Ulenspiegel wrote:@sparky,
is so a nonsense the best you can produce? Poor guy.
Perhaps you could add a rebuttal to his remarks; they are rather contorted, but there is material there. Instead you resort to a pair of insults. That seems par for the course these days from our side; just hate, insults, blood lust, and screaming.
I'd rebut his comments by noting that the world is not a "you must be top or you are nothing". EE, the US, and now Russia+China are each economically massive combinations; largely able to sustain themselves with or without the other. Europe has a temporary, modest energy vulnerability, but its not huge or dangerous. Russia+China are at the beginning of their dance, so have plenty of issues to work out, but the dance is underway and will not be interrupted. We in the US look vulnerable to import reliance, but its import reliance only in the sense that we are extravagant in our use of oil for personal transportation; cut that back via tax, or market response to shortage, and we are easily self sufficient.
Just because the US became a massive industrial power; Europe did not stop. Same is true now, Russia+China are a massive industrial power; but becoming such won't make the EU less, nor make the US less. We'll continue to have some spats over poorly laid borders, some peacefully resolvable like Kazahkstan/Russia (contorted border line for no visible, rational reason, in the middle of nowhere; takes time to do fairly, but they proceed apace); some not so peacefully, like the Ukraine/Russia border that seems about to become a Galatia/Novorussia/Russia border. But all three consolidated powers will do fine for the time being; more people will experience middle class comforts than ever; more people will be worried about their kids ballet lesson than their kids bowl of rice.
In context of this forum though... It represents the drawing up of the lines for the time when resources really do come up short. Will we go to war with Russia off its Arctic coast to take oil fields? Will we come to blows over that region of the arctic in the middle where existing treaty law doesn't assign, but is very much within the technical capabilities to develop once the ice is gone?
Its kinda why our playbook with Russia was so bad; apart, China and Russia really couldn't have challenged the EU or US in the arctic; we'd get our way, one way or the other. Together though, they are sufficient to make the challenge. And this time around, they won't play using our playbook; they'll be using one that is suitable to their own strengths.