It could, but the thing I think you and the others who are replying to say "but what about..." are not fully considering is just how tight the entanglements are even though Texans don't seem to want to acknowledge them. 174 years of trade, legal, cultural, financial, and infrastructure policy would be astoundingly difficult to untangle. Given that any business of any size currently operating in Texas would have 51 (including Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia) other jurisdictions from which to immediately operate with virtually no change in legal or financial policy, I predict that a staggeringly high number of them would do just that. (Just as several businesses have relocated away from the UK to remain wholly within the EU.)
To continue the analogy, the United Kingdom has "only" been a member of the EU and its predecessors for 47 years and it retained direct, non-delegated control over far more areas even after joining the EEC. Texas has been completely subservient to United States policy for four times as long and even if such a split were amicable, it would still be very messy.
The United States military has such a large presence in Texas because the United States Military is such a large organization, generally. There would be no reason for Texas to have such a comparatively large military, nor, I think, would an independent Texas be able to afford one. Killeen, for example, would probably still be an incorporated city but its population would be cut by two-thirds at best.
But the point of the thought exercise isn't to say whether or not it could happen; it's that Texans take an outsized view of whether it should happen and hold them/ourselves up on a false pedestal propped up by the idea of Texas being above/different/better-than the rest of the country when we're one of "the several States which may be included within this Union."
> The United States military has such a large presence in Texas because the United States Military is such a large organization, generally. There would be no reason for Texas to have such a comparatively large military, nor, I think, would an independent Texas be able to afford one.
Texans already pay the federal taxes that purportedly fund the US military, though. I’m not sure if the US has more military assets in Texas than Texas itself can afford to pay for, but Texas is a big, rich state so I’d say there’s a chance that they’re effectively subsidizing some of the military bases in other states.
Texas could and likely would contribute military forces to various US-led coalition efforts at times.
Texas is a slight net beneficiary of federal largess. Quick googling found this table. Couldn't find more recent numbers, though another article says as of 2019, Texas now ranks #25. So middle of the pack.
Part of that is because things like eg NASA mission control or military bases have to be somewhere. And that might even stay in Texas similar to Roscosmos still operating from Baikonur in Kazakhstan. It’s not just transfer payments to programs that are designed to benefit Texans.
As our “very stable genius” of a President likes to point out, Germany and South Korea don’t exactly pay us back for stationing troops there either.
To continue the analogy, the United Kingdom has "only" been a member of the EU and its predecessors for 47 years and it retained direct, non-delegated control over far more areas even after joining the EEC. Texas has been completely subservient to United States policy for four times as long and even if such a split were amicable, it would still be very messy.
The United States military has such a large presence in Texas because the United States Military is such a large organization, generally. There would be no reason for Texas to have such a comparatively large military, nor, I think, would an independent Texas be able to afford one. Killeen, for example, would probably still be an incorporated city but its population would be cut by two-thirds at best.
But the point of the thought exercise isn't to say whether or not it could happen; it's that Texans take an outsized view of whether it should happen and hold them/ourselves up on a false pedestal propped up by the idea of Texas being above/different/better-than the rest of the country when we're one of "the several States which may be included within this Union."