Respectfully, it feels like you’re missing my point. It is very well known that the US military expenditure is larger than the next N largest countries combined. I’m saying that those kind of financial analyses, which have especially taken off in the last 30 years as the US became the world’s “lone superpower” and finance capitalism became ascendant, are not nearly as relevant as good old fashioned materialist analysis.

The ability of the US to continue plowing money into its military is only an effective measure of US preparedness insofar as that money is used to actually, you know, prepare for stuff.