by Tyler Durden
Wednesday, Feb 24, 2021 - 19:40
Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,
Opposition to American secession movements often hinges on the idea that foreign policy concerns trump any notions that the United States ought to be broken up into smaller pieces.
It almost goes without saying that those who subscribe to neoconservative ideology or other highly interventionist foreign policy views treat the idea of political division with alarm or contempt. Or both.
They have a point. It's likely that were the US to be broken up into smaller pieces, it would be weakened in its ability to act as a global hegemon, invading foreign nations at will, imposing “regime change,” and threatening war with any regime that opposes the whims of the American regime.
For some of us, however, this would be a feature of secession rather than a bug.
Moreover, the ability of the American regime to carry out offensive military operations such as regime change is separate and distinct from the regime’s ability to maintain an effective and credible defensive military force.
Last month, we looked at how even a dismembered United States would be more than capable of fielding a large and effective defensive military force. A politically divided America nonetheless remains a very wealthy America, and wealth remains a key component in effective military defense. In other words, bigness is not as important as the extent to which a regime can call upon high levels of wealth and capital accumulation.
That analysis, however, concentrated on conventional forces, and this leaves us with the question of how the successor states to a post-secession United States would fare in terms of nuclear deterrence.
In this case, there is even less need for bigness than in the case of conventional military forces. As the state of Israel has demonstrated, a small state can obtain the benefits of nuclear deterrence without a large population or a large economy.
In other words, an effective military defense through nuclear deterrence is even more economical than conventional military forces.
After Secession, Who Gets the Nukes?
But how would secession actually play out when nuclear weapons are involved?
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