Policy in silos

September 11, 2025

It seems to me that so much of the debate in this space is focused on the geopolitical and the military aspects rather than as a holistic discussion around the economic, political and military aspects as a whole. It succeeds in raising good arguments around a limited range of domains, but ignores the economic question and its impacts on capabilities. What we know is that the US has a national debt of more than US$37 trillion and a debt falling due for re-financing this year of US$9 trillion.

We also know that the US bond market is unable to attract anything like the amount of bids to raise that sum, let alone pay the more than US$1 trillion in interest on the existing loans. Bond yields are rising dramatically as the US desperately tries to fill its needs in a market that the rest of the world is deserting in droves, due to world central banks increasing doubts as to the US capacity to sustain its existing debt.

In those circumstances, it renders moot the geopolitical and the military aspects as the US is running out of capacity to fund its vast array of interventions, wars and regime change around the world.