What would happen if we brought every single one of our troops home, all at once, from all over the world?

I guess many eyes would be on South Korea and Taiwan. (Is there anywhere else the US could be described as a 'global police force'?) The question might be, would the leaders of China or North Korea be stupid and immoral enough to invade another country for little other reason than that it seemed do-able? (of course they could dress it up as self-defence or whatever, but their actual motives would be clear.)

Before Bush shot it down, the South Korean government had tried to adopt a 'soft' approach to the North. It could work. North Korea is an incredibly weak country, dependent on donations of food, for example. Aggressive military posturing, even if (nominally) defensive, is not the only solution.

In Afghanistan, other NATO countries would have to take up more of the slack. But there might also be a rethink of tactics - looking at whether or not the US approach of airstrikes and military offensives (with some 'hearts and minds' stuff tacked on) is actually effective.

There probably wouldn't be a lot of difference in Iraq - it's a failed state, a bloody chaos of "ethnic cleansing", and it would probably continue to be so. At least the anti-US insurgency would have to stop, for lack of targets.

There would be huge economic effects, too, I guess. Some South Korean farmers might be happy not to lose their land, but in places like Okinawa, local economies dependent on US bases would have to find alternatives.

And what of all those returning soldiers? Would they be paid to just sit around in their barracks in the US? If they were all discharged, what would the economic effect be?

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Originally posted by newnickname:
There would be huge economic effects, too, I guess. Some South Korean farmers might be happy not to lose their land, but in places like Okinawa, local economies dependent on US bases would have to find alternatives.

And what of all those returning soldiers? Would they be paid to just sit around in their barracks in the US? If they were all discharged, what would the economic effect be?

They could be stationed on the Mexican and Canadian borders and trained for other homeland security situations.

They would be available for national disasters: hurricanes, floods, blizzards, etc.

If we are not going to police the world, why should we worry about funding the economies of places that only exist because of U.S. bases?

DD

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What would happen if we brought every single one of our troops home, all at once, from all over the world?

The US would place itself in a tight corner. US troops are operating abroad to secure US economic interests. Failure to protect those interests will result in repercussions for the US economy... i.e. you.

Possibly the biggest economic repercussion would be the collapse of the armaments industry. An army dedicated strictly to 'homeland security', and not projecting military power abroad, wouldn't have anything like the same need for fancy billion-dollar weapon-systems.

Presumably the US 'defence' industry would try to sell its goods elsewhere - which could lead to more, and more deadly, wars and certainly to more economic suffering around the world.

I wonder if, in the long run, the US economy would emerge healthier. Two economic miracles of the twentieth century happened in countries that weren't throwing government money at huge armies and arms industries - Japan and Germany, post war.

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the biggest economic repercussion would be the collapse of the armaments industry

I don't think so. The biggest impact would be the collapse of global free trade, which would probably lead to many more regional conflicts, as the US would no longer be enforcing the status quo by either deploying -or having the capability & will to deploy- armed forces to guarantee the general peace (Pax Americana).

Does the US guarantee general peace? It surely has much less capability, or will, to intervene militarily anywhere since the debacle in Iraq, but there hasn't been a consequent increase in war elsewhere.

Free trade is surely sought by nations because it's mutually beneficial. The only kind of 'free trade' that needs to be backed up by the military is the one-sided imperial kind (as with the British Empire or what Bush has attempted in Iraq) where raw materials are taken over, and the subject nation is not allowed to compete.

An article on what might happen in Iraq after sudden withdrawal:

What would happen if the U.S. left Iraq?

More on re-assessing tactics in Afghanistan:

To Conquer the Taliban in Afghanistan, NATO Must Retire