Leaving NATO is not a one way street. If the US leaves NATO, then the NATO countries can also stop supporting the US. How many components of US weapon systems are made in the EU?
All Europe has to do is stop all local support for US bases and force all resupply to be done via the US military and the bases existing infra, not via ANY civilian infrastructure (no civilian airports, no civilian trucking, no civilian shipping). That's just one pain point in the USAs soft underbelly that we didn't have to worry about before because we had allies.
US power in Europe has been our intentional policy since the end of WW2. I can't do justice in educating you on the geopolitics of it all but there is a plethora of information out there for you. Not sure how an American can get to be an adult without understanding the background and reasoning.
We did this to the point of encouraging Germany to include limitations on their own power in their constitution (along with Japan). Anyways it's a long, thought out standing position of our country that has 70 years of thought put into it versus the recent 'but it's not fair to us' MAGA reaction based position.
History has shown that lesson again and again and again. There is no “peaceful world without a hegemon” period of history. There is Pax Brittanica, Pax Romana and Pax Americana which is now coming to an end.
We don’t do anything like that. We don’t extract resources from Europe at below market value. We run a trade deficit, so free trade doesn’t even help us. So what’s the concrete explanation that isn’t just recycling liberal internationalist tropes?
That said, it's not very difficult to fix the deficit if there were any will. And once fixed, the US would benefit from open maritime trade more than anyone else. Holding these bases helps us keep the world in order, and in the current order the US winds up on top. (Though the US does need to deal with China's incursions).
It's funny to see you use the word "evidentiary" when you do not apply any standard to your own comments. If you do reply, please try to back up your points, since I'd like to understand where you're coming from.
I don’t have evidence that american empire is bad for the economy. But the cost of maintaining it are indisputably high and result in a lot of immortality. So I would like evidence that maintaining an empire actually results in benefits that offset the cost.
Economic theory certainly doesn’t predict that empires would make you richer than free markets. And if empire makes you richer, why is Europe so content to be under our yoke?
The US doesn't have an empire, but we do have a degree of worldwide hegemony. As a practical matter if the US turns isolationist then China will fill that gap. Will that make US citizens richer?
That sounds like a very neocon view of how the world works. We have to maintain an empire because if we don’t, someone else will?
And stop being disingenuous by labelling the current US-led global security system as an "empire". Words mean things and I'm sure you're smart enough to know what a real empire looks like, so I can't imagine what you think you're accomplishing by trying to frame the debate that way.
Also, I use “empire” because people are justifying our having military bases all over the world on that somehow benefitting america economically. I am not sure I understand why—forcing the world to use dollars as the reserve currency seems to be part of the theory. But if that’s the case then empire is an appropriate label.
US economy, trade and budget deficit are subsidized by the rest of the world which buys their bonds.
Sorry to disappoint, but Europe is not particularly content to be under the US yoke.
Actually, the US has been actively pressuring Europe to keep it under their yoke. For decades.
Deterrence and overwhelming force are the only ways to ensure longterm peace and stability.
Greek Junta perhaps, but it was anything but stable and it collapsed because of a war in Cyprus with another NATO member..
Or are you claiming that Americans put Putin in power in Russia? Slightly far fetched but you might have a point..
Because I can’t think of anything else.
Spain and Portugal.
Then Turkey, Greece, Italy, Belgium. Belgium didn't last long though.
But it’s a weird thing to say when the USSR/Stalin literally bankrolled the Nazi invasions of Norway and France (whatever the financing they got from the US USSR contributed a few magnitudes more).
Germany had no oil after Poland and its not far fetched that France/Britain could have just waited it out had the Soviets not bailed them out.
For example, 15% of every F35 is made in UK.