[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.