We estimate that the US red states after secession would have 51% of the US population, or 173 million. Add to that 6 million from Alberta & Saskatchewan. Of course the number would be much higher if the federal government causes a civil war, because the red states would take much more territory & population at the end of a war. Still, we shouldn’t take the whole US population – we’ve argued that governing the northeast US & eastern Canada is not worth the effort though, as we need a place to deport subversives to where they can find a livelihood.
That’s only of 2.2% of world population.
The economics of state power
Fortunately, the red states would have 11% of world GDP, more than any other country except the blue states or China. As the image at the head of this article shows, a red-state federation would have the GDP to punish any embargoes from the blue states.
Much of blue-state GDP comes from finance, which uses both red-state & blue-state capital & corporations. Some of that would move to red-state finance centers in Miami & Dallas. Film-making is moving to red states such as Georgia. Information technology is moving to Austin, Miami, etc, along with the billionaires fleeing California taxes. Elon Musk’s companies or mostly in red states. Investors believe he has a good chance at growing the economy greatly in the long term, as robots build productive robots, adding to productivity. We’re not saying the blue state economy will collapse like North Korea’s, but we are saying that business-friendly economics has helped the financial well-being of countries like the US excel past Europe & Canada to a shocking degree on a per-capita basis. We wrote a whole essay with great links about why the red-state economy would thrive after secession.
Deterring the world & the blue states’ military
Having the 3rd-largest, or eventually 2nd-largest economy, will allow us to have perhaps the largest military budget in the world, as the US has now. Here’s 2020 military expenditures at nominal exchange rates:
SpaceX alone could give us the cost-effective means to launch into low-earth orbit, or to the Moon, all manner of war-deterring technology.
Of course, many smaller economies with smaller military budgets manage to avoid being bullied by greater powers, even without an alliance. Examples during the Cold War were Yugoslavia, Austria, and Finland. Smaller countries maintain their sovereignty because deterrence does not require being the strongest. It requires making the cost of bullying or attacking seem greater to foreigners than the benefits of such. The red states today are the most heavily-armed populace in history. Such a populace has never been occupied or conquered in world history to this date.
Texas’ GDP is greater than that of Mexico’s. The Texas Military Department (State Guard, National Guard, and Air National Guard) is already more powerful than Mexico’s military. Utah already has a law that allows Utah to transfer equipment from the Utah National Guard to the Utah state defense force to prevent equipment from being federalized.
If the federal government wishes seceding states to take their share of federal debt, they’ll have to provide their share of federal assets, including military bases & equipment. There are nukes in silos in Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Nebraska. The triggers on nukes can be replaced.
About 2/3 of US troops & veterans are from the red states. Many more have lived at red-state military bases. During a National Divorce, personnel will move to the side of the new international border where their loyalty or desired future lies. Even in a chaotic failure to negotiate, some equipment would stay in red states and be ferried to red states.
After a National Divorce, can the two Americas live in peace next to each other? Of the 194 countries in the world, only a few are fighting at any one time The hatred gradually declines after separation. The red states will no longer be in the way of blue states having all the leftist policy they want to impose on themselves. And to prevent them from imposing it on red states, we’ll develop a military, spy service, laws, prisons, and a federation government.
The Transition period
Obviously, the transition period from one country to 2 countries is the most fraught militarily. We’ve written elsewhere why we expect unilateral secession to be peaceful. Our article explains that, since 1945, 87% of secessions around the world have been peaceful (out of 134 national secessions and a top-rated pollster found that only 7% of Americans think fedgov should attack a seceding state.
Even if Texas isn’t joined by any other states, or even if states don’t get federal equipment, they can still easily deter attack. The US military struggled against the Houthis, a militia from the poorest country on earth. If the US can’t conquer a splinter group in Yemen (2024-2025), how can it conquer red states after a secession? Compared to Texas, Afghanistan has less land area and fewer guns, as does Vietnam, Iraq, and Ukraine, which the US military has failed to long subdue.
As for civilians, a study of high-schoolers found that very few Democrats are willing to fight wars. Civilian gun-owners are important because just Texas gun-owners alone outnumber all federal infantry worldwide (80k) by 175 to 1. Veterans outnumber active duty by a large ratio, maybe even 10 to 1?
Texas also has 75k LEOs plus 24k in the Texas Military Department. 1 out of 8 US military are Texans. Many more troops have friends or family there. 2 out of 3 are from the red states, which will eventually ally with Texas
China
Conservative Americans are 1 out of every 85 people in the world. We don’t have a realistic path to being able to keep Dems down, much less China. Our goal can’t be world domination, because that will be resisted from the outside & from inside, by force and by bribes/subversion/cooption. Our goal must be to deter (punish) aggression like any normal nation, so that our people can be independent and unbullied. Biden was in the pocket of China. Pelosi and many other Dems too. You should be much more concerned about the Chinese-Dem alliance if we don’t secede than if we do secede, because Dems have much more power over us when they control our fedgov and we don’t have a RW military to defend us from the FBI.
China wants to keep the US out of its region. China doesn’t have the expeditionary equipment to project power beyond Taiwan, and they haven’t even taken Taiwan. It doesn’t want to occupy red states, even if invited by blue states after a National Divorce We’d rather worry about that while being in a conservative federation than worry about being ruled by Kamala every 4 years
Do we have to occupy the whole continent or the whole world to avoid the creation of Chinese bases? China only has 1 base overseas. It’s in Djibouti.
“The Biden family was taking millions of dollars from ChinaâŚand Bidenâs CIA director, Bill Burns, took millions of dollars from China” ~Mike Benz
“Niger figured out that China has no real expeditionary military capacity at all, and is not actually a world military power. Unlike the USA or even Russia, you can actually just kick them out and take the stuff they built:” ~ Adam Buskirk (2025)
“Nigerâs soft nationalization of Chinese state owned oil fields in Niger as well as its expulsion of Chinese officials. My answer deeply connects to Doggyâs answer here, Niger did this because it views China as a rich country but unserious power that would be unable to act in any credible way to stop it. As I said in the past month, Chinaâs complete lack of action in a region where it does have vast economic interests(Congo- Rwanda) sent a clear message.”
Some argue that National Divorce is exactly what China & Russia want. This is because it is very likely to reduce the adventurism of American troops near China & Russia, except when both blue & red states work together on an adventure. It’s true. But secession is the biggest gift we can give to Americans. We shouldn’t care which foreigners smile or frown, if we have our priorities correct. The key is the red states can deter attack.
You know what benefits the Chinese more? Having the entire US ruled by the the blue-state Biden family for 4 years, who are bribed by China, like Pelosi and many other Dems. Blue states make our country weak by misrule, subversion, anti-Americanism, open-border letting in thousands of Chinese illegals.
If blue-state Dems really are willing to let China occupy them after National Divorce, as some fear, then federal Dems will do the same thing tomorrow, because it’s the same people. All the more reason to secede before the CCP gets all 50 states. A federation of red states wouldn’t be compromised by bribes from China. Secession is the better way to resist foreign conspiracies because the enemy would be outside the camp instead of inside. Our federation could end immigration. The US won’t. We don’t have to give red-state citizenship to anyone we distrust, or any group we distrust. Their US citizenship will only be valid in the blue states.
Why does Wisconsin get left outâŚ.I think there are a lot of supposedly Blue states that are really Blue cities surrounded by RedâŚ.I think this dramatically changes things in my opinionâŚ..Central and Northern Wisconsin are mostly RedâŚ..anybody on the fence would fall Red when the Blue starts eating itselfâŚ..and yes, Im in Central Wisconsin.
The same is true in many so-called Blue States. The major cities in each are predominantly Blue, while the rest of the state is Red.
âTales of New Americaâ by Gunther Roosevelt. The blueprint is already written.
Your forgetting a big problem in this, and given its all alt history/table top exercise, it may not happen, but if I can think of it, for sure leaders, think tanks and other agencies can/have. It’s the fact that Trump/red states what have you, have turned Canada from a steady ally to at best a disinterested neutral at worst a bitter adversary with 200 years of scores to settle,back in the national psyche, that while you may scoff at their current military power, they, like Iran, have a powerful weapon you cannot counter…geography.
While wise to plan for China sailing over to the US west coast, its also, blue hairs aside, an area the US has fairly wide latitude to move defense to, etc. something you dont have on the Canadian west coast. Add to that RORO (roll on roll off) ships and their “asymmetric weapon”, ability to use civilian cargo ships for military uses, and you could have a large force of PLA troops at the montana/dakota border really fast. Also you could have Russian forces sail across the arctic to Churchill Manitoba, or James Bay Ontario/Quebec and easily access the Ohio river valley/rust belt as Southern Ontario is pointed like a dagger at them. Nuking Canada would be little help as the fallout wind patterns would go over the midwest US.
Assuming a Red/Blue state divide, you can bet they would assist them in fighting red states, and after threatening to take over Canada (and Greenland), you have awakened deep seated distrust in Canadians with America (we fought and repelled you in the seven years war, the american revolution, the war of 1812, the civil war was more cold war, and the fenian raids). It was the threat of your militarism in the civil war that led to the formal confederation of Canada. While in the 20th and early 21st century we fought side by side, those blood memories are still there (like you have rev war reenactments, we have war of 1812 reenactments) or mention the Avro Arrow to Gen X/Boomers & see what happens. Our main national identity is that we’re not American. Add to that your pres massively interfered in our last election, preferring Carney, when his party was set for a massive defeat, spooked the TDS liberals you commonly think of as rank and fil Canadians into voting for him when he sold himself as the guy to handle Trump, but often overlooked is this action also stabbed conservative so called red state canadians in the back as “our guy” was set to massively win till Trumps comments made the lib herd scared he was a Trump light candidate. So while all those Albertans and Sask people you think are Maga, yeah to a point they are, but they’ll also never forget your guy royally screwed then into 4-5 more years of Liberal rule.
Your president has decided to take American policy from the 21st to the 19th century, and while that may have some benefits, it will also have the weaknesses of the 19th century. Canada has always been a junior partner nation, first to Britain, then America, so if say Russia and or China were to propose a similar setup in exchange for letting them pass through to take care of your threats to take us over, you would be shocked at how many would take them up on it. It’s only the Dems “forethought” on making Russia the bad guy with Ukraine that you might have some pushback by Canadians. For a long time Canada has been ok with being the junior partner, but still having at least the illusion of sovereignty, but in openly and explicitly threatening to take that away, you put Canada in a nothing to lose situation, and if you recall in WW2, the US and UK allied with the USSR cause they felt they had no choice, even though they disagreed with them, it would be foolish to think that faced with a similar situation, Canada would not do the same to preserve themselves, even if it didnt go as planned, better to be ruled by the ruler of your choice than to just hand your nation over to the one threatening to take it over.
Its also not just Canada, Europe now, would want to get their licks in on the US, esp the red states who they would view as responsible for unleashing the current govt on the world, and depending on how bad the energy and food crisis happens post Iran, you might have Japan, Korea and the rest of Asia and Africa wanting a piece of you, too.
The US is tough, but is it take on the rest of the world tough? My advice would be to repair relations with the rest of the world first before trying to split, even in the best case situation, the blue states would try to call in like minded allies, now they can call on literally the entire world minus one desert nation and say “these are the ppl responsible for all your ills and troubles”. A hunting analogy comes to mind, a guy was hunting buffalo and the guide showed him the “top one” and he took him out, then he saw all the second tier buffalos rammed him over and over with their horns. See they couldnt face him one on one while he was fit and prime but now wounded by the shot, they took their long awaited chance to kick him when he was down. America, esp Red State America, is that top buffalo, and splitting up the nation is the hunter wounding you, so gotta be ready for that, not just blue state america coming for you.