I have a lot of personal theories how my country can best cope with future geopolitical adjustments. If I were in charge, the first thing I would do would be to close most foreign military bases. We can have the strongest military in the world and have them largely based in the US. I think the US Navy continues to be a good investment, but I would cut back a small amount on intel and other military branches.
And that won't change any time soon. The Euro is a decent currency but we're too disjoint to back something supposed to be a reserve currency, and China's Yuan is too much controlled by the government (and exchange limited) to be viable.
The strategy behind the foreign military bases isn't just about having the strongest military in the world. They serve two purposes:
First, we want to preserve the credible threat of boots on the ground anywhere in the world within just a few hours of a conflict beginning. Think edge computing, but for military operations.
Second, we want to reassure our allies that they have more than just our word for it that we'll come to their aid in a crisis. Having US soldiers in your country 24/7 functions as a guarantee that if the country falls to an invader the US will have to respond, because our soldiers were captured or killed.
The concern is that without the bases, a hostile power (like, say, the one TFA is about) could invade an ally (like, say, the Baltic states) with overwhelming force and present NATO with a fait accompli before we have time to react. Pulling away from those bases would be correctly seen by many of our allied states as relaxing our commitment to them.
During petrodollar era, the 1970s and 80s, the dollar was used less than it is today. (Certainly within the USSR and even the Russian SSR.)
We de facto banned Russia from using the dollar in 2022 [1]. That it took Moscow over two years just get down to 50% speaks volumes to the dollar’s strength.
I am questioning the value of having 800 military bases in foreign countries in 2024. What was once a good idea may not be worth the money and resources now. What does the US give up not protecting the rest of the world? I think these topics are worthy of serious dialogue.
All these ideas of some kind of blockchain based common alternative is still just a pipe dream. You can’t base a real currency on crypto. If you think you can you don’t understand what currency actually is (hint: currency has never been a successor to metal/coin based transactions… it’s an abstraction over debt and debt has and will always be the main way value is exchanged. crypto cant replace debt based currency because debt is based on trust in humans, something that trust in an algorithm can’t replace)
Consider one result may be the USD not being used as a reserve currency as widely, or at all.
The number of lives we’d lose in the next world war. The end of Pax Americana won’t be sweet.
That said, I agree there should be more thought as to the marginal benefit of the 800th base.
Sure, if you want a really strong Coast Guard. As soon as you venture out of that little bubble you're going to need ports, air-bases, and other facilities.
China is suffering from a lack of these, they really can't operate anywhere in the world like the US can. The same goes for Russia. In effect, those two are completely boxed in.
By things like US bases all over the world.
You can even argue that historically Britain was disproportionately powerful because of their extensive network of bases and ports. Trade was relatively easy for them, while other European powers never had the same access.
Like it or not, the ability to trade and the strength of your power projection are often deeply inter-linked.
Or at least that you have no idea how your business makes money or what your users want your code for. Explainable for a new hire, but for a 25-year vet, such a lack of understanding and perspective is really inexcusable.
"Saudi Arabia ends 80-year petrodollar deal with US for multi-currency sales"
https://www.indiatoday.in/business/story/saudi-arabia-ends-8...
"No empire lasts forever, no dynasty continues unbroken"
edit:
Since the U.S.'s war on terrorism, the U.S. has said that every trade done in dollars is de facto done on U.S. soil and thus subject to U.S. laws. I'm surprised that more countries have not tried to cut ties with the U.S. dollar.
I share some of your lack of enthusiasm for crypto currencies. Rather, as individual countries trade between themselves it may often be advantageous for them to use their own currencies, especially if they don’t have to hold other countries’ currencies for long periods of time.
Non-US countries pay quite a penalty for holding lots of dollars. I expect every country to do what is in their own best interests, just as I hope my country makes good long term economic and geopolitical decisions.
“Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals talk about logistics,” Robert Barrow, former Commandant of the Marine Corps, echoing Eisenhower, echoing Cæsar.
In all likelihood, the person you’re responding to had no strategic remit.
If the enemy knows all your forces have to flow into theater via airlift landing at Krablakistan Air Base in Elbonia, they're going to make war plans involving targeting your transports and pounding the living shit out of Krablakistan Air Base with air strikes and/or ballistic missiles. And beforehand, they'll do their level best to sow discord between your government and the Elbonians to the point they reconsider your access to their base in a crisis.
forgoing foreign bases and limiting the US military presence to domestic only is such a ludicrous take that I'm willing to bet would have you laughed out of any room discussing defense.
My friend, times change, and we need to re-evaluate the world situation, and what is in our best interests. Someone in this thread mentioned England’s reach of power. I am not an expert on history but I think England did a fairly good job of disengaging from being the world’s hegemony. It seems like we need to calculate our own exit strategy sometime, and hopefully several years from now.
The more restrictive the access agreements are, the less options military planners and operations officers have and the more predictable we are to the enemy, who knows that he only has to defend against the evil Yankees coming from country X, not country Y or Z. And that because Country X is so far away, we need to burn additional logistical assets to support the shooters.
The very real probability of no longer having the strongest military in the world, which is something you express that you are still in favor of.
We already tried the strategy of waiting to intervene until Europe had already been violently consolidated into one enormous and war-obsessed power. Even if you don't care about the lives of people who live outside of the US at all (which, to be clear, I do care about), that mistake cost us alone over 400k lives to fix. And do you really think that if we'd just left Hitler alone he would have been too intimidated to attack us after he'd finished mopping up Europe?
I'm a highly respected computer programmer in my organization, but if I went in to the CEO and tried to advise him that his business strategy was wrong and he needed to do something different, he'd listen to me politely and then explain all the ways in which I misunderstood the situation. And he would be correct.
You can have been a very good computer programmer within the DoD without having absorbed enough understanding of the geopolitical situation to have credible expertise in military strategy.
I find it interesting, in general, in this thread, that so many people dismiss what on the surface is a contrarian view (i.e., drastically reduce our overseas military presence), without more open debate.
Maybe my idea is wrong, but I feel it is worth a conversation.
This.
Plus:
- America gets soft power in return, countries keep American interests in eye too. This requires understanding the concept of win-win versus the you lose-I win mentality.
- Economic contraction. There is not much growth and prosperity in a world of feuding dictatorships. Incentives in those systems are opposite to global well fare.
BTW the UK and France resisted that disengagement when they attempted to keep Suez from Egypt in 1956 but that expedition failed, also because the USA didn't like it.
But this is not work, this is HN. I posted some unpopular views here and most people here disagree with me. I am good with that! It still feels good to express my opinions.
I hope not (!) and don’t think so. We have major natural resources and advantages. I can’t imagine a future where, assuming we mostly withdrew from the world’s stage, that any country would mess with us.
America lives of a constant influx of the best global talent and a global market for its products.
I would bet my money that American democracy would not survive when that ecosystem collapses, especially not as the American system has already transitioned into an anocracy according to some. Collapse in itself would create opportunities, but not for a simple programmer as you refer to yourself.
A whole constellation of mostly rich allies and friends, many of which may be forced to join some hostile power, in the same way that Czechoslovakia was forced by Stalin to abandon the Marshall Plan (1946) and later absorbed into the Soviet Bloc outright (1948).
Aren't you happy to have countries like Italy, Germany and Japan as friends? Was it better or cheaper for an average American taxpayer when they were geopolitical adversaries? I doubt that.
for what? a smaller deficit? it's unclear whether reducing the size of the defense industry helps the US economy, so maybe you get a smaller deficit but you also raise unemployment by a couple % and lower economic growth by a % or so over the next 25 years
conversely, it's pretty clear this does hurt its current hegemonic position. that's a gamble not many are willing to take so carelessly
I say this as a non-American, by the way
I think is a bit unfair. The state is the UK and we cooperate with the US but are not especially told what to do by them. I note with Ukraine the UK were the first to supply anti tank weapons, long range missiles, allow strikes on Russian territory with their weapons and so on and the US tagged along after.