The American military is a finite resource. Further, they operate by moving physical resources in time and space. Much of the Discourse does not reflect this. Donald Trump, of course, has had little awareness of such things, and his apparent descent into dementia isn’t helping.

Let me be specific, if I am advancing such criticism.

Trump has ordered a battle group of ships and planes to the southern Caribbean and eastern Pacific. Those ships and planes are not available for other missions.

Trump has been babbling about bombing Iran because they are shooting protesters. Yes, all the military’s irony meters are broken, and we need a new supply. According to the unreliable Daily Mail, he has also ordered that plans for invasion of Greenland be drawn up. The military is currently bombing Syria. They recently bombed Nigeria. Further back, they halved the bunker buster supply to provide a spectacle in Iran. Marco Rubio is eyeing Cuba hungrily. I’m sure that there are already plans on the shelf for Cuba, but dusting them off will take some effort. I think there was some mumbling about bombing Ethiopia a month or so ago.

Putting aside the wisdom or absurdity of any of those campaigns, are they materially sustainable? How long does that battle group need to stay in the southern Caribbean to coerce Venezuela to obey Trump’s orders? How many bombs have been expended and what is being done to replace them? What kinds of operation are being planned for Cuba and Greenland? How many ships and planes will they require?

One of the things that the US has done as a service to the world and ourselves has been to keep shipping lanes open. This also requires ships and planes. Will the current and planned gender-enhancing operations take assets away from those operations? There is also a level of readiness toward Russia and China that the US has maintained. Are we undermining that to attend to Grandpa’s fantasies?

I’d like to see the military experts calculating some of these costs, both financial and opportunity. My sense is that we can tolerate the Venezuela adventure and a few random bombings like what is happening in Syria today, but at some point, we are depleting our military.

General Dan Caine, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should be communicating these hard realities to the President. Is he?

The Daily Mail account, and I emphasize that this is not a publication one goes to for the best information, says that the military is resisting the Greenland adventure, for which there are many more reasons than resource allocation. We can hope.

A corollary to the inescapable physicality of war is that if invasions of Cuba or Greenland are put into action, we will see buildups at various bases across the US, as we did in the Caribbean, or as we did in the fall of 2021, as Vladimir Putin prepared to attack Ukraine. There are independent OSINT observers of such things. I will caution, however, that not all those who call themselves OSINT are reliable. On Bluesky, Evergreen Intel is reliable. She is following the protests in Iran right now. The New York Times (yes, I hear the whining) has a very good OSINT unit. Whether they would be allowed to publish on such events is another question. There are other observers who would focus on those areas if they came up, and I’ll highlight them if the time comes.

Photo credit: Ships from the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group (GRFCSG) and the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group (ARG), and Hellenic Navy frigate HS Navarinon (F 461) sail in formation in the Mediterranean Sea, Dec. 31, 2023. The ships from the GRFCSG include the first-in-class aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) and the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile USS The Sullivans (DDG 68), USS Bulkeley (DDG 84), and USS Delbert D. Black (DDG 119). The ships from the Bataan ARG include the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD 5), the San Antonio Class-class amphibious transport dock USS Mesa Verde (LPD 19), Harpers Ferry-class dock landing ship USS Carter Hall (LSD 50). The U.S. maintains forward deployed, ready, and postured forces to deter aggression and support security and stability around the world. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Maxwell Orlosky)

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