Japanese or Chinese in and after WW2 we would have lost there and in Korea too.

>>509201283
This is nonsense, death and fear as good if not much better than convincing the populace.

>>509201068
is that why they keep claiming international waters way beyond their borders, ports around the world that are treated like embassies and clay in the hymenalaias

>>509200463 (OP)
It's not about winning wars, it's about cultural dominance. Even Russians are Americanized these days.

>>509201444
What's this supposed to mean?

>>509200463 (OP)
The issue is we don't fight wars the way they should be fought. Do you think genesis khan would hold back, bomb one thing and then just leave?
>we can't engage until we're shot at
No you surrender or we go full mask off. The problem is war is meant to last forever to enrich the MIC. Think about it, we don't even take land or resources (at least not in tangible ways.) Sure, some companies get government contracts for whatever grifting bullshit they cooked up but it doesn't actually enrich the nation doing the fighting