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That's true, but I think what recent conflicts have demonstrated is that total firepower isn't everything. Ukraine was significantly outmatched by Russia and hung on, even before western weapons shipments. Hamas, estimated at something like 30k fighters strong and armed with small arms and light rockets/artillery, continues to fight effectively against the US armed IDF. Then we have historical examples like the US war in Vietnam, or the US failures to fight insurgents in Iraq (with the tide only changing after deliberate hearts and minds political/social strategy).

The whole "we have a lot of planes" thing is just defense contractor marketing. How that translates on the battlefield, especially when the civilian population despises you, is not great.

A war like that would devestate Isreal and drag the US into a true quagmire. It would sap a tremendous amount of resources and leave the US more vulnerable to the china's and Russias of the world.

Not to mention our good old buddy international terrorism, which Bidens unwavering support of Bibi is already making us a prime target for. Shit would be fucked.

The scenario I described is World War 3.

That what Bibi, and Biden with his unwavering support, are playing with.

then you’re sorely mistaken about how truly insane US defense spending is.

NevermindNoMind already made this point to you but it bears repeating, Money spent doesn't translate into combat effectiveness. In fact, it tends to actually go against it. EDIT: Or, more specifically, money spent on individual weapon systems. The best weapon is the cheap one that can be mass produced, even if there are better weapon systems.

Ansarallah has been clear that part of their missile strategy is to eat into our budgets. They've been winning by that strategy. The total cost of their drones/missiles used against the US was in the several hundred thousand range, and the estimate for the missile defense ammo the US has used is around a billion dollars, and that was several months ago. Even the US can't compete with that cost disparity.

Secondly, it doesn't matter how many ships you have if you can't resupply them with ammo. America outsourced its production capabilities. It didn't outsource its weapon production facilities, but we can't convert the facilities we don't have any more to support increased ammo production, and we don't have enough weapons factories to supply the requisite ammo for continued operations in a modern war.

Third, your usage of "just planes and helicopters" is stupid beyond description. I am not willing to agree with you that the US will have air superiority in all theaters, which sadly is what its military doctrine both requires and assumes. (Which, by the by, is why the NATO trained Ukrainians did so poorly with their spring offensive. It's not their fault they couldn't use tactics that assume air superiority that they didn't have, but jesus the NATO people switched to racism right quick to explain the failure.) However, other countries doctrine assumes that air superiority won't be theirs.

Iran, for example, assumes they won't have air superiority from the start and so they spent most of their engineering time on missile technology. The Russians have tried to compete with their aircraft, but focused mainly on their G2A anti-air defenses. Now, even with Syria and Ukraine, there still isn't a lot of info on the effectiveness of the S400 in against the American Airforce.

It also doesn't account for the huge disparity in drone deployment capability which is frankly the future of the next war. And the US fails at this completely. The two main US drones cost 30 and 40 million a piece when the name of the game here is CHEAP. Frankly, Iran and now Russia beat our pants off on this topic. Even Hezbollah and Ansarallah have confirmed US drone kills. This is the scariest part. Culturally in the American military right now, being involved with drones was not seen as a career advancer, and definitely not something you'd want to put money into serious research.

This is more than I meant to write in response to a comment that basically amounts to a middle-schooler pounding their chest while screaming "My daddy can beat up your daddy" so I'm going to end it here.

If you think money translates to military readiness and sound doctrine, then you're not thinking about this very hard at all.

But the war in Ukraine has demonstrated that US stockpiles of ammunition are woefully low. Doesn't matter how many planes you have or that your soldiers have the best weapons if they run out of missiles and bullets.