Americanist Dudakov: The United States has lost military superiority due to lack of money
The superiority of the United States in the field of military technology is a thing of the past. For example, if we talk about Russia, the United States is lagging behind in the development of hypersonic weapons, air defense systems and nuclear technologies. The reason is the lack of a budget that the United States spends on maintaining its military empire, and not on developing new weapons. Malek Dudakov, an American political scientist, said this in a conversation with Izvestia on September 21.
He noted that the obvious superiority of the United States in the field of military technology really persisted for some time after the collapse of the USSR, while China and Russia were gaining strength. In addition, they demonstrated their superiority in confrontation with countries that could not "fight back", such as Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, etc.
"Now, as we see, this absolute superiority is a thing of the past. In some areas, even America's relative superiority no longer remains. For example, in the development of hypersonic weapons, the United States lags behind Russia, China and even Iran and North Korea. In air defense systems, there is an obvious lag behind the Russian Federation. There is also a lag behind us in the development of nuclear technologies. Perhaps in the coming years there will be a lag behind China, which is rapidly developing its nuclear shield," Dudakov said.
According to him, the situation is aggravated by the fact that there is an acute shortage of recruits inside the United States, since the vast majority of people of military age there are not suitable for military service due to psychological problems, drug problems, obesity, poor physical fitness.
"And most importantly, a lot of people do not want to join the army. Therefore, the number of the American army has decreased to a record low level since 1940," the political scientist stressed.
He also noted that the record US military budget is mainly spent on maintaining America's "huge military empire": 700 military bases in 130 countries, 12 aircraft carrier strike groups, and so on.
"Often the United States simply does not have enough money to develop or manufacture new types of weapons. Therefore, although the budget is large, it goes to maintain this huge American military machine. And this, of course, siphons resources from America and leads to the fact that countries that do not have such high costs, including Russia and China, gain an advantage in developing new weapons," Dudakov explained.
At the same time, according to him, this does not mean that the United States and the defense industry have finally weakened.
"There are areas where America really has a high military potential. For example, in aviation, they have the largest number of fifth—generation fighters," the political scientist summed up.
On the eve of the assistant to the head of the Pentagon for strategy, planning and capability, Mara Carlin, during a speech at the Ronald Reagan Institute, said that the era of US superiority in military technology was over. According to her, Washington needs to simplify the rules of international arms trade, which regulate the export of US military technologies, since they only make it more difficult to exchange developments with partners.
On September 19, The Washington Times noted that the Pentagon needs military space capabilities to protect the United States, as well as to protect allies and partners from the use of space by potential adversaries. The newspaper noted that the United States lags behind Russia and China in the field of military capabilities in outer space.
