It's not really a bluff when you have the biggest and most advanced equipment inventory in the world. It's nations like Russia that are playing with a weak hand and basically bluffing. It's not like Obama has to exert himself to order the Navy or the Air Force into battle. By any measure, he's got a straight flush. The only question is whether he wants to be in the game.
It is a bluff if you don’t intend to use it. It’s one thing to have the weaponry (and its relative effectiveness can either way be called into question) and yet another to use it. And still another thing to use it to great effect.
Military power is useless if you are politically incapable of using it. The American public will not tolerate thousands of casualties for some islands between Japan and China they can’t pronounce or spell. China surely would.
Therefore any differences in military might are irrelevant.
Unfortunately the US brass seems incapable of understanding that war is an extension of politics.
In 1936 France had the biggest Army and the best tanks in the world. In violation of the Versailles Treaty, a ragtag proto-army from Germany re-occupied the Rhineland. France did nothing. The rest is history.
Agreed and the reason being is that he and his entourage of street hustlers don't have a clue how the game is played. Since Truman, I can't recall any other administration so completely immersed in ignorance and ineptitude.......................