So your argument is that Countries:Countries is unfair, and that Europe should be inclusive of Russia, which isn't even an EU member state, and they are at war

So your argument is that Countries:Countries is unfair, and that Europe should be inclusive of Russia, which isn't even an EU member state, and they are at war with by some metrics, for a proper like comparison? Why don't you include Mexico in the USA? Or Venezuela? The failure of your argument is front and center, you basically admit that Germany has done well for itself, and so you label it "Elite". But that Elite nature is recent and fleeting, its based on what the government has been able to deliver its citizens. The same things that the US government has failed to deliver its own citizens. We aren't just comparing regions of land, but polities. Otherwise its moot. I think the US can do better, and it can do better by improving the performance of its polity. Germans however cant exactly vote to directly improve Russian literacy.