OBSOLETE: The Collapse of Western Military Power is Andrei Martyanov's fifth book addressing the incompetence and lack of readiness of the American military, a series which began with his title Losing Military Supremacy, a second title which drew attention to how Americans appeared oblivious to The (Real) Revolution in Military Affairs, and culminating in a 4th book, America's Final War, which foretold that the US/NATO engagement with Russia via its proxy, Ukraine, would be the last US war.
The events of the past three years since that book have been marked by the catastrophic defeat of the combined West by Russia's Special Military Operation and the embarrassing 2025 exposure of America's military and industrial impotence after its two failed attempts to subdue Iran, a state which it had sanctioned for over 40 years, having repeatedly attacked its cyber programs and murdered its scientists. States do not recover from such defeats.
The United States sat out the revolution in military affairs and the emergence of modern warfare, resting on the laurels of a victory over Iraq, which it had weakened by sanctions and routine bombing for over a decade, and still believes that all other states are similarly weak and ready to sell their independence in Venezuela's fashion. The US miscalculated, as did the decomposing NATO states' leadership.
While the incapacity of the American military to bring Iran to heel may have shone a light on the obsolescence of American military planning and provisioning, it is nonetheless the U.S. conflict with Russia in Ukraine that has been most devastating, for it is here that the entire West has not only failed, but failed against a state which can now claim global military supremacy, superseding the US/NATO in all dimensions: military manpower, industrial capacity, and high-tech weaponry, and underpinning it all, by superlative strategic competence.
The revolution in warfare came not just by way of drones, however popular and much discussed this may be; it came through a devastating combination of mass-produced high precision supersonic and hypersonic weapons and the evolution of Russian Operational Art and strategic planning which remain beyond the grasp of NATO's militaries.
This fifth book provides a rigorous post hoc analysis of the progressive deployment of battlefield tactics and weaponry that enabled the West's defeat, with authoritative commentary from reputed Russian former colonel, Vladimir Trukham and other experts.