Ok, have some time to try to go through this in more direct detail now, focusing on the discussion about “soldiertariat [myth]” with personal conflicts between people on here aside.

First, I want to emphasize that if the data shows that USian military is largely not exploited poor people, I see no reason to deny or downplay that. However, if some percentage of it is exploited poor people, that is still a certain number of people existing in that realm of it. If the majority comes from a class that is higher class and more just directly benefits from imperialism, no question about it, that obviously doesn’t bode well for the revolutionary potential of such people overall. Exceptions may exist, but in that case probably the expectation would be that most are a hard nut to crack in that regard and energy is better spent elsewhere.

Going through your breakdown:

Complete destruction of the incentives provided by the empire for active members and the prestige offered to Veterans. In other words, they need to experience an existential crisis that threatens their lives and forces them to organize agains the gov’t. (If the shutdown stays for months, we might see this possibility due to the internal dissidence rising up)

One distinction I want to focus on here is active members vs. veterans. Although veterans might have a degree of “prestige” in the sense of people who say stuff like “thank you for your service” or whatever, my understanding is some of them are disabled and struggle to get proper help for it. Those kind of people I don’t think are quite in the same category as others.

I do agree what you outline is a possible vector for people changing their allegiance to some degree. It is still a question in my mind with people like that whether they will be sympathetic to a more socialist-like cause or if they will just be “blue maga” for lack of a better term.

Complete class awareness that fighting their gov’t for a revolution will mean the loss of their privilege and the exceptionalism due to the dismantling of this structure. There are no concessions here.

There may not be that much privilege for those who exist in the sphere of disabled, but for others, sure, I see how there would have to be a certain degree of… how do I put it, “long term over short term.” Understanding that they can be part of something better even than what they have, but that it requires a significant shift in the structure of things.

Accept the process of decolonization and the process of generating empathy with the oppressed(aka victims of the Iraqi war and other victims of US interventions for example).

Complete acceptance of the role of the US military in war crimes, genocide and destruction around the Global South.

Here I do see it more as something like I emphasized before in another thread, the idea of “they may be helpful with supervision.” I don’t see them as likely to be reliable people who are leading anything, but some may still be able to help with advice or training under the right circumstances. I’m trying to remember a parallel I’m thinking of, maybe it was in the context of China’s revolutionary efforts? How there was something about those who would change sides and the liberation forces would accept their help, but keep them more at a distance in terms of proximity to the power structure. This may be the way it has to be with those who are too close to enforcement of empire in actual execution of it.

So as you may see, I’m not trying to make a case for major focus on recruiting from imperial core service members. Never have intended to be doing so. But it has, from how it looks to me, been made out like myself and perhaps some others are saying that simply because we don’t agree that 100% of them are a lost cause of conscious baby-killers no matter what.