/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>19446080
The USA would go from the world's greatest free trade zone, to five countries, with five currencies, and with tariffs and trade regulations against each other.

it'll fuck up absolutely everything for everyone in the world. Even US rivals would be hurt economically. For all of its many faults, the USA maintains the geopolitical balance of power. All new US countries would have their own separate militarys, with guns pointed at each-other, Mexico, Canada, and anywhere with a good enough navy to get at the new US (UK, Japan, China, Russia, France).

Worst of all, say goodbye to the post-Bretton-Woods system. Rather than a single US navy keeping the worlds sea-lanes safe from pirates, privateers, and other countries navies; each of the 5 new american countries would have to be much less ambitious. They'd have 5 of their own navy, and likely only protect their own trade. Global trade would go back to looking like how it was during the time of the European empires, where each country would protect its own shipping and poach its rival's shipping. Say goodbye to massive slow-moving oil tankers and shipping container's stacked to the sky.

>>18788821
Think about Donald Trump's renaming of the branch of the Air Force devoted to space as a seperate agency, "The Space Force". It's like that.

it became a trend for almost every country with any international relevance at all during the cold war, not just Americans. It's partially due to the obvious propaganda of not wanting to seem like aggressors; but also because air force, ballistic missiles, space, and other branches were much more important then in the past; an a better understanding of the importance of diplomacy and economic strength in war. Such a big shift in thinking that a renaming of the body that controls war seemed appropriate.

Historically, departments in Europe and America were referred to as a Ministry of War or Department of War. They generally had authority only over the army of a country, with a separate dept controlling other military branches. before WWII, most "Ministries of War" were just Army ministries, while the Navy and the Air Force, if it was large enough, existed as a separate branch, and had their own departments. For its earlier life, the Soviet Union had a "Ministry of War" alongside, not above, a "Ministry of the Navy"; but combined them both to become the "Ministry of Defense" in '53.

The tendency to consolidate and rename these departments, and to coordinate until then mostly separate components of defense (air, land, navy), coincided with changing "war" to "defense"; and happened in a lot of countries around the same time (not just the USA).