look at this chart it compares military budgets of countries but it's a bit different because it doesn't compare one country's military spending to another but instead compares the us's military spending with the cumulative total of the nine other countries military spending we're all on the top 10 list of biggest spenders the reason well the united states spent over 800 billion dollars on its military in 2021 thus outspending south korea japan saudi arabia germany france russia the uk india and china combined so there is frankly no worthwhile comparison to be made here yet still after fighting wars in afghanistan and iraq and after a trade war with china as well as unfriendly relations with iran and north korea the u. s has its fair share of enemies who undoubtedly want to hurt them in one way shape or form so hypothetically speaking despite such a well-equipped military could an enemy ever successfully invade the us or make devastating damages to the nation in some way well as it turns out this question was a bit harder to answer than i initially planned because the military is only one of the reasons why the us is so unconquerable you see the us is in an incredible position geographically and its secret weapon might therefore be its location all you have to do is look at this map to understand why for over 150 years america's territory has stretched all the way across the continent from the atlantic to the pacific ocean these huge coasts separate the us from any potential enemy so even in wartime the american mainland is very well protected take world war ii for example when america fought in both europe and asia at the same time barely any attacks happened on u. s soil during the entire war that meant american factories could keep making planes and weapons without interruptions unlike the constantly bombed soviet and british factories on top of that the defense production act allowed the president to allocate materials and facilities for national defense direct companies to prioritize government orders and offer loans to companies to make this happen fast in 2020 this law was used to increase the production of ventilators and medical grade masks so clearly it's a very useful law to have in the toolbox since the u.
s still has a domestic industrial base with major shipyards aviation and automotive factories a wartime scenario could easily involve switching to wartime production so this makes sense not to mention the existing military industry which is already making tanks planes weapons and warships for the u. s military factories on u. s soil are a huge advantage because the us military can protect its supply chain simply by defending its own territory very little has to come from outside compared to his enemies who would need to constantly run supplies across an entire ocean i mean just look at the size of the atlantic ocean and the even bigger pacific to get an idea of just how long enemy supply chains would have to be not to mention the fact that with today's satellites it would be trivially easy to spot an invasion coming from thousands of miles away and take out enemy shipments before they ever reach the u.
s coast supply lines are critical in any war and the u. s military is well known for its excellent logistics capabilities they have the added advantage of the 45 000 mile highway system which was designed with troop movements in mind on top of that the us has 140 000 miles of freight railway infrastructure now sure this can be a double-edged sword as enemies could use this infrastructure to penetrate into america's heartland and infrastructure could definitely be a weak point if not probably guarded a good example of this would be this pipeline that runs over 5500 miles from texas to new jersey and carries nearly 45 of the east coast's fuel supply in may 2021 a cyber attack shut down the pipeline for 5 days and this isn't a fluke either china and russia both support cyber crime groups that regularly attack government agencies and companies the former head lawyer for the nsa stuart baker told the washington post quote we're fighting the cyber equivalent of a land war in asia every day but america's infrastructure is more than just highways and internet cables back in the day another kind of highway already connected the midwest from north to south the mississippi river and the connected missouri river is the fourth longest river system in the world so yeah this river has always been crucial to connecting the economies of major cities like new orleans minneapolis and st louis today the river is still used to ship goods across america so during an invasion the mississippi could likely help move troops and weapons too what's impressive about the us's geography is how challenging it makes the u. s to conquer and that might have to do with the diversity of terrains like deserts swamps and mountains the appalachian mountains in the east and the rocky mountains in the west serve as major barriers to inland invasion and the great lakes in the northeast form yet another barrier the result is that the flatter areas along the southern border seem like the best entry point but the u.
s compensates for these weaknesses with huge numbers of troops stationed in california and texas the coasts aren't any easier to invade with hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in military bases not to mention the fact that the us has peaceful relations with its neighbors to the north and south which both have smaller populations and militaries if any turmoil was to unfold to the east and west the us has no neighbors as previously discussed a fact which is led america to focus on other things instead of imminent invasions on top of that the nato treaty requires european and canadian allies to come to america's defense if it's ever attacked oh yeah and in addition to its current military personnel the us still maintains the selective service system see all males from 18 to 25 have to sign up for a lottery to be drafted in the case of a national emergency during the height of world war ii the u. s drafted over 3 million men per year so this system could potentially expand the us's military personnel by several million and we're not even done yet because besides all this an invasion is still very unlikely for another reason the pentagon's unrivaled resources as i mentioned in the beginning the us's defense budget is unrivaled the u. s spent almost three times as much as china in 2021 and 10 times more than russia the result is that no country has enough ships or planes to get past the us forces according to one military expert quote the amphibious assault capability of the combined militaries of the world are simply too insignificant to get a beachhead on a coast and then we of course have the civilians who have even more guns than the military so maybe armed citizens could also join the fight against invaders i mean it's a possibility but anyway urban warfare presents more challenges than fighting in open combat and often gives an advantage to the country defending its own territory we only have to look at russia's frail donation of kiev for proof of this factor while urban areas make up a small amount of u.
s territory any invader would have to take control of cities to conquer the country since 82 of the population lives in these cities another advantage of armies defending their own country from invasion is the will to fight according to the randa corporation a think tank closely tied to the pentagon will to fight means the disposition and decision to fight to keep fighting and to win the report highlights the times will to fight was emphasized in u. s military doctrine demonstrating just how vital it is to military victories you can clearly see how that influenced the outcome of world war ii and the vietnam war when a country is invaded like vietnam was it's natural that the invaded country is more motivated to defend its land i think it's safe to assume the same would apply during an invasion of the us but let's shift gears for a bit and discuss one enormous u. s advantage i haven't mentioned which is self-reliance for its food energy and weapons needs take these green areas for example this land is mostly used for agriculture since only two percent of america's land is in urban areas this low-lying land is a major reason why the u.
s is nearly self-sufficient in agriculture and even exports food to many countries around the world it also explains why america now actually has the most arable land in the world that's right the u. s has more arable land than india and china what's more surprising is that india is only a third the size of the us and china is slightly smaller but can only sustain large populations near its east coast the crazy thing is that both of those countries have over 1. 3 billion people or about 1 billion more than the us population and since the us is only projected to grow by another 100 million people over the next century the u.
s likely has enough resources to support a billion plus population but they don't need to as for energy the us also has impressive amounts of petroleum and gas especially in parts of texas it has around 44 billion barrels of proved crude oil reserves and almost 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves in fact when you include biofuels the us could be considered the largest oil producer in the world it seems like even the bad parts of u. s geography have a major silver lining the appalachian mountains on the east coast that i mentioned earlier aren't suited for farming but they do have huge cold deposits that have been exploited for decades and surprisingly at least to me america has the world's largest coal reserves and loads of other natural resources from energy to metals but to share a bit of a weakness of the us it turns out it doesn't have every metal it needs to defend itself you see this shiny looking rock is a mineral called antimony and is critical for making bullets and other weapons and even night vision goggles while antimony played an important role in world war ii ammunition production the last mine in the us closed in 1997. the us is therefore reliant on china and russia its two biggest military rivals for supply of this critical mineral so the us does have weaknesses but who could actually have the military might and most importantly motivation to try and invade the us well the latest u.
s defense strategy names the people's republic of china as the us's most consequential strategic competitor and note that russia poses acute threats beyond these two big threats it also mentions north korea and iran but let's focus on china for a bit it's true that china is slowly building up its military capabilities but it isn't even ready to launch an invasion on the island of taiwan let alone the west coast of the united states i don't think i even need to mention how the loss of its largest trading partner would devastate the chinese economy still there's some reason for concern if china disabled american satellites it could debilitate the us military's ability to monitor troop movements in real time if you're thinking this sounds like science fiction though you'd be wrong because in 2007 china successfully destroyed one of its own satellites with a ballistic missile floating 850 kilometers above the earth the destroyed satellite is at a similar altitude to u. s intelligent satellites so china could theoretically destroy them too in terms of russia well they have now performed a similar test which endangered the crew of the iss taking out satellites is a bit extreme though because it causes hazardous space debris that would affect all current and future satellites that includes russia's and china satellites but russia and china are already interfering with u. s satellites on a daily basis they're just using lasers and jammers instead of trying to shoot them down what is even scarier though is china's recent investments in ai and quantum computing which could change the future of warfare i mean imagine how hard it would be for the pentagon to strategize against an enemy using an ai supercomputer to calculate decisions in milliseconds but if we look at rojak and for a second their military has turned out to be much more disorganized and incompetent than we imagined before their invasion of ukraine in early 2022 still they're definitely a force to be reckoned with with nearly a million troops thousands of vehicles and specialized hacker units as for other potential attackers north korea for example may boast that their nuclear weapons can reach the u.
s mainland but owing to that low budget and antique equipment there's no way they could invade the entire us iran is a similar story except that they don't yet have a nuclear warhead although they're not far off realistically speaking both countries use nukes to preserve the regime rather than actually use them against their enemies cuba and venezuela are two other enemy nations in the us's backyard but their troop numbers and military budgets are hardly enough to invade the united states and if all else fails to stop an invasion we shouldn't forget that america is a nuclear armed nation itself it has a triad of air land and sea missiles which make it impossible to take out entirely land missiles are stored in the center of the country and the sea missiles are in submarines which are constantly on the move hidden away without a flip on the radar since the cold war though nuclear weapons have acted more as a deterrent rather than a direct threat you see the principle of mutually assured destruction essentially means anyone who uses a nuke will get nuked back launching a chain reaction of nuclear warfare eventually obliterating earth and ending humanity but just for fun let's compare nuclear arsenals alright so the u. s and russia currently have around 5 000 nukes with around 1500 deployed at heavy bomber bases and on intercontinental missiles and then we of course have china it has a couple hundred nuclear weapons but none of them are deployed now these numbers might seem high since they can literally eradicate humanity but this is actually a low point from the peak of 70 000 nukes worldwide in the mid 1980s what's still quite worrying though is that while the us claims to have decommissioned over 11 000 nuclear warheads since 1994 china and russia are thought to be increasing their stockpile but despite this i hope you can see how costly it would be to even attempt an invasion of the u. s any hypothetical invasion would have to overcome the us's huge military and geographical advantages to gain any ground while it is possible that a major state actor like china or russia could take out satellites and hack critical infrastructure they'd also have to contend with the millions of well-equipped troops on the ground and a hostile armed population so realistically a physical invasion isn't really a possibility but what if america's enemies could get what they wanted without an invasion well it turns out it's much easier to conquer hearts and minds in an information war than to win with soldiers on the ground and that might have something to do with russia's influence campaign in the 2016 u.
s presidential elections see after a three year investigation a bipartisan u. s senate committee recently concluded that russia conducted an influence campaign to help donald trump get elected if that's not shocking enough the report states that vladimir putin himself ordered the hacking of democratic party emails to be leaked over wikileaks the fbi now has a warrant out for 12 russian military intelligence officers it believes interfered in the 2016 elections so this is a serious incident a recent report by a group of intelligence agencies claims russia tried to interfere again in 2020 though on a smaller scale whether russia continues to meddle in u.
