This is the branch that really sets the US military apart from the rest. The United States Navy is the largest navy in the world by numbers alone, * and the most powerful overall according to the Global Firepower Index with over 200 commissioned (the ones that get the USS prefix) ships and over 200 support and standby ships. After the conciliatory attitude of Ronald Reagan laid Soviet fears of annihilation to rest, the USSR's long-term high military expenses (previously needed to keep up with the US) caught up with her and contributed to her relatively peaceful self-dismemberment and suicide.
* the 'Cuban Crisis' of '62 and 'Able Archer Exercise' of '83. The United States' World War II and Cold War military budgets were much higher than today's, and when paired with US belligerency scared the Soviets so much it nearly resulted in World War III on two notable occasions. The United States' spending on its military has generally remained above this level since about 1940, when it first decided to field a military on the same level as the other Great Powers of the day, and the cumulative effect of this high spending has been an increase of its capabilities.
* 4% of GDP, about twice the figure of similarly well-developed economies. The US military is so powerful because theirs is the world's single-largest economy, and the equivalent value of 4% of everything bought and sold in the country is spent on the military. With eleven aircraft carriers to serve as mobile airstrips (and a lot of amphibious assault ships), and basing rights on every continent except Antarctica (which no one has basing rights to), the US military has a global reach and relative budget as great as that of The British Empire in her heyday. The second-largest military in the world in terms of active personnel, with two million active and reserve personnel, the US also has the second largest existing stock of active nuclear weapons.
The armed forces of the United States of America are generally regarded as being altogether the most powerful military force in history.
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