5 ms·
The two big oceans on either side of us helped quite a bit. Not being an easy target of your enemies might matter more than any given policy.
by MR4D 4y ago
The two big oceans on either side of us helped quite a bit. Not being an easy target of your enemies might matter more than any given policy.
- quadcore 4y agoIn that regard, having (almost) the whole population owning firearms is probably quite a strong deterent as well.
- edwnj 4y agoDoesn't make you an economic hegemon.. India is similarly protected by an ocean on both sides and the Himalayan mountains..
- VWWHFSfQ 4y agoIndia is directly bordered by their biggest rival that they have constant conflicts with.
- largepeepee 4y agoWell India didn't have an event where the locals that spoke different were massacred or reeducated/"civilized" like the other super powers of the US and China. Actually the idea of modern India is mostly a product of the British, so in that aspect they are a young nation.
- kazen44 4y agoTo add to this, decolonization of the british raj wasn't all roses and sunshine either. (the split of india and pakistan was especially)
- selimthegrim 4y agoYou might want to look into “dasas”
- righttty 4y ago
- themitigating 4y agoGermany and Japan were devastated by WW2 and are now both economic powerhouses
- VWWHFSfQ 4y agoBoth countries were rebuilt almost entirely by USA in the aftermath.
- kazen44 4y agodon't forget that the Marshall aid also prevent a massive economic crisis in the US. After world war 2, employment collapsed because of the downturn of the war economy. From a realpolitik perspective, its a smart move. Using the marshall aid to get influence in europe, prevent your main competitor from gaining further foothold on the continent and also having market (which requires a near complete rebuildup) for your economy to divert to after the collapse of the war economy.
- yrgulation 4y agoAnd war reparations germany never made. Fortunately everyone is now well aware of the damage germany is making to europe. We also know how germany treated east europe by attempting to share it with russia. The pipeline was a warning shot: change course of suffer consequences.
- PKop 4y agoGermany had their cheap energy trade agreement with Russia blocked for years by US, and recently had their pipelines attacked. Their ability to freely grow in power is constrained. If they got as even close to as powerful as the US did or were even rising as they have been recently, their neighbors would meddle in their affairs and block their progress. Russia, France, UK, etc. So, US not having a close competitor has aided them greatly in dominating their hemisphere and using the resources available to them to grow into the global power.
- eternalban 4y agoGermany dominates EU. The French-German duo have been cooperating for years now. The limits prior to Putin's folly were on German militarization. The French required that given the history between the two. For years in fact there have been vocal voices asking Germany to politically act according to its economic stature. This singling out of Germany from Europe is Russian propaganda. The core message, as you obviously have learned, is "US is keeping Europe under its thumbs because it is afraid of losing its dominance." What they neglected to add was that this is also the position of many European elites, who do -not- want to go back to Europe before Pax Americana. In fact, just as in US, so too in Europe and Asia, there is a division amongst the elite regarding the current global regime. It is clear why a loser like Russia would want this, but would say Japan or Taiwan, or France, or even Germany, want to go back to a world where 'balance of powers' and periodic 'big wars' are par per course? As for US, that bill from Pentagon is not just for 'keeping America safe'. No. It is the price of the replacement of the British Empire and its maintenance of global finance and trade. That shit costs a lot of money. So if we decide to go "multi-polar", we no longer have to spend that much money - let the East Asians duke it out over who controls the island chains. US will remain a powerhouse in every way. p.s. re-read the above and the point is opaque. The 'cost' of living in the American era for other countries is possibility of having to sacrifice their national interest in the interest of the global order. US does this routinely btw (which gets a certain subset of Americans quite upset as you know) and so it's not just asking say Germany to give up cheap Russian oil. Remember us giving a whole chunk of our industrial base to China? That was not in our purely national interest but it was in the interest of having a peaceful global order. China had to be integrated. So, this is my recommendation for all "multi-polar" fans. Reflect on this: WW3, if it happens, will happen post multi-polarity. Just like #1 and #2 followed the breakdown of Concert of Europe in 19th century.
- VWWHFSfQ 4y agoWhich is also why Canada enjoys easy politics about their border protection. There are no tunnels or fence-jumpers between Lancaster and Tolstoi.
- akomtu 4y agoThere are kayakers, but those are usually civilized.
- xmonkee 4y agoKinda unkind to imply immigrants are not civilized.
- voz_ 4y agoIllegal immigrants are by definition knowingly breaking a law, a rather uncivilized act. Kayakers or border hoppers, regardless of country of origin, are not behaving in a civilized way. - signed, a legal immigrant
- colinmhayes 4y agobreaking a law is not an uncivilized act. Everyone breaks laws all the time
- xmonkee 4y agoI am also a legal immigrant, and it was kinda easy being one because of the luck of being born in a particular set of circumstances. If someone is crossing a border because they are failing to feed their family without it, that's a highly civilized act. Please don't demonize people just because they life has been harder than you understand.
- voz_ 4y agoSorry, where do people cross borders due to starvation? Not the US, certainly.
- moonchrome 4y agoDoes that apply to South America and Mexico ?
- ochoseis 4y agoSapiens and Guns, Germs and Steel discuss this some. The US also benefits greatly from its geography. Good farming land that stretches through a consistent latitude allows you to use similar techniques and crops across. The same is not true for more mountainous and longitudinally-oriented areas. I believe this applies more to continents than individual countries, and South America is definitely narrower and taller than the US.
- jjk166 4y agoThe lack of military invasions has certainly been a boon, but not sufficient to overcome the issues left over by Spanish/Portuguese style colonialism which created land owning aristocracies and rampant corruption. Argentina, Brazil, and Chile really all ought to be superpowers and Venezuela could have been richer than Saudi Arabia.
- MR4D 4y agoYes on the oceans, but having either jungle and/or a mountain range bifurcating a country tends to make it expensive to integrate into a cohesive country, so the benefits become more limited.
- riazrizvi 4y agoSo the more inaccessible your country is then the more likely you are to have a roaring economy? That doesn’t make sense.
- cheriot 4y agoSpecifically, the US was outside the range of WW2 weapons. At the end of the war our factories were the only ones left. Secret sauce of the American economic boom.
- permo-w 4y agodon't forget selling weapons, fuel and vehicles to both sides. at the end of WW2, the US had 2/3 of the world's gold. that didn't come from nowhere
- _-david-_ 4y agoUS was in range of WW2 weapons or Pearl Harbor wouldn't have happened. Sure it took more resources and coordination then just shooting a missile, but Japan clearly in range.
- mixmastamyk 4y agoBattle of Midway happened in 1942, smooth sailing from there.
- jjk166 4y agoInaccessible to enemy tanks, yes. The UK, Switzerland, Australia, Japan, etc all benefit from the fact that it is very hard to march an army into their territory and thus they can build factories and infrastructure confident tjhey're not going to be destroyed, and engage in trade freely confident that they are not empowering someone who will destroy them.
- luckydata 4y agoand the big piece of land full of resources the colonizers stole right in the middle of those two oceans might have been a factor too. the remarkable thing is what a terrible, unlivable, ugly nation we built out of all that wealth. The Romans built imperial Rome, the French empire built Paris, the US government built... a beige car dependent urban sprawl. Americans should be ashamed of themselves.
- fallingknife 4y agoI would bet every dollar I have that if you had to live in imperial Rome, or Paris during the French Empire, that you would be begging to go back to this "terrible, unlivable, ugly nation."
- vineyardmike 4y ago> the US government built... a beige car dependent urban sprawl. So I agree... BUT its survivor bias. A middle class American (say median income), would absolutely rather take suburban America in the most soulless subdevelopement over whatever a median income roman would live in. The pretty things in Rome stayed 2000 years because people liked it. Think of everything that didn't make it. They also had hundreds of years more to build them than the US has had. The Empire State Building, much of DC, victorian homes in SF... there's plenty of lasting beauty in America. Many more cities with many more opportunities for lasting beauty. Just look at Boston, its a dynamic city with a mix of old and new... its an example of what the next Rome may look like 2000 years from now.
- jjk166 4y agoThe US really hit the geographic jackpot - long coasts with good harbors on Earth's two biggest oceans, an immense river system connecting basically the whole agricultural heartland, an immense area with good soil and temperate climate capable of supporting large scale agriculture, substantial oil reserves and other mineral wealth, and few regions prone to natural disasters. It's hard to imagine a better starting position.
- fendy3002 4y agoConsidering that the current America is a product of European colonization, I'd say it lacks technology advancement early on.
- jjk166 4y agoGiven that places like Egypt, India, Mesoamerica, etc were all colonized by Europe despite long histories of advanced civilizations, I don't see how European colonization would imply a place isn't capable of technological advancement.