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The end of an Empire is always hard on the couturiers.
The truly scary thing is there is a lot of fall left. Reading about the end of other empires (Rome, Byzantium, Great Britain, etc) I get the feeling we are not even into act II yet of a three act tragedy.
On the military front, I am always amazed how much old crap the military claims is fully ready. Hell the Navy retired the littoral ships 3 years after commissioning! I hope no one here is on the new B21, as I bet that bird is going to have issues.
Well said. We're not out of Act 1. Further, I don't think we're 1/3 into Act 1. We have a long, long way to decline. Will there be a rebound after hitting bottom? Sure. Then we decline some more.
On the .mil front, do we have any frigates? Answer (2) the newest is an FFG, USS Constellation class. Two more on order, none active.
The second? USS Constitution, one of the United States original six frigates.
The B-21? Great. How many can we afford? How many defensive weapons can be bought for 1/10th the cost of one airborne platform, many of which could be launched en masse for a fraction of the cost of the plane, repeated until airborne threats are no longer all of a piece?
Quantity has a quality all of its own.
We are damned short on quantity, let alone quality.
There were FIFTY ONE Perry Class frigates, the last of which was decommissioned in 2015. The newest of those was commissioned in 1989, and scrapped in 2014, well short of its design lifespan.
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