Comment by myrmidon

> evidence to date is that it's ability to destroy counties ends somewhere around Iran's strength

What kind of evidence? US is not destroying countries because its citizens don't want it to, and are generally not willing to pay the price for it.

If "the US" actually wanted, it could kill every inhabitant of continental Europe within less than a decade in a conventional war; the price in American lifes would be very high, but the outcome (without external intervention) seems pretty certain to me (speaking as a European).