re: fall of saigon https://apnews.com/article/vietnam-...aigon-photos-bba8116d509249d62da4633f3e861dcd
No win wars for profit is not power, it's corruption. Imagine a fungus being fed trillions of dollars, it grows larger every year. Trump talks, but can he do?
Actually the decline began before that. Cronkite kinda made it official when he declared the war unwinnable. It became clear to everyone that we could not deliver a desisive victory over a clearly inferior opponent, at least inferior on a military scale. The why of that is more nuanced that a simple conversation can cover, but we could not deliver victory and that was obvious. It's been downhill ever since as our corrupt government has been willing to sacrifice men and women in wars and conflicts for which we had no good reason to be there. No "enemy" poses or had posed a greater threat to America than our own government. There isn't a close second.
America never really had so much military power historically, that is a myth created by the size of the military AFTER WWII, when it started to grow near exponentially. Before WWII only the Navy was large, still however, 2nd to Britain's navy. The army was something like 17th in world rankings. The simple fact is that because of the push twoards total asymmetric warfare, the dream to be this kid, has made Amercians cowards. "US sailors had to leap for their lives when a fighter jet under tow fell out of a navy aircraft carrier that was reportedly making evasive maneuvers to avoid Houthi militant fire in the Red Sea on Monday." Yep. That's how bad things get when they are unprepared for return fire of any kind. " In 1939, on the eve of WWII, the U.S. Army was smaller than that of Portugal, with under 190,000 active-duty personnel. In global rankings, it was often said to fall behind major powers like Germany, the USSR, Japan, the UK, France, and also smaller nations like Turkey, Spain, and even Sweden, depending on how one counted reserves and colonial forces. A U.S. general (or possibly a congressman) once quipped that the U.S. Army ranked 17th in size — "just behind Romania". "