There is scant risk of such a thing happening to the US anytime soon.Heracleum Persicum wrote:But the danger lies in it attempting something like Britain’s during the Suez crisis of 1956, when it forgot for a moment that the imperial era had ended – and overreached. It will be extremely difficult for Trump to swallow the humiliation as Anthony Eden (who resigned as British prime minister) did in such circumstances.
When France and Britain acted to protect their rights in Egypt 1956, the USA and USSR collided to block the Europeans: Washington attacked the British pound creating a severe threat to British economy while Moscow got the full way of threatening to nuke Paris and London if the two countries did not pull out their troops. Which they obviously had to do: France had no nukes at the time, Britain didn't have a real secure deterrent.
But who is now in a position to force the USA to retract from a military intervention against a non-nuclear country? Nobody, obviously:
- The US has what neither Britain nor France had in 1956: well enough of a nuclear deterrent to shrug off any threat to nuke New York, an obvious bluff except if US forces were attacking a nuclear country - which they obviously won't do
- No conceivable economic pressure could collapse the US dollar, at least for now. Beijing selling of its T-Bonds would trigger the Fed to just create new dollars to buy them off, maintaining their interest rate as low as desired