The Illusion of Self-Sufficiency

First things first.  I'd like to thank all the people who read and commented on this post Perspectives on Compliance with Citizenship-Based Taxation.  It's such a pleasure to read your words and your reactions and that is true whether you agree with my perspective or not.  I'm deeply grateful to have readers, to be of service, and to to connect with so many interesting people around this issue and others.  

One reader left a comment that I thought about all day yesterday and I re-read it this morning.  He/she wrote:  Throughout its very short history the USA has always reverted to isolationist policies. Due to the mere size and natural resources the USA could be self-sufficient (especially once the need for Middle East oil no longer exists).

I agree with the first statement but wasn't sure about the latter.  Much depends on how one defines "self-sufficient" but if we take it in this sense - the country doesn't need to import natural resources  - could the U.S. (if it were able to wean itself off foreign oil) be entirely self-sufficient?

Took me all day but I finally figured out why I'm not so sure that the U.S. really could reach this exalted state.  One word:  water.

I come from the American West where in so many places the only way people can live there and grow enough food to feed themselves is through irrigation - pulling water out of the ground or out of the major rivers.  Even Seattle, a city known for its abundant rainfall, gets much of its water from the snowpack in the mountains.  No snow, no water, and within my lifetime there have been droughts - periods where Seattleites were forced to conserve because the supply of drinking water was low enough to be a concern.  If you ever go over the mountains to Eastern Washington to admire the stunning apple orchards and endless golden fields of wheat, give a thought to how settlers made the desert bloom.  What made it possible are three rivers:  the Columbia, the Snake and the Yakima.   Lot of dams on these rivers.  I found this picture of one that was built many years on the Columbia.  It's the Chief Joseph Dam and I've been told that some of my recent ancestors worked on this one when it was being constructed in the late 1940's.

Americans talk constantly about oil but one could argue that water is even more precious and parts of the U.S. may simply not have enough to sustain settlement in certain areas unless they look elsewhere.  

To learn more I really recommend this book called Cadillac Desert:  The American West and Its Disappearing Water by Marc Reisner.   While you're waiting for the book to come, you might want to check out this paper on the Net, Water 2025: Preventing Crises and Conflict in the West.  

And where is water to be found if the American West runs dry?  I've been told that Canada is the most likely source if water management efforts fail.  How interesting.  Now that would certainly bring a whole new dimension to the U.S. Canada relationship.  Just imagine the U.S. in a position to have to beg their Canadian neighbors for sufficient water to keep Los Angeles going.

Unless, of course, you are an American like Rick Perry and you consider Canadian water (like Canadian oil) to be a domestic American resource and not a foreign one. :-)