America's weakest in 50 years —with two more years of Trump to go: analysis

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a dinner with the leaders of the C5+1Central Asian countries in the East Room of the White House. (REUTERS)

Conservative Dispatch writer Nick Catoogio can’t stop agonizing over the number of ways President Donald Trump has destroyed American strength — worse than a Democrat.

Trump’s latest wacky decision to revert the U.S. Navy to “steam catapults” is only the latest goofball decision that hit Trump’s ear during on of his more ‘lucid’ moments, said Catoggio.

“As it happens, the steam-catapult idiocy isn’t the only fiasco in the news this week that involves the world’s greatest military,” rages Catoggio. “The most sordid has to do with conditions aboard the USSAbraham Lincoln, where morale has allegedly deteriorated after nine months at sea.”

When U.S. infantry from Fort Hood held military exercises against a Ukrainian drone unit, the Americans were defeated “easily” despite the Pentagon having had many months to adapt its tactics accordingly. Our armored vehicles were spotted and “killed” so quickly that U.S. units had to “re-spawn” simply to keep the exercise going, according to the Wall Street Journal.

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 “significantly faster” at taxpayer expense.

All that, and America’s Gulf allies are having to accept the fact that Iran now owns the Strait of Hormuz, prepping to pay a “fee” to Shiite forces so tankers can safely travel through the strait.

But there’s a fourth fiasco in motion, Catoggio warned — something a president who has declared bankruptcy multiple times may not easily understand.

“Even 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’s budget deficit was the steepest since March 2021, putting us on track for an annual deficit of no less than $2 trillion.”

All that money going toward debt servicing is definitely not going to national defense.

“All in all, there’s 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’re still not even halfway through it,” said Catoggio. “ … 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, ‘There has to be a better way!’ If you’re a hawk who believes in hard-power projection, choosing between blue and red has been a no-brainer since 1980.”

Will that still be true in 2028? Not likely, said Catoggio. And how many more of Trump’s military-related fiascos will be necessary before the longstanding Republican advantage on national security among voters “ends up as depleted as the Pentagon’s missile stockpile?”

“That’s a trick question, actually. According to some polls, that advantage is already gone,” he said.

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