I think you fail to realize how big and important of a country the west coast of the US would be if it broke off. Countries wouldn’t have an option on sanctions, because the headquarters of some pretty foundational companies are located there (Microsoft, Apple, Google, Netflix, etc.)
California, Oregon, Washington together could split off, and it would be the third largest economy in the world behind only the remaining US and China.
It wouldn’t be as ugly as you assume, the rest of the country would kind of be forced to accept it. It would look far more like Brexit than the US civil war.
I recognize that, but even if they were to still somehow navigate the economic situation, the government officials would immediately be charged with sedition and a warrant would be issued for their arrest. They wouldn’t be able to flee the country because any allied country would extradite them to the formal United States government. So the only other option would be to stay and forcefully defend their arrest. That brings in the national guard and any escalation would drive us toward a true civil war. MAYBE secession becomes so popular amongst the population that they also are willing to defend their secessionists political leaders with force, but I doubt it. Even in the event of it becoming a true civil war, the rest of the United States is absolutely massive. There’d be no way of defending against all of the avenues of attack. Air superiority would be established immediately by surrounding AFBs, mobile AA systems, and returning aircraft carriers. Naval blockade would prevent any foreign aid from reaching the West Coast. Lack of any real microchip processing plants would make the proliferation of modern arms impossible…
I just can’t see any other outcome than those government leaders being arrested, replaced, then any secession being nullified and reversed by the newly installed government officials. Though if you are able to think of something, I’d be open to thinking of a potential rebuttal.
Its not going to be a couple of politicians doing it on their own. It would likely be a referendum with popular support from the citizens (again like Brexit)
The Federal government really has no recourse against “we aren’t sending you money any more” they can’t send in the military to make sure the money gets transferred. The military can’t achieve that particular objective.
They could try to make an example of some key politicians, but with popular support for such a split that would likely lead to some bad outcomes for anyone who tried to enforce it.
They don’t have any sort of legal method of replacing those people either. Anyone appointed from out of state would just promptly be ignored.
This isn’t the same as a lot of situations where there would need to be hard borders right away that need to be defended or objectives that could be captured. There’s no need for military anything. Not that military intervention would work very well anyways, far too many soldiers would refuse orders. You’d see a lot of people refusing, walking away, or even subverting. Those states make up something like 20% of the US population, and if you add in people who have friends or families there it’s probably 30-40% of the military that wouldn’t be okay with attacking anything.
Starving them out with a blockade? Lol, not happening. Besides, both Mexico and Canada (both massive food suppliers) have direct land connections to those states. The rest of the US is going to threaten those two countries if they send in food? No way either of them listens to that threat. The remaining US doesn’t have as much global power as you’d think.
I think you fail to realize how big and important of a country the west coast of the US would be if it broke off. Countries wouldn’t have an option on sanctions, because the headquarters of some pretty foundational companies are located there (Microsoft, Apple, Google, Netflix, etc.)
California, Oregon, Washington together could split off, and it would be the third largest economy in the world behind only the remaining US and China.
It wouldn’t be as ugly as you assume, the rest of the country would kind of be forced to accept it. It would look far more like Brexit than the US civil war.
I recognize that, but even if they were to still somehow navigate the economic situation, the government officials would immediately be charged with sedition and a warrant would be issued for their arrest. They wouldn’t be able to flee the country because any allied country would extradite them to the formal United States government. So the only other option would be to stay and forcefully defend their arrest. That brings in the national guard and any escalation would drive us toward a true civil war. MAYBE secession becomes so popular amongst the population that they also are willing to defend their secessionists political leaders with force, but I doubt it. Even in the event of it becoming a true civil war, the rest of the United States is absolutely massive. There’d be no way of defending against all of the avenues of attack. Air superiority would be established immediately by surrounding AFBs, mobile AA systems, and returning aircraft carriers. Naval blockade would prevent any foreign aid from reaching the West Coast. Lack of any real microchip processing plants would make the proliferation of modern arms impossible…
I just can’t see any other outcome than those government leaders being arrested, replaced, then any secession being nullified and reversed by the newly installed government officials. Though if you are able to think of something, I’d be open to thinking of a potential rebuttal.
Its not going to be a couple of politicians doing it on their own. It would likely be a referendum with popular support from the citizens (again like Brexit)
The Federal government really has no recourse against “we aren’t sending you money any more” they can’t send in the military to make sure the money gets transferred. The military can’t achieve that particular objective.
They could try to make an example of some key politicians, but with popular support for such a split that would likely lead to some bad outcomes for anyone who tried to enforce it.
They don’t have any sort of legal method of replacing those people either. Anyone appointed from out of state would just promptly be ignored.
This isn’t the same as a lot of situations where there would need to be hard borders right away that need to be defended or objectives that could be captured. There’s no need for military anything. Not that military intervention would work very well anyways, far too many soldiers would refuse orders. You’d see a lot of people refusing, walking away, or even subverting. Those states make up something like 20% of the US population, and if you add in people who have friends or families there it’s probably 30-40% of the military that wouldn’t be okay with attacking anything.
Starving them out with a blockade? Lol, not happening. Besides, both Mexico and Canada (both massive food suppliers) have direct land connections to those states. The rest of the US is going to threaten those two countries if they send in food? No way either of them listens to that threat. The remaining US doesn’t have as much global power as you’d think.