Also keep in mind historical superpowers met their demise not at the hands of enemy fire-power, but because of over-spending and debt.
The goal (and a generally successful one so far but the train wreck draws nigh) is to convince a willfully gullible public that money grows on trees and that wild spending politicians control all the trees. A program for plush retirement homes in the Carribean for every "deserving" American? No problem! It will be a new entitlement as well as Rolls Royces or Ferraris for each of us. It is only $$$$$. Vote for me and I'll set you free!!!! (of economic reality, that is).
I moved to rural NW Illinois in 2000 from Connecticut and my Congressman here was a four term veteran conservative named Don Manzullo. A mild-mannered unassuming guy with a very solid conservative voting record in all respects. He made a politically fatal mistake in 2011 when, shortly after Congress raised the debt "limit" yet again to accommodate the spending schemes of Obozo and virtually the entire Congress, Manzullo e-mailed Speaker Boehner during the Christmas break, asking that he convene the House during the break and pass a resolution telling Obozo then and there (and, of course, his fellow Congress members) that there would be NO MORE INCREASES in the debt "limit" so long as Obozo continued to be POTUS.
Boehner then got together with Majority Leader Cantor and Whip Kevin McCarthy, contacted a bunch of Texas contractors, brought in $600,000 to fund the worst campaign of campaign lies I have ever witnessed against Manzullo (in a district IL-16 seldom contested). They moved the spineless and unprincipled freshman weasel Adam Kinzinger into IL-16 from Chicagoland and purged Manzullo for his effrontery. It is because our legislature is run by the Boehners, Hasterts, Ryans and other useless, corrupted, compromised whores in service to the US Chamber of Crony Commerce that our nation will meet its demise and soon.
The military portion of the federal budget has been in constant decline for decades. We should spend what is necessary to fund a military second to none and miles ahead of whatever is in second place and not a penny more than what is necessary. That can be a substantially increased percentage of federal budget dollars IF we slash enough pork. At the beginning of the Vietnam War (and of Lyndon Johnson's disastrous "War on Poverty"), the US spent about 60% of its annual budget on the military and 40% on everything else. Today, we probably spend 15% or less on the military.
For what we spend on the military, we get fast attack subs, nuclear missile subs, nuclear missiles, a fleet of thoroughly modern aircraft carriers to project air power wherever needed, further research on space based weapons, modern bombers (B-52s are an awesome weapons system but the newest are more than 60 years old) and modern fighter planes and tanks. We are sadly lacking in manpower with the number of personnel LOWER than at the dangerously low levels of the Great Depression.
Obozo imagines that the most important military issues are things like how many patriots can be purged from the officer and top enlisted ranks and replaced with how many dedicated slaves of the weirdo-American and anti-American "communities," how many pregnant women (teach them to be straight!) can be put in jeopardy on the front lines in battle, how many weapons systems can be scrapped and how many of our enemies can be released how soon from Gitmo so that they can get back to killing American military personnel bogged down in bureaucratic rules many years after they should have promptly crushed the enemy and been brought straight home.
Bring Marine Corps General Jim "Mad Dog" Mattis out of retirement (65 years old now), make him Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and give him license to do whatever needs doing.