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U.S. Department of Defense
Main article: US Department of Defense (Pentagon)
Nuclear arsenal
2023
3748 nuclear warheads for strategic forces
In July 2024, the United States declassified data on its strategic nuclear weapons - as of September 2023, they had 3,748 nuclear warheads designed to equip strategic forces.
The information was published by the American National Nuclear Safety Agency (NNSA).
The last time the United States published such data was in October 2021, after which information about the quantitative composition of the nuclear arsenal was not disclosed.
The actual number of bigheads indicates:
- on the 88% reduction in stocks from the maximum number of warheads of 31255 units at the end of fiscal year 1967;
- about an 83% decrease in their number compared to the level of 22,217 units when the Berlin Wall fell in late 1989.
According to the Federation of American Scientists, in 2024 the United States had 3,708 nuclear warheads.
Accommodation at 6 air bases in 5 European countries
2022: Deployment of B61-12 tactical nuclear bombs in Europe
In October 2022, it became known that the United States intends to accelerate the deployment of modernized tactical nuclear bombs B61-12 in Europe, they should be delivered to NATO bases on the continent in December, and not in the spring of 2023, media reported.
2021:5550 nuclear warheads
Intercontinental ballistic missiles
LGM-35A Sentinel is a new generation intercontinental ballistic missile in the United States developed by Northrop Grumman Corporation. According to the $100 billion program, LGM-35A Sentinel missiles are to replace 400 Cold War missiles LGM-30G Minuteman III.
Nuclear tests
1964: Underground explosion in southern Mississippi
1958
Troops
Number of troops
2024: Military and personnel numbers 1.278 million
The Fox News channel, citing a Pentagon document in February 2024, announced that the US armed forces would reduce their staff by another 24 thousand people. In this case, this is not about the physical dismissal of staff, but about reducing unfilled rates.
In total, the US defense department plans to remove several thousand positions in airmobile and mechanized units, as well as advisers to train foreign armies in connection with a decrease in the scale of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
2023: Failure of draft plan 41 K recruits
In 2023, the US Armed Forces failed to fulfill the plan to recruit 41,000 recruits. According to officials, 77% of local youth do not think at all about joining the ranks of the American army, and another 11% do not pass due to excess weight.
2021: 1.352 million
United States Army
Main article: U.S. Army (Ground Forces)
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
Main article: United States Air Force (USAF)
UNITED STATES NAVY
Main article: US Navy
Troops abroad
2024: U.S. Military Europe Deployment Map
Biolaboratories
Main article: US Biological Laboratories
UAVs in the United States
Main article: UAVs in the United States
History
2023: Pentagon uses bloggers to attract new soldiers
On November 7, 2023, it became known that the Pentagon actively enjoys the support of military bloggers who have a large number of subscribers on social networks to attract new soldiers to the armed forces. This method of campaigning is aimed primarily at young Americans.
US Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks spoke about the initiative. Her own content from active duty military personnel, such as YouTube videos, resonates with young viewers alive, she said. In this case, posts that do not directly talk about conscription are especially effective. This can be, for example, a video in which a uniformed soldier talks about one of the days in his life.
 | When it comes to Defense Department initiatives to recruit soldiers on Generation Z-focused social media, we are seeing the greatest success with influencers. I feel out of my depth here, "Hicks said. |  |
Most U.S. military branches, with the exception of the Marine Corps and Space Force, have faced recruiting challenges. Some branches have even begun to consider changing or relaxing their conscription standards to expand the scope of potential conscripts. Hicks admitted that "recruiting into the army has become a problem" for the Ministry of Defense after the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the department "continues to look for creative solutions" to find those who want to join the ranks of the American army.
| | We can improve social connections through working with the population. By sharing soldier service stories over the Internet, we will allow the population, especially young Americans, to better understand who our military personnel are, what they are doing and what they are most proud of, Hicks added.[1] | |
2022: Recruitment issues
The US Army, citing recruitment problems, in July 2022 reported that by 2023 up to 28 thousand troops would not be counted in its ranks.
General Joseph Martin, deputy commander in chief of the US Armed Forces, confirmed that at the end of fiscal year 2023, the US army will have at its disposal from 445,000 to 425,000 soldiers, which is 28 thousand less than planned.
The estimated number of personnel at the end of 2022 is about 466 thousand soldiers with the planned 476 thousand.
Thus, the number of soldiers in the US Army will be reduced to the minimum number for the first time in eighty years - which will entail a shortage of personnel even for ongoing operations. What is already talking about new ones.
Among the possible reasons for this situation, the American media name:
- introduction of more detailed medical examinations cutting off too many "illiquid," with obesity, mental disabilities and drug addiction.
- reducing the proportion of Americans eligible for military service
"failed marketing" of the American Army.
- insufficiently high unemployment rates among the population.
In the summer of 2022, the leadership of the US Armed Forces, even for a short period, decided to open a recruitment of recruits who do not have a high school diploma, but a week later canceled this practice.
According to US Secretary of the Army Christine Vermouth, this problem cannot be solved not only in one night, but even in one year. Such statements have already led to talk about the beginning of a partial draft of Americans into the ranks of the Armed Forces.
2021
Withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan
On August 31, 2021, the United States officially completed the withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan after the last plane left Kabul. It marks the end of a 20-year military presence in the country.
44% of military personnel think about suicide
In recent years, the number of suicides of the military has significantly increased in the United States, and the number thinking about suicide among them: from 31% in 2014 (while only 6% were conceived of suicide before entering military service) to 44% in 2021 (before entering service - 9%).
2020: 13.5% increase in military suicides, to 571 cases
In early April 2021, a US Department of Defense report was released, according to which the number of suicides among military personnel increased alarmingly. The total number of suicides in 2020 reached 571 - 13.5% more than a year earlier.
From October 1 to December 31, 2020, the military recorded 156 suicides in all units, including the National Guard and reserve troops. This is 25% more than in the last quarter of 2019 (125 deaths).
The main increase occurred among the Guard, among which the number of such deaths increased from 14 in the fourth quarter of 2019 to 39 in 2020. During the year, the number of suicides among the reserve troops increased by 7 people, from 11 to 18. The frequency of suicide among active duty servicemen has slightly decreased - from 100 to 99.
The Pentagon has warned that these numbers are preliminary and could change. A report from the Office of Suicide Prevention noted that the data required statistical analysis. Although so far no conclusions have been given about the causes of such an increase in suicides, the report noted "the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the well-being of military personnel and their families."
Some top military officials in the last months of 2020 spoke of the tension their troops experienced during the pandemic. A comparison of quarterly reports shows that the number of suicides began to increase markedly as the pandemic grew.
In the first quarter of 2020, suicide deaths fell slightly compared to the same period last year - from 137 in the first three months of 2019 to 133. But already from April to June 2020, the military recorded 128 deaths by suicide, compared with 115 during that period in 2019, reflecting an 11.3% increase. And in the third quarter of 2020, 154 military personnel committed suicide, which turned out to be 22% more than 126 deaths in 2019.[2]
1986: Bombing of Libya by the US and British military
On April 15, 1986, the US Armed Forces conducted the Eldorado Canyon air operation, the purpose of which was to launch a massive air strike on Libyan territory.
24 F-111F bombers, as well as electronic warfare aircraft and tankers, flew from Britain in full radio silence.
A few minutes before the bombing, US Navy fighters attacked Libyan air defense facilities, destroying most of them, while the rest chose not to take any action against enemy aircraft.
The operation itself lasted about 20 minutes, after which the bombers went towards the sea.
The US officially stated that the physical liquidation of Muammar Gaddafi was not the goal of the operation, and the task was to destroy military facilities, but many questioned this statement, since the colonel's residence in Tripoli was also hit.
1971: US sprays 77m litres of Agent Orange poison causing cancer over 14% of Vietnam
According to the US Department of Defense, from 1962 to 1971, as part of the Ranch Hand rainforest and vegetation destruction program, Americans sprayed 77 million liters of "agent orange" in South Vietnam, including 44 million liters containing dioxin.
The purpose of the spraying was to destroy the jungle vegetation, which made it easier to detect units of the North Vietnamese army and partisans of the NFOYUV. This is one of the most famous cases of the use of scorched earth tactics and the use of chemical weapons in human history. At the same time, the Air Force command insisted that they were "harmless to humans and wildlife."
The poison contained significant concentrations of dioxin, a mutagen that causes cancer and genetic mutations in people and other living things in contact with them.
Dioxin is a persistent substance, entering the human body with water and food, it causes various diseases of the liver and blood, massive congenital deformities of newborns and disorders of the normal course of pregnancy.
In total, at least 14% of Vietnam has been exposed to this poison.
In August 1961, U.S. President D. Kennedy authorized the use of chemicals to destroy vegetation in South Vietnam. Initially, for experimental purposes, South Vietnamese aircraft led by the US military used defoliant spraying over small forests in the Saigon region (now Ho Chi Minh City). In 1963, a more extensive area on the Kamau Peninsula (the current territory of Kamau Province) was treated with defoliants. With successful results, the American command began a massive use of defoliants.
The most actively used orange formulation (against forests) and blue (against crops of rice and other crops). For better spraying of chemicals, kerosene or diesel fuel was added to them.
According to the Vietnamese Society of Victims of Dioxin, of the three million Vietnamese victims of the chemical, by 2008 over a million people under the age of 18 had become disabled with hereditary diseases. Vietnamese victims were denied compensation for damage caused to life and health by exposure to the chemical.
Subsequently, it turned out that the Orange Agent led to serious diseases in a large number of American and South Vietnamese soldiers, as well as the local Vietnamese population.
The large-scale use of chemicals by American troops led to severe consequences. Mangrove forests (500 thousand hectares) were almost completely destroyed, 60% (about 1 million hectares) of jungle and 30% (more than 100 thousand hectares) of lowland forests were affected. Since 1960, the yield of rubber plantations has decreased by 75%. American troops destroyed from 40 to 100% of plantations of bananas, rice, sweet potatoes, papaya, tomatoes, 70% of coconut plantations, 60% of hevea, 110 thousand hectares of casuarina plantations.
As a result of the use of chemicals, the environmental balance of Vietnam has seriously changed. In the affected areas, out of 150 species of birds, 18 remained, amphibians and insects almost completely disappeared, the number of fish in rivers decreased and their composition changed. The microbiological composition of the soils was disturbed, plants were poisoned. The number of species of woody-shrub species of moist rainforest has sharply decreased: in the affected areas there are isolated species of trees and several species of spiny grasses that are not suitable for feeding cattle [5].
Changes in the fauna of Vietnam led to the displacement of one species of black rats by other species that are carriers of the plague in South and Southeast Asia. In the species composition of ticks, ticks-carriers of dangerous diseases appeared. Similar changes occurred in the species composition of mosquitoes: malaria mosquitoes appeared instead of harmless endemic mosquitoes.
The spraying of poison also took place over the territories of other countries of the Indochina Peninsula (Cambodia, Laos and Thailand).
1968
Notes
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