[StormChaser_5]

Not sure that's true. America's military keeps peace for trade to happen in a lot of the world... Not always successfully but it's there. That works because they have the reserve currency and can therefore print money for free. Which benefits the US greatly in all sorts of ways. But everyone else also sees some good. If that goes away its going to have impacts on everyone else as well as America. Maybe not as much of an impact on the rest of the world but this is not good for anyone. I can get the anger at the way the US acts, particularly over the last couple of weeks, but that doesn't mean that them doing badly helps the rest of us

[impossiblefork]

I really don't think we do.

France and Britain alone used to be able to defend trade routes. I don't think it's a huge expense. It really is good for essentially everyone aside from the US itself, once the disruption is over. Obviously we'll have some kind of crash though, but I think that was inevitable with or without this.

[enraged_camel]

>> France and Britain alone used to be able to defend trade routes. I don't think it's a huge expense.

That was a different world. France and Britain today have nowhere the kind of force projection the USA does, via its military bases and aircraft carriers.

[impossiblefork]

Yes, but the US basically had to intervene and tell them to stop using it. If that hadn't happened they wouldn't have.

The US probably wasn't in preventing an invasion of Egypt, but if not restrained I'm sure that Britain and France could have realised their objectives, and if they had had a continuous need to realise different changing objectives they would have retained more capability.

[dragonwriter]

> France and Britain alone used to be able to defend trade routes. I don't think it's a huge expense

France and Britain used to be two of the world's largest imperial powers, and at any time you could plausibly claim France and Britain alone could defend global trade routes, Britain, at least, still was.

You really aren't making a case for it being an easy, cheap job.

[impossiblefork]

Yes, but I think they can basically still do it. If they hadn't been buying F-35s they'd presumably have pushed their stealth fighter projects to be finished by now, and what more is really required?

I think these trade routes etc. will stop mattering rather soon. Batteries are coming and once that's here the oil trade's gone, and then you have no need to export things to get something to trade for it, so in a decade or so none of this will matter.

International trade will go from being mandatory to optional, and thus become much less important.

[dboreham]

I don't think that's completely true. Wasn't the US Navy founded (by a Scotsman of course) because the US at the time lacked the funds to pay off the pirates? European countries did pay them off, hence didn't need as large navies.

[mistrial9]

isn't this ancient history now? the formations in the last 50 years are large

[consumer451]

I agree. I would argue that Pax Americana has been pretty great for even the USA's supposed "arch enemies." My gut feeling is that everyone loved that stability, whether friend or foe, and the fact that it's now gone will mess everyone up.

I am biased here, but I look forward to the next century of Pax Europa. This is the only way forward.

[CuriouslyC]

Europe isn't playing aggressively enough or really doing enough to innovate. China is in a position to reap a huge windfall from Trump putting the US in the dumpster. China will bring Europe into the fold with the promise of gradual reforms, and they'll win the global south with soft power and trade agreements.

My fear is that Trump sees America's position eroding quickly relative to China before his eyes and decides to do something an order of magnitude dumber than anything he's done before.

[lazide]

If you really think the US is going to just, what, retire all that military equipment you haven’t been paying attention.

[consumer451]

Disclaimer: As it turns out, predicting the future is somewhat difficult.

However, in isolationist MAGA, the US military is just a jobs program. This is plain facts, is it not?

The other major power of the USA, post-WWII, was "soft power." That has now been cancelled. So, I am really not sure what is happening.

I once thought that "may you live in interesting times" was a blessing. I now believe that this saying is a curse.

[lazide]

So you’re saying Greenland and Canada have nothing to worry about?

[20after4]

It was always a curse.