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I’ve read 2 1/2 of the “Out of the Ashes” series. The Tri States do not survive, although I gather they are reconstituted later on.

The books were written in the mid-1980’s. I do fear we are at that point, again. However, if not for nuclear war, disease and the decision of most of the military to not chose sides, there would have been no way for Raines and his people to amass all the gold/silver/stones to back their currency or to salvage all the tools and weapons needed to set up a functioning economy.

I am drawn to this sort of novel just to see how the authors manage the logistics. The liberals would rather see the tools rot in Detroit than let one conservative have anything. An extraction/ag economy in the Inter-Mountain West still needs shipping and the unions and Blue states control the ports. Water is scarce in parts of the West. The one underpopulated country I am aware of with a valuable extraction/commodity economy is Australia and they are socialist.

I know that the progressives are aware of this sort of scenario and they would make sure there is a Global currency/monetary policy and economy before they would counterance a conservative society. It would be a handful of folks against the entire world.

While it can be simple to set up parameters in a novel, it is much more difficult in real life. I really fear that we will have to go through some sort of total meltdown and savage decimation of society and individual life before we could rebuild. Most of us would not survive it.Copy of this to Travis McGee for comment. His series seems to me to take a more realistic approach. We are going to have to fight for this nation, IMO.

An extraction/ag economy in the Inter-Mountain West still needs shipping and the unions and Blue states control the ports. Water is scarce in parts of the West.

A couple of points - Texas has ports. Houston is one of the largest ports in the World. The Southeast also has many "Red State" ports. West Coast ports would be hard.

Water is only scarce in the Intermountain West because we give so much of it to California. If we kept every drop that fell on the Rockies and Wasatch there would be plenty - plus a country that is not afraid of nuclear power can desalinate all the water it wants.

Thanks for the ping. In my new book I was going to delve into how the Northwest could split apart and succeed, but the plot went elsewhere. The Northwest could only make it if they could take key ports in Washington state and BC, and then reach independent trade agreements with Asian countries. THis seems pretty implausible to me, since Washington is a very liberal state overall, or at least in the key port cities.