Comment Re: Unmatched Liquidity (Score 1) 22
As such, they remain functional because nobody is weaponizing their state of indebtedness.
No weaponization necessary. For domestic debt, as long as your citizens keep buying bonds you're fine, and Japan's citizens keep buying bonds. If they stopped then you'd have to cut back government services. It's kind of a tax, maybe.
Foreign debt requires foreigners to keep buying your bonds. If they stop then you have to cut back not their government services, but those of your own citizens. It's not entirely unlike the sitation Saudi Arabia is in, except with debt instead of oil.
The US has the additional issue that a decent amount of that foreign debt is held by countries they have declared to be their enemies, which does add the possibility of hostile action. Most of it is held by allies they have decided to attack though, which I think in American baseball is called an "unforced error."