@DrALJONES@peterbrown I think you're both looking at different ends of the same issues.
For internal spending, a country can issue its own money to pay for it; so long as it has the actual resources to achieve the goal, money is just a mechanism.
Where the resources do not exist internally, they have to be traded from abroad. A strong currency- issued by a country with lots of resources that other countries might want- can buy in using that currency. Otherwise they need to trade in resources.
DrALJONES