Borepatch is talking about, as he calls it, the inevitability of secession.[1],[2]
Kind of curious to see how them Good Ole Boys will pay for their infrastructure. Of the states that get the most from the Feds, compared to what they pay in takes, three out of the four most dependent on the Federal government are in the Deep South: Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Of the top half of the states that are less dependent on the Federal government for funding, only two are southern states: Arkansas and North Carolina. In any sort of peaceful breakup, the taxpayers of the Northeast and far West will be more than happy to stop sending money to the neo-Confederates.
Anyone who thinks that a divided America will continue to be a player on the world stage is smoking crack. There won't be the funding for a large navy, army or air force. It takes a large and economically powerful nation to be able to afford a strong military (or a subservient population which is yoked to feed one). It's no accident that the slow collapse of the British from a global military power to a weak regional power followed the near-complete divestiture of the British Empire. The collapse of the USSR was followed almost immediately by the collapse of the Soviet armed forces.[3] The same story has been repeated over and over- collapse of an empire goes hand-in-hand with collapse of the same empire as an effective military power.[4]
The only way to keep such military power in existence following secession is that the smaller nations would have to agree to band together to support a military. Which would require some sort of confederation. But a confederation doesn't have the power to compel its members to do much of anything.[5] Only a strong central government is able to do that.[6]
Which is where we are now.
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[1] Which I take to mean that since the Right can't persuade a majority of voters to vote for their guy for president, they want to take their ball and go home.
[2] Of course, the blame all falls on the Left. Not a peep of criticism about the GOP's pursuing a policy of racial divisiveness for the last fifty years. Not a single hint of dissatisfaction towards the GOP's full-throated eagerness to keep redistributing the wealth of America from the middle class to the rich.
[3] Russia's recent "show the flag" air ops have been conducted with aircraft that came into their arsenal during the pendency of the USSR.
[4] Some of the collapsed empires that were once military powers: Roman, Byzantine, Turkish, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Austro-Hungarian.
[5] Which was one of the problems the CSA had when it came to raising and supplying its army.
[6] Without a strong patron to provide economic assistance to support its military, Israel will be doomed in the middle-to-long run. And which of the rump-states will inherit the United States' seat in the Security Council will be an interesting squabble.
Cat Pawtector!
2 hours ago
11 comments:
I'll look at it from a different perspective.
If this happens the poor will get poorer and the rich may need to run.
I can imagine a small company needed a part that was purchased from a neighbor state that is now a new country. What will the export and the duty be? Is it worth buying small numbers from there. Maybe Fred up the block can make it instead. Its patentd there but not here. Will sillycon valley be the new capital or fail hard as things get made elsewhere anyway.
Short view, a mess. Long view a serious decaying mess.
Eck!
Tons of interesting things to think about in there. The US is quite large, and has different kinds of resources in different places. The midwest has the corn, wheat and soybeans (and nuclear ICBMs, but that's another story) that the other new nations will need. Highways and rail systems cross national borders, and much of the port capacity will be on the coasts, which will be the more liberal places.
Which leads to the possiblity of geographically non-contiguous states - there will be economic incentives to sort of cherrypick who's going to be part of your country. And if there are disagreements about resources and trade, hell, this is (was) America and we're very likely to start shooting. Border wars and territorial aggression are a certainty, and with no larger entity to control it, it's liable to get pretty ugly.
It seems like something the Federal government would go pretty far to quash - it would take losing the cohesiveness and loyalty of the armed forces to actually start to happen...
The secessionists, both in 1830-1861 and now, all operate under the belief that there would not be a war or if there was, then a demonstration of Southern resolve would settle the matter.
Didn't work out that way then. Might not the next time around.
CDR. Salamander had it right when he said that war is a dark room: You can see the door in, but once you step inside, you have no idea what you'll find and you cannot back out the way you came in.
Me, I'm thinking about the partition of India and Pakistan transplanted to this land. Also, people (statistically) here are used to moving every few years--what happens when there are border crossings and paperwork thrown in?
Ugh.
Since a breakup of the USA would be in the geopolitial interests of both Russia and China, it might be very interesting to find out where the self-styled scholars of secessionism are collecting paychecks.
"The only way to keep such military power in existence"
That's nto going to happen in the long terma nyway.
The U.S. trade balance deficit, aggregate public budget deficit and military spending (including the hidden positions such as nuke in Dept. of Energy) are all in the same ballpark; close to a trillion per annum.
3,000 $ per capita is lacking, and even much more because private and public investments are too small and need to be stepped up.
I find the secessionists quite amusing. Like the quick reference to the "War of Northern Agression" and such...the threat against the white man. These people will be the first out the gate, and the vast, sane majority of each state will slam the gate shut behind them.
Rather than secession, the more likely scenario seems, to me, to be revolution. The 1% continue to control more and more of the economy, money, property, etc and the middle class is disappearing quickly. At some point, a moment will be reached when the poor finally decide that's enough. And, as a bonus, the poor in the U.S. are quite well armed, relatively speaking.
Hopefully, the initial moment will be political, rather than physical, and the system will swing back toward stability, but I have my doubts. The longer before this happens, the more second or third generation "rich kids of Instagram" we grow who will not willingly accept a redistribution of some of their wealth.
Overall, the U.S. moved from Republic to Empire about 2001, with the help of terrorists. We still have elections, but it isn't really making much difference. Can we last as an Empire for a couple of hundred years, probably no. The rising unrest worldwide caused by rising sea levels and crop failures is going to break the already strained U.S. military if our means of response doesn't change quickly. And, as we see daily, the hardening of our Conressional arteries only moves forward, with no sign of lessening. Thus, I am pessimistic that any meaningful change will occur.
And so, we can look forward to a steady decline in living standards across the U.S., hopefully slowly, and then a great upheaval of some sort...just remember, do you want to be driving a Ferrari or a Bentley when the mob closes some street intersections to look for the 1%?
I don't see outright secession-I think the same thing that happened to the Soviet Union will end up here one day. The bills will come due, and things will just fall apart.
I'm behind, but the next instalment was going to be on the international implications. You're right that this will be the end of the Pax Americana.
Also, I really haven't spelled out that I think the split will lead to pretty unhappy times, but it will. You point out a few; there are a million more. This will be really, really messy and unpleasant (although I don't think shooting will be likely).
Net/net, this isn't a good thing, but I do think it will be inevitable.
I also don't see secession as a southern thing - the midwest and mountain states seem to be part of the same dynamic.
It'll also be the effective end of the American arms industry, as well as the aerospace industry.
As well as the economy. Part of the unappreciated secret of U.S. economic power is that the Mississippi river basin is in the hands of a single nation. When the neo-CSA is in a position to strange Midwest grain exports, things will get ugly.
No, I think there are plenty of entrenched interests that have too much to lose by a breakup. There will be war.
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