All of this assumes that "the nation" is the ideal organisational unit for all human affairs and that the economic independence for each which you advocate is possible in a very unequal and rapidly diminishing world in terms of the resources needed to support rapidly growing populations.

More likely it is a strategy for the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer.  The US doesn't "!need" to control the 100+ countries it has stationed its forces in - however that is the means its elite have chosen to promote their interests - which involves the ever increasing accumulation of wealth/power for its own sake.

The reality is that small nations are in no position to resist this - hence rendition flights.  We need strong supra national organisations - and the promotion of supranational self interests - to enhance the ability of smaller nations to promote their own self interest.

There is nothing natural about the "Nation state" as the unit for anything, and the more the world integrates, the more unnatural it becomes.

It's time I got out of this game....