The United States is really the only country who has a true blue water navy - one with the ability to operate anywhere in the world. If Russia or China suddenly decided they needed to deploy air assets off the coast of South America for an extended period of time, they would be completely unable to. Russia has one air craft carrier that barely works, and China also has only one aircraft carrier (ironically, built in Russia).
That's not to say the United States military is better - they just have military forces for different objectives. Both Russia and China have their military focused on coastal protection. They have zero interest in their navy operating three thousand miles from home, but instead focus on protecting their local coasts.
At the same time, Russia was heavily invested in submarines thinking submarines was going to be the wave of the future for large navel forces. This might be because they were focused on the war in Europe, where submarines were employed and aircraft carriers are useless. However, from the view of the United States, it was aircraft carriers that won the war in the Pacific against Japan.
I wonder what the Russian submarine fleet is like today.
If anyone is curious as to what role aircraft carriers play, take a good look at the Falklands War. The British Navy couldn't even send planes out to the island. If I recall correctly, they had to station planes on Ascension Island and then refuel planes "multiple times" just to drop bombs on the Falklands Islands.
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Originally Posted by PR_Glen
Russia bankrupted their nation once already by blowing all its money on their military and defense, ignoring the people and its infrastructure in the process. They are doing the same again, but they have less to work with as most of the money is siphoned through oligarchs including Putin.
The US have been and continue to do the same thing. The US infrastructure is starting to fall apart. Jobs are disappearing, not due to immigration or automation, but due to lack of maintaining their infrastructure. Food is still abundant, which keeps the masses from turning on its government directly, but instead they are turning on each other through worthless political rhetoric--rhetoric with no difference in ideology for the most part. Some of it is fueled by Russia interference specifically through propaganda, but it was there before this too, it's only amplified now.
Both Japan and Germany had to all but abandon their military and defense spending post world war 2 for obvious reasons. Their economies are thriving to this day because of it. Canada, although I have my complaints, is thriving for the most part as well. Using taxes to pay for things the people need and growth puts things in the right direction at least. Nothing is perfect and all our nations make mistakes along the way, but bankrupting a nation on its military armaments is never the solution. More so now than ever.
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I disagree with the "jobs are leaving" bit but the United States is facing a massive problem with our infrastructure. Our entire infrastructure was built mostly in the 1950s and 1960s, and we've only been maintaining it since then. Things we never think of - water coming to our house and sewage leaving our house - are going to become huge issues. These are starting to fail. This will become a huge problem for us in the next few decades, but it might be a good thing... We'll need people to fix all of this.