Re: How would the US economy and military function in the event of no debt?
Just like the title implies, i hope this doesn't count as something political and thus gets cut off, but i really want to know as part of an overall greater understanding of the function of the US economy and military and how they are intertwined, and i guess just a look at the impact modern finance has on how a modern military operates.
How would the US military and economy coup if hypothetically for whatever reason the biggest creditor nations in the world: China, Saudi Arabia, Japan, SKorea and Germany stopped lending money and told the USA they're on their own, no questions about whether or not this would start WWIII or be the economic equivalent of the nuclear option, i want to know what exactly would be the economic results of such a move.
Such a querstion is a complete strawman. Such a scenario is very unlikely to occur precisely because of the negative impact it will have on the nations pulling that trigger, and on everyone else.
First of all, in the current economic and manufacturing environment, China would be hurt as much by such a move as the US would. The US would simply cancel its debt and stop trading with China...idling tens of millions of Chinese workers and factories and sending the PRC into an economic armageddon of its own. Forcing the US to endure ten years of very lean times where it maintains its military at a higher level than other nations anyway (even if forced to reduce), but then comes out of it in a position to move rapidly forward thereafter having been forced by such a move to immediately address ts economic house.
Saudi Arabia, Japan, Germany, South Korea all have just as critical dependencies which would hurt them economically as well, in either case, if China didi it, it would likely send the entire plaent into an economic melt down...if any one of those countries did so, they would be hurt worse than the US would. Aad those nations are US allies and would not want to impact either themselves or the US in such a fashion., Therefore a strawman.
What you might want to consider conversely, which is, IMHO, much more likely, is what happens if the US, without such an armegeddon type stimulus, on its own over the next ten-fifteen years, gets its financial house in order and adopts a balanced budget and then entirely reduces its debt over that time period. If the US in the process became independent energy wise (which it could certainly do at this point, because it now has more proven reserves with the shales and fracking than all of the mid east combined).
Short of a world-wide complete economic melt down (which is not out of the realm of possibilty...just not likely) the US will continue to maintain its edge militarily. Even in such a scenario, like the depression of the late 1920s and ealry 1930s, the US, while being hard hit, is likely to be in a better position to deal with it than most other nations and therefore its own military efforts would be less impacted than those nation hit harder by such a scenario.
As it is, the acquisition process of the US Military would go on as it currently does. Research would be done by the military research departments identifying needed enhancements and new programs. The elected Congress and Senate committees would review those desires and allow for them to whatever degree they approve budgetarily. Then, just as it occurs now, the various defense forces would put out bids and RFPs accordingly and move forward...having the entire process scrutinized by those elected committees all the while to make sure they remain on track budgetarily. None of that would change, all that might be impacted is how much is approved and when. The idea that somehow the US would suffer what Germany did in the 20s and 30s, or what the Soviet Union did in the 1990s is just not a realistic oer plausible scenario. The US still has massive production power, massive resources (energy and raw materials) and a respected and stable rule of law and citizenry to keep it on track, even if it is hit hard economically.
It would not melt down, be "broke," in the sense that people just give up and walk away leaving veseels, aircraft, and systems to sit and rust. It would take far more to do that, because the underlying system is simply too stable.
Most of the massve debt the US has run up has had nothing to do with its military...it has and has to do with trying to sustain unsustainable massive social give-away programs in an attempt to buy votes and somehow "make" people better off by just giving them things, when people have to be encouraged to be stake holders and productively and freely involved in their own development in order to appreciate and have the desire themselves to strive for what they get. That's what needs fixing in America...and ultimately, it will be fixed because for m0ost of its history that is how it worked and allowed it to remain strong...and for a significant majority of the population, that is still how it is.
