News-watchers get terribly excited about reports of declining branches of the global totalitarian System.
For example, there is currently Less top-down rhetorical emphasis on the CO2 climate agenda, although all the vast legislation is still in place.
But this is just Office Politics, the kind of stuff that happens within mega-corporations; the rise and fall of different branches and roles; the transfer of staff and resources that constitutes the frequent "reorganizations" that are endemic in all modern bureaucracies.
As some things are relatively wound down, restructured, outsourced etc; other activities are expanded such as "AI", the military, and Intelligence services.
From the outside this bureaucratic reorganization can appear to be, or spun as, decline or destruction; but this may (often does, as in my professional experience of the National Health Service!) mask actual overall expansion.
On the other hand, organizational expansion is compatible with declining coordination, efficiency, and functional effectiveness; and indeed I believe this is actually happening to the global totalitarian System...
It is both getting bigger, and also more chaotic.
To your point, the amount of money that's suddenly being invested into naval warship production worldwide is the highest in many decades. Its mind-boggling. The ostensible reason is the recent disputes over transoceanic shipping chokepoints, but warships are also uniquely equipped to rain down destruction from afar on civilian and military targets with impunity.
ReplyDelete@Epi . Yes. I would add "helpless" civilian and military targets.
ReplyDeleteIt is also a strategy that combines wealth transfer to the giga-rich, with economic destruction- so its appeal is obvious!
In this world of rocketry and drones, the navy is primarily an instrument of coercive policing, rather than peer war.
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BTW accordindvto Mark Felton: the Royal Navy has two big aircraft carriers that take ten percent of total RN sailors but carry less than 1/3 the full complement of aircraft (about eight each instead of max c.27) and a handful of frigates and destroyers -- no cruisers, no battleships). A few submarines, and that is it!
The Royal Navy has less than thirty fighting ships.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Gru2EDJvj9Q