The Empire’s Lethal Hex Is Taking Shape A brief dispatch on why the Pentagon keeps breaking its own toys.
In just 24 hours last week, the U.S. military suffered two ominous mishaps:
- 09:53 Eastern, 20 August. A single-seat F/A-18E Super Hornet splashed into the Pacific. The pilot ejected and was fished out 88 minutes later, but the jet—price tag $70.4 million—was a total loss.
CBS counts this as the sixth F-18 the Navy has written off in ten months. - Meanwhile in Okinawa. The 25,000-ton amphibious dock-landing ship USS New Orleans—a sister in size to China’s Type 071—burst into flames at White Beach Naval Facility. Japanese firefighters offered help; the Americans waved them off, insisting the blaze would be “quickly contained.”
It burned for twelve straight hours.
Deja-vu. In July 2020 the Bonhomme Richard, a 40,000-ton “Lightning Carrier” slated to carry F-35Bs, cooked for four days in San Diego and was later scrapped. Same story: open flame, no quick fix, end of a capital asset.
Why does this keep happening?
Conventional wisdom blames “high op-tempo and low maintenance”—the military equivalent of a lifter trying to dead-lift beyond his spine’s pay grade. Data back the hunch:
• 27 major aviation accidents worldwide in FY 2023; >60 % occurred in the Western Pacific.
• 42 % of Seventh Fleet ships sailed past scheduled maintenance in 2022.
• 42 % of Seventh Fleet ships sailed past scheduled maintenance in 2022.
Translation: Washington is running the world’s most expensive fleet like an Uber driver with 300,000 miles on the odometer and no time for the shop.
Root Cause
The United States spent forty years off-shoring the very industries that once built its carriers and fighters. Now every new deck plate, every new set of turbine blades, arrives slower and costs more. The only way to keep up appearances is to wring extra deployments out of a shrinking inventory. Overuse accelerates wear, wear accelerates accidents, accidents shrink inventory further—classic death spiral.
The United States spent forty years off-shoring the very industries that once built its carriers and fighters. Now every new deck plate, every new set of turbine blades, arrives slower and costs more. The only way to keep up appearances is to wring extra deployments out of a shrinking inventory. Overuse accelerates wear, wear accelerates accidents, accidents shrink inventory further—classic death spiral.
The Soviet déjà-vu
Moscow’s navy also looked invincible—until dry docks rotted, supply chains snapped, and sailors watched half their fleet rust in port. The same script is playing out, scene by scene. Every extra sortie, every stretched deployment, is the empire borrowing time against entropy.
Moscow’s navy also looked invincible—until dry docks rotted, supply chains snapped, and sailors watched half their fleet rust in port. The same script is playing out, scene by scene. Every extra sortie, every stretched deployment, is the empire borrowing time against entropy.
Imperial dusk arrives the moment the ledger shows the weapons can no longer enforce the writ. The fires on New Orleans and the splash of another Hornet are not isolated accidents; they are creaks in the hull of a super-power that has sailed past its design limits.
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