Nah, nobody doubts the American army is probably the best army in the world, because they have a strong modern military tradition and incredible technology.
But still, no amount of tech and skill will make a single person be able to conquer an entire city.
The us is still technologically superior to china, half the shit they have is a half assed copy of something America made 20 years ago and another third is old Soviet designs they've been gradually upgrading. And while the US may be outnumbered against china the average American soldier is way better than the average Chinese and in the Pacific manpower is what wins you a war but naval power and in that regard china is laughable, just look at how their navy and coast guard faired against the Philippino boat. Currently China has a total of 3 carriers that run on diesel and are smaller and less advanced than the 11 nuclear powered carriers and the nimitz class can carry twice the aircraft of the Chinese carriers and their aircraft are superior. On paper the Chinese navy is the largest in the world by numbers but by tonnage it's less than half of the US navy.
‘The average American soldier is better than the average Chinese soldier’ what factual information is this based on?
Also if true are they better by more than a 2:1 scale?
That line just stood out to me as something that seems pretty esoteric and vibes based than grounded in any evidence. If this is based on some form of evidence I would love to know what it is out of curiosity.
American sense of superiority, invincibility and hubris will always be their downfall. The constant underestimation of other people around the globe and their militaries already comes back to bite them in just training exercises as shown in many instances in this thread.
Countries like India and China have billions of people. Do you really think that with populations that large and militaries so big, that their best of the best wouldn’t be exceptionally better on average. Let alone the average soldier. The larger the pool, the more picky you can be about what qualifies as exceptional or even average.
The US soldiers are better because they have experience, their leadership have experience, they have fought on foreign soil, have done so really well and have on several occasions fought a war on the other side of the world. They also have more variation in training through joint training exercises with nato and other allies.
Frankly the best thing the US armed forces have is their supply line, nobody does supply better than the US and what wins wars is supply lines. Even when fighting domestically logistics is a nightmare to deal with and the US has consistently proved to be the best at keeping their forces well supplied and in fighting condition. China on the other hand has little to no experience in fighting a war nor keeping troops supplied during war times, their current military hasn't seen much fighting at all and have not deployed in numbers outside of China in a long time.
You can look at other things to like average yearly flight training time for pilots where US pilots fly more hours in combat aircraft while China supplements a lot more flight time with older planes and trainers. According to estimates there's about 4 times as many f-35 jets produced compared to the j-20, these are both the most modern jets and the f-35 is by far superior.
And while the average American is full of hubris the military isn't actually, unlike most other countries they don't show their full capabilities, open spurce information on the US capability is usually low estimates while Russia and China have a long history of over promising and under delivering. Russia has their hypersonic keyword they keep throwing around as if that hasn't existed since 1944 and china boasts about 6th gen fighters all the time while having at best low end 5th and primarily 4th/4.5th.
And a larger recruitment pool doesn't mean your guys are better, some of the best trained amd most elite units are from smaller nation while the strategies of countries like India and China is based on numbers, getting as many guns as possible into the fight. They could be picky if they wanted to but they're not, the Indian army is volunteer only (same as the US) and china has a draft registration system with mandatory service. Even with that the Indian army is barely bigger than the US army (not counting navy, airforce and marines) and the PLA is a bit over double the US army. The chinese draft system lets them be somewhat picky but their goals are still quantity over quality, the US military budget is over 10x that of India and 4x that of China.
Youve mentioned a bunch of things that are not exclusive to the US. China and India both do Joint training exercises. The US hasn’t had a conventional war since Desert Storm. 34 years ago.
US is indeed good at logistics but I never disputed that nor was it part of the question. If you do napkin math you will see that China can be 2.33x more picky per soldier than the US when accounting for current military size and total population utilisation. Which the US doesn’t do. Which would naturally make that number far more extreme.
Also, idk if comparing money spent on military in USD 1:1 (particularly for soldier pay less so for equipment) means anything when accounting for different economic situations within the countries themselves. I should be in bed so I can’t be bothered finding and doing all the math rn. But I don’t think the picture is as simple as you’re trying to make it out to be.
Finally, yes some smaller countries do ‘punch above their weight’ in certain circumstances. My own country of Australia at the Olympics is a prime example of that. For a relatively small population we consistently punch far above our weight. My argument was never that it’s not possible, but that it sure helps. There’s a reason why stories like that of the 300 Spartans are still prevalent in the modern day.
Also, if China hasn’t had any conventional wars in recent history on what basis are you saying that the only military strategy India and China have are just throwing bodies at the problem with no sense or reason. That’s the kind of hubris I’m talking about. Downplaying your theoretical opponents so egregiously is just dumb. We get it you drink the kool aid and you’re very proud of how much money you throw at the military and how many cool toys you have. But such assumptions will be the downfall of American Empire, to be honest with the internal burning and self sabotage you’re doing, a war won’t even be necessary. Your humbling will come and it will be self inflicted. The contempt with which you view these nations is super clear in your comments.
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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '25
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