Moody, what would happen to US credit ratings if suddenly it was not any longer the world’s mightiest military power?

Sir, Rochelle Toplensky and Eric Platt write that according to Moody, the four primary factors it considers when assessing a country’s creditworthiness are “very high degree of economic, institutional and government financial strength and its very low susceptibility to event risk”, “Moody’s warns next US president over debt” September 8.

In the case of the US they perhaps miss a very important factor. As I once argued in a letter that the Washington Post published, “Much more important than a triple-A for the United States is the fact that this country is, by far, the foremost military power in the world. Lose that supremacy and all hell breaks loose. Keep it and a BBB rating could do.”

And so perhaps you should ask Moody: How would it impact your credit rating of the US if the US was no longer, by far, the mightiest military power? And would the credit rating of any closing up mighty then automatically improve?

@PerKurowski ©