Just as Constantine III brought the last Roman legion home from Britain in 407 and as Mikhail Gorbachev dissolved the Soviet Union in 1991, The US will soon start closing military bases and bringing the troops home.

The Soviet Union lost the cold war by going bankrupt—its America’s turn next. Money for everything including the military will eventually dry up. The financial crisis plus petrocollapse will put the U.S. into a period of long-term depression. There will be no petrodollars to boost our economy like the Russian economy has to rely on today.

GM and Chrysler are about to file for bankruptcy which will send unemployment into the stratosphere and government tax revenues into the toilet. The FDIC and Treasury are probably not be far behind. China wants to replace the dollar as the world reserve currency. I wonder if president Obama has looked inside Fort Knox to see what is left. If it is not empty yet, it probably will be soon.

When you add in everything the US spends on present defense, debt on past defense spending, off-budget covert operations, death benefits, injured veteran’s benefits, national guard employment opportunity costs, we spend almost half the entire federal budget on the military. Much of this money either won’t be there to spend in the future or will have to be refocused on debt payments and domestic necessities.

Most of  the world would prefer us off their backs anyway. The US has more than 2,500,000 U.S. personnel serving across the world in 737 military bases. The Roman Empire at its height in 117 AD required thirty-seven major bases to police its realm from Britannia to Egypt, from Hispania to Armenia.

We can barely afford our empire sized military today. In the near future we certainly will not be able to.

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Notes:

War Resisters League
Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes

Norman D. Livergood
America, Awake!, p. 108

Chalmers Johnson
737 U.S. Military Bases = Global Empire