{"id":52373,"date":"2025-03-31T13:49:33","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T21:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=52373"},"modified":"2025-03-31T13:55:57","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T21:55:57","slug":"department-of-offense-the-us-military-is-a-global-strike-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/31\/department-of-offense-the-us-military-is-a-global-strike-force\/","title":{"rendered":"Department of Offense: The US Military Is a Global Strike Force"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views<\/a> with the author\u2019s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n

Officially, the U.S. has the DOD, the department of defense. But when was the last time the U.S. military was primarily oriented toward defense of the CONUS? (CONUS is a military acronym for continental United States.)<\/p>\n

My old service, the U.S. Air Force, is far more open about its true aims. It boasts assertively of “global reach, global power” and notably of “global strike.” Not to be outdone, the U.S. Navy has \u201ccarrier strike groups,\u201d what used to be termed carrier task forces when they fought real battles in World War II.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a recent official description: \u201cA Carrier Strike Group (CSG) is a highly powerful, self-contained naval force, capable of projecting power globally<\/strong>, with an aircraft carrier as its core, supported by cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and an air wing, making it a formidable force capable of striking targets 1,000 miles away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doesn\u2019t sound defensive, does it? And of course the U.S. Marines are defined as \u201cexpeditionary\u201d forces that are \u201cforward-deployed\u201d for all sorts of expected \u201ccontingencies\u201d overseas.<\/p>\n

The U.S. military is not about defense. It\u2019s about “full-spectrum dominance.” That means dominance of the land, sea, air, space, cyber, information in all its forms, indeed just about any realm you can think of. No other military, moreover, divides the world into global commands (CENTCOM, AFRICOM, etc.) for the application of U.S. military power. This is not about defending America. It’s about dominating the world. Such a grandiose vision of defense<\/s> dominance is partly what drives colossal Pentagon budgets that are climbing toward a trillion dollars a year.<\/p>\n

Consider here the recent kerfuffle about leaked U.S. strike plans for Yemen, which were inadvertently shared<\/a> with the editor-in-chief at The Atlantic<\/em>. Here\u2019s an excerpt<\/a> from those plans:<\/p>\n

From Secretary of Defense<\/s> Offense Pete Hegseth<\/p>\n