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An Autarky Thought Experiment
In response to my post about refugee bonds, the Great Ghost of Gödel left this comment obiter dicta:
Not without trepidation or regret have I come around to the Fortress America position, but here I am. Bring all of our troops stationed overseas home. Defend our borders without mercy. If the rest of the world is hell bent for leather on destroying itself, whether rapidly with open war or slowly with insane economics and/or immigration policy, so what? We’re perfectly capable of being self-sufficient as a nation, and it never was a good idea to be the world’s police. …
In short: we need to quit acting like we need the rest of the world at all, let alone that we need the rest of the world’s governments to like us. We’re supposed to be different from everyone else. So let’s actually be different, keep attracting people because we’re better, and make no excuses for being better — and being loners.
What about trade, I asked? How would we ensure freedom of navigation without the US Navy? He proposed that if people want to trade with world beyond our territorial waters, they can hire their own navy:
The Navy is appropriate within our territorial waters, and of course there is extensive maritime law with respect to what that means.
Beyond that, I think a private security/defense model, presumably attached to some kind of insurance system, is appropriate. This is, of course, also historically precedented, by the security and defense approaches taken by the British East India Company, et al. I think it’s reasonable to imagine similar arrangements without the connection to colonization. It might look something like this. …
Keep in mind I’m suggesting this as a contingency upon international trade being “not worth it,” as measured by actuaries insuring international shipping, who in turn are paying security forces to protect them. In other words, if the fixed costs of security and insurance leave international trade profitable, great! If not, I’d call that a pretty good definition of “the world has gone to hell,” wouldn’t you?
So let’s take this idea seriously. Let’s imagine what would happen if tomorrow we brought all of our troops stationed overseas home. We bring back the subs and the aircraft carriers, and if anyone complains about the pirates, we tell them to go out and rent themselves some sepoys and find someone to insure their own aircraft carriers. Freedom of navigation’s their problem.
As of tomorrow, every one of these men and women shutters the bases, closes up shop, and sails back to CONUS:
They bring their gear back with them, of course. Especially the nukes and the missile interceptors. We’re not leaving that stuff in someone else’s hands.
What do you think would happen? What would the headlines look like in a month’s time, in your view? What about a year?
Would it be in our interests, overall?
Source: DoD Personnel, Workforce Reports & Publications, Active Duty Military Personnel by Service by Region/Country Total DoD – June 30, 2015 (DMDC Data)
Published in Foreign Policy, General, Military
Exactly! If we pull back we just reset to the 19th century model.
I’ll second your Yes, an attack of a nuclear nature on us demands a response. Ideally we will have solid proof of the culprit and commence with a brutal retributive war against them. Even if our evidence is scant, someone has to pay. So we spin the wheel of usual suspects and let fate decide. No one can think that such an attacks can go unpunished. Someone will pay and if you are our enemy you should expect the full weight of responsibility of all our anger in such a moment, and you should fear it.
If it is self defense, then there is no limit to how many I would kill to stop them from killing me or mine. But I know liberals do not think this way.
[Deleted comment as was meant for a different respondent – MA]
Wrong commenter. I was talking about self defense.
People should take me at my word. I am willing to kill as many of another tribe, so to speak, as it takes to save the lives of my tribe.
Since you do not believe me, what ratio to you think I feel is correct? What one is correct for you? 1:1000?
We should bomb their capacity to build nukes, and if that means using nukes first we should do it. If an Iran nuke goes off in the USA, we should incinerate Iran.
whoops, my bad. I apologize.
Iran is not going to nuke America. It isn’t likely they would nuke anyone (the mere threat is all they need), but I imagine Saudi Arabia and Israel would top their list of targets, not us.
Nuking Israel is nuking America. I don’t see a real difference.
Hear! Hear!
Joseph,
Well, the now reliable medium range missile only has a range of 1000 miles. That’s just perfect for Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey. Perfect for starting a full blown nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Of course, if you were old like me you would remember our own missile program. We were inventing ballistic missiles not just copying existing technology so it was more difficult than what the Iranians must do. However, in 1958 we were having trouble getting a redstone off the ground (medium range). By 1963 we were using the Atlas missile, a full ICBM. With all that money Iran is getting they surely can hire the talent and we’ll soon see a nice Iranian ICBM that can hit the continental United States. Why they’d probably write some nice Jihadist slogan on the side of the missile. Of course, we know they don’t really mean it when they scream death to Israel, death to America.
Pleasant dreams.
Regards,
Jim
Really we could not stand to let then nuke anyone, even an enemy like North Korea.
If you think of it that way, attacking Europe (or even Japan) would also be “attacking America.”
That was the premise of the Cold War. NATO spells that out.
I suspect that America and many Americans will see it differently. If Israel was nuked under the Obama administration all the aggressor would have to put up with is an apology for all of American past actions that forced them into that position.
This country will not go to war for Israel. The best Israel could hope for is that our hawks can get them supplies.
The realistic Israel hope is that the US will not shoot down Israeli planes heading for Iran.
I am pretty sure they are safe from that. The cowardice of this administration would not allow such a provocative action. That would require somebody to make a decision that they could be held accountable for. Most likely they would deploy a hashtag and broadcast the Israeli planes locations on twitter. Obama would go golf or fund raise or vacation so as to not be involved in any activities that could stick to him.
If Israel were nuked Obama would go on TV to say, “No one is more upset about this than me. I will not rest until we find out who did this. Now, let’s go play golf.”
Exactly. That is just too much power to allow anybody else to display – it would be too disruptive.
99.99% of US actions in the Middle East (including today) tell me that it will. There are many many real issues in the world, but America not defending Israel militarily is just not one of them.
I think you overestimate Barack Obama’s ability to “do” anything in the time frame an Israeli conflict would require. He would wait until it was over to decide.
America already does things like pay for Iron Dome. It’s not nothing.
True, but going to war is something different. If I were Israel I would not even count on Obama for a Nixon-style re-arming during the actual conflict. He’d want to blame both sides and encourage dialogue at the UN.
Well I think the problem is that if Iran did launch one or several nukes against Israel there wouldn’t be much left for us to do to help Israel. It isn’t a nation large enough to absorb that kind of attack, and I would expect that shortly after the Israelis would counter attack. Basically in 24 hours there would be large radioactive craters all across Israel and Iran. Really we would be stuck with cleaning up.
This is why the Israeli’s are so freaked out about the possibility of Iran or any similar regime getting such weapons, and who can blame them?
As dithering and uninterested as Obama is in the Middle East I do not think even he could ignore such an attack or drag his feet. Now a conventional war is another thing, but I don’t see Iran trying to invade Israel. Though if they consolidate Iraq and Syria they will have a direct corridor to march their forces all the way to the Israeli border.
@zafar: if you think the U.S. will go to war, a real war for Israel or any country, while under this administration you are sadly mistaken. I doubt this administration would enter war if our mainland was attacked similar to 9/11. Though it is likely that in that situation things would move outside their control. You can only blame so much on YouTube videos after all.
See? An attack on Israel would be treated by Obama exactly the same as an attack on the US. Crickets.
I just do not get this “we would never do anything to protect ourselves, we do nothing to help Israel, we are doomed, oh woe oh woe” thing from some Americans. I mean seriously?
As The Economist once pointed out (somewhat appalling choice of words but they’re descriptive, I’ll give them that):
The United States is a giant with a cold, not a pygmy with cancer.
Right. That’s because you don’t accept the underlying causes that we see. So we disagree.
Zafar,
You are confusing pre-2009 America with the Obama administration.
I think you are missing the point. We are not saying that the US could not do anything. Of course it could. We are saying that under this administration’s leadership that the US will not do anything. Nor are we saying we are doomed. We are saying that anybody that relies on US protection does so at its own risk. Chances are under this administration that protection will not come. There are forces in our government that will try to honor our past protection agreements but I expect they will the thwarted by the Obama administration at every turn and the government will do the least possible to honor those agreements and commitments.