Everything supplied from American factories to Britain prior to the Lend-Lease Act was "cash and carry", and as I recall it had to be paid for in gold, which put a terrific strain on Britain's finances. A pretty bunch of skinflints we were.
But the main point I'm making is that America cannot become a Rand Paul isolationist country without turning our high tech economy upside down. There's a list of raw materials as long as your arm that our industries need, but which aren't found within our borders in sufficient quantities to keep us going. There are no substitutes.
Abandoning the middle east, or Africa, or Taiwan, or South America to our enemies would not prove to be an optimum solution. We either stay fully engaged, or we become an also-ran.
Little anecdote for you: An important but almost unknown factor in the WW2 air war in Europe was the successful invasion of North Africa by the Allies. It cut Germany off from its' source of cobalt, which was (and is) necessary to make steels that will survive as engine exhaust valves, (and later for jet engine turbine blades). Consequently the service life of the engines in Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs was only a few dozen hours. Fast-forward to today - our main sources of cobalt are still in Africa, and now we need it not only for making alloy steels but also for EV batteries.
” Fast-forward to today - our main sources of cobalt are still in Africa, and now we need it not only for making alloy steels...”
Way to go, retard !
You advocate globalist stupidity such as being dependent on critical alloying elements like cobalt - which will be cut off by China in the event of war. (Since China controls both world cobalt production and heavily influences Congo)
This is the best argument of Isolationism and self sufficiency there is.