I think I only partially agree with this.

I do think the US can depend on Europe, Canada and Mexico. South Korea, Japan, and Australia are far from the USA and close to China. They have high incentive stay friendly with China.

I do think China can easily outproduce the US. But I don't know that the US needs to maximize output per dollar. The USA can print dollars, and already creates a whole bunch of dollars out of thin air every year. The inflationary effect of printing a few more billion, specifically to maintain local shipbuilding capabilities, might be worth it. Just going for dollar efficiency has led the USA to de-industrialize, perhaps too much.

The status quo can't be maintained, that's for sure.

> South Korea, Japan, and Australia are far from the USA and close to China. They have high incentive stay friendly with China.

While that was to some degree a concern years ago, before Biden took office, those countries have decisively and openly taken sides with the US and are members of a network of alliances that also includes The Philipines and, to a degree, India. The US has been building and improving bases, military training, etc. in and with those countries and all over the region For example, there is AUKUS, a major agreement between the US, Australia, and also the UK, for Australia to become the only country outside the UK to receive one of the US crown jewels, nuclear submarine technology. Australia also is hosting an expanding number of US bases.

> I don't know that the US needs to maximize output per dollar. The USA can print dollars, and already creates a whole bunch of dollars out of thin air every year. The inflationary effect of printing a few more billion, specifically to maintain local shipbuilding capabilities, might be worth it.

The economics is trickier than that: Production is real economic value; printing money is just a statistic. Productivity = output/dollars. If you increase the dollars in that equation, you don't change the output and you reduce the nominal productivity number (though usually it's measured using inflation-adjusted dollars, so it's really unchanged).

The US can increase output by borrowing more dollars, increasing the volume of investment in shipyards without increasing productivity. But borrowing does cost something - IIRC the debt payments will soon exceed the military budget - and can cause inflation, which eventually negatively impacts output. In the end, China may be able to invest far more.

> Just going for dollar efficiency has led the USA to de-industrialize, perhaps too much.

What connection is there?

> the revisionist Chinese and Russians

Or perhaps "revanchist", meaning that they want to conquer some territory they believe (or at least pretend) used to be theirs.

> But can the US depend on Europe's, South Korea's, Japan's, Canada's, Australia's? I think so.

If our goal is to be robust against the risks of a great power conflict, we can't necessarily depend on manufacturing from these countries because a great power conflict might either overrun or cut off our supply lines to these countries. In fact, control over East Asian shipping lanes is the central point of the current cold war with China.

I agree there is some risk for the East Asian countries. I think China would be hard pressed to stop all that production and trade, but certainly they could impact it and who can say what a 21st century war would look like?

Still, it's a risk, not a deal killer. China could bomb US production too.

China can't bomb American production unless we suffer absolutely catastrophic, unimaginable, WW3-escalatory levels of naval losses in the Pacific (because Chinese bombers from the Chinese mainland don't have the range to reach the American mainland).

I'm not sure that's true. The US can't defend an entire Pacific front, obviously, and has a shortage of ships, many of which will be busy doing other things.

Anyway, I was thinking of missiles, which China has many of, and which can reach the US (including from submarines and other ships that can maneuver closer to the US).

There is close to zero escalation room between Chinese missile strikes on the US mainland and nuclear war. If we detect incoming missiles from China there’s a good chance the US assumes nuclear warheads and makes a retaliatory strike.

That’s a real risk, but because neither side of a conflict wants to actually escalate to a nuclear exchange, it is not very likely that China will launch missiles at the mainland US. (Likewise I think the US is unlikely to strike mainland China.)

Conversely, whichever side maintains naval superiority in the western Pacific Ocean can cut off any supply chains to and from Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and mainland China itself, without the risk of nuclear escalation. And as I stated, this is the entire issue. If you control the seas of East Asia, you basically control the world.

If you're measuring in decades, can you take any alliance for granted? Things can change in unpredictable ways.

Taking Europe as an example, if Trump or someone like him decides to leave Europe to its own devices while facing an aggressive Russia, we could see massive re-militarization. Who can say where a shift like this would lead? It's easy to view these countries as permanent allies when they depend on us for security, but they might not be so cooperative once they can stand up for themselves militarily.

This applies to Japan and South Korea as well vis a vis China/NK.

NATO, as well as the rest of the Atlantic relationships that form the 'West', has worked very well for 90 years, and NATO is still growing and strengthening.

Anything can happen, but that's not rational. Rationally, we need to anticipate what is likely and not treat risk as if it's all random, coin-flip, unpredictable chaos.

To me it seems more rational to be ready for a wide range of outcomes than to assume the next 90 years will be similar to the previous 90 years.

I agree; I meant that we need to rationally assess what outcomes are more likely and plan according to that, not treat every outcome as equally likely.

And not only plan, as if we are passive victims of history, but make it happen - invest in NATO, etc.

Sure, but assuming we remain a democracy, or some approximation of one, we're always going to be a bit schizophrenic in our policies. Any particular administration can try to go in one direction or the other, but they have to be aware that their successor (or the one after) could very well undo all their actions and take the exact opposite course.

So in terms of long term planning, I think hedging our bets make sense. It might be a good idea to invest in NATO, but we also don't want to be left in a highly vulnerable position in 10-20 years if NATO falls apart and our current allies stop giving us free trade agreements, because that's a real possibility.

I won't keep going in circles, but focus on this point:

> Sure, but assuming we remain a democracy, or some approximation of one, we're always going to be a bit schizophrenic in our policies. Any particular administration can try to go in one direction or the other, but they have to be aware that their successor (or the one after) could very well undo all their actions and take the exact opposite course.

The idea that democracies are less stable and predictable doesn't bear out in reality. They are the most stable and predictable forms of government, because they have many checks on their power: Free press, legislatures, competitive elections, etc. expose fraud and incompetence to their disinfectent, sunlight. The rule of law means that officials serve the law and the people, not a person. Putin is not someone you trust to keep their word in a deal with you.

Government by dictators is less stable: They lack the essential things above, and are subject to one person's whim - a person inevitably corrupted by their power. They change power through violence, which makes them even more unstable.

And to circle back after all to the evidence right in front of us: NATO has lasted 90 years so far. The US has greatly expanded and deepened its alliances in East Asia over the last 4 years. Now name an ally China or Russia has. They don't - dictators don't have allies on that level; nobody actually likes their values and wants them to succeed. China and Russia's current relationship is nothing like the US's with NATO;

> Things can change in unpredictable ways.

When you do stupid and unpredictable things? Certainly. But that seems like an internal US problem. Of choice rebuilding local manufacturing might be easier than fixing that in theory. OTH the longterm cost would like be much higher due to lower global stability.