{"id":4776,"date":"2026-08-15T04:36:37","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T04:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=4776"},"modified":"2026-08-15T04:36:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T04:36:37","slug":"americas-weakest-in-50-years-with-two-more-years-of-trump-to-go-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=4776","title":{"rendered":"America’s weakest in 50 years \u2014with two more years of Trump to go: analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Conservative Dispatch writer Nick Catoogio can\u2019t stop agonizing over the number of ways President Donald Trump has destroyed American strength \u2014 worse than a Democrat.<\/p>\n

Read more \u2018This is Trump\u2019s economy\u2019: Nobel winner butchers president\u2019s claims<\/a><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s latest wacky decision to revert the U.S. Navy to \u201csteam catapults\u201d is only the latest goofball decision that hit Trump\u2019s ear during on of his more \u2018lucid\u2019 moments, said Catoggio.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs it happens, the steam-catapult idiocy isn\u2019t the only fiasco in the news this week that involves the world\u2019s greatest military,\u201d rages Catoggio. \u201cThe most sordid has to do with conditions aboard the USSAbraham Lincoln, where morale has allegedly deteriorated after nine months at sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

When U.S. infantry from Fort Hood held military exercises against a Ukrainian drone unit, the Americans were defeated \u201ceasily\u201d despite the Pentagon having had many months to adapt its tactics accordingly. Our armored vehicles were spotted and \u201ckilled\u201d so quickly that U.S. units had to \u201cre-spawn\u201d simply to keep the exercise going, according to the Wall Street Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Burning through your billion-dollar missile stockpile in a war with an enemy using low-cost robot knives is another fiasco that should haunt the Trump administration and Republicans for years. And Catoggio said the Pentagon is already urging defense contractors to crank out weapons \u201csignificantly faster\u201d at taxpayer expense.<\/p>\n

All that, and America\u2019s Gulf allies are having to accept the fact that Iran now owns the Strait of Hormuz, prepping to pay a \u201cfee\u201d to Shiite forces so tankers can safely travel through the strait.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a fourth fiasco in motion, Catoggio warned \u2014 something a president who has declared bankruptcy multiple times may not easily understand.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump prosecutor called out for flopping on pledge to bring fraud charges<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cEven before the president returned to office, the United States passed the grim milestone of spending more on debt servicing than it does on defense. But under Trump, the problem has worsened considerably: In an age of high interest rates, America nonetheless borrowed more in the first 10 months of this fiscal year than it did in all of fiscal year 2025. Last month\u2019s budget deficit was the steepest since March 2021, putting us on track for an annual deficit of no less than $2 trillion.\u201d<\/p>\n

All that money going toward debt servicing is definitely not going to national defense. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll in all, there\u2019s a solid case to be made that this presidency will end with U.S. military power at its weakest point since the Carter years. And we\u2019re still not even halfway through it,\u201d said Catoggio. \u201c \u2026 Since Vietnam, Republicans have been the party of strength abroad. The Cold War, the Gulf War, the war on terror, now the war with Iran: The GOP is forever eager to throw roundhouses at foreign villains while the hippie Democratic base cries, \u2018There has to be a better way!\u2019 If you\u2019re a hawk who believes in hard-power projection, choosing between blue and red has been a no-brainer since 1980.\u201d<\/p>\n

Will that still be true in 2028? Not likely, said Catoggio. And how many more of Trump\u2019s military-related fiascos will be necessary before the longstanding Republican advantage on national security among voters \u201cends up as depleted as the Pentagon\u2019s missile stockpile?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a trick question, actually. According to some polls, that advantage is already gone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Read more Tea partier tears Trump apart on government spending<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Conservative writer Nick Catoggio argues that President Trump\u2019s policies, including military failures and rising debt, are eroding U.S. strength and the Republican Party’s national security advantage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nAmerica's weakest in 50 years \u2014with two more years of Trump to go: analysis - Next Address America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=4776\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"America's weakest in 50 years \u2014with two more years of Trump to go: analysis - 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