General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCan anybody see a Sino-Franco-German alliance?
Between Macron's and Merkel's antipathy for Trump and Xi Jinping 's Silk Road initiative they would be powerful trading partners.
America would become just "another" country and Russia too.
roamer65
(36,748 posts)The EU will be public front for the Franco-German and SCO will be the one for the Sino-Russian one.
Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. Orwell just about nailed it.
roamer65
(36,748 posts)I can see a rescinding of the Brexit referendum and European Economic Area status for the U.K. in the cards.
dalton99a
(81,708 posts)roamer65
(36,748 posts)Too much trade with continental Europe.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,719 posts)dalton99a
(81,708 posts)Their EU option is gone.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,719 posts)roamer65
(36,748 posts)Natural gas.
The Chinese have negotiated very large deals with them for natural gas. Huge deals as our idiot in chief would say.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,719 posts)roamer65
(36,748 posts)The energy needs of China will eventually swallow them.
PufPuf23
(8,858 posts)Besides natural gas they are the world's leading producer of oil, more than Saudi.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production
Russia has tremendous mineral wealth.
http://www.businessinsider.com/15-resource-rich-countries-2010-4#russia-1636-billion-in-metal-and-ore-reserves-14
Russia has by far the largest inventory of commercial forests.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_forest_area
The problem that Russia has is transportation to markets and development of the various reserves.
Note the difference between production (current output) and what is in reserve (identified but not yet exploited).
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)dalton99a
(81,708 posts)Obama nailed it
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,719 posts)Proves the old adage that it's easy to burn down the barn than build one.
exboyfil
(17,865 posts)and the physical sciences. It seems logical it would extend to computer science even though, to this point, they have not been a player in that field.
gordianot
(15,259 posts)They want to become Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century. Trump wants to get out of the money laundering business.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,719 posts)Cui bono.
haele
(12,700 posts)They've got their own gangster/corruption problems, and there's a strong cultural antipathy between them, not the least driven by an inherant nationalistic and somewhat racist history that both have experienced.
Haele
exboyfil
(17,865 posts)There is no way way that they will form a long term alliance. I am still shocked about Germany and France, and I am awaiting that coming apart eventually (or France being subsumed).
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,719 posts)Any way if you had to bet on which nation had the better future one would bet on China.
And the USA will Ayn Rand itself into irrelevance.
workinclasszero
(28,270 posts)Are working overtime on that process.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)and their governments; and whatever they are, tomorrow's power alliances won't be nearly as strong and effective as those of the past.
As for America becoming "just another country," just can't imagine it. We're hugely wealthy and powerful. We literally have half of the planet's billionaires. California's economy alone is larger than Russia's. No matter how badly we behave, we can't be shunted aside.
Plus, frightened of the "crazy US" as Europe is now, in future they'll likely end up just as disinclined to handle all their own security, not to mention paying to put out global fires, as they were in the past -- if we are willing to continue/resume our prior role. I hope they are forced into fairly permanently assuming more responsibility and cost, but...we know they can be bought, and our military is...well, really, really yoooge. And theirs' are not.
And for all our faults, no major nation/alliance of the past can begin to match our record of intervention for stabilization, rather than for taking over, certainly not France for instance. Although we're currently destroying a global military and economic stability built on decades of reliance on us playing our role, history is still on our side.
roamer65
(36,748 posts)Via the Monroe Doctrine, the major power of the Western Hemisphere.
That is if the country stays united, of course.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)and a reactionary, conservative half.
nikibatts
(2,198 posts)DemocratSinceBirth
(99,719 posts)Instead of us getting favorable deals with the signatories, now China will.
It would be great for the people of China if political liberalization followed economic liberalization. My friend taught at a prestigious Chinese university. He said it's fifty years away. A lot of the Chine elite send their children here to be educated.
The sad thing is with Trump we are no longer a role model. Of course we were flawed but now it's like we don't even try. I would to think America is just a big piece of real estate.
Warpy
(111,466 posts)I would love it if we became just another country, ceding our Empire to some other fool country who wants one. I would desperately love to see us retreat from around the world military bases into our own borders, cutting expenditures on the Penagon and freeing up billions to repair or replace our infrastructure, which needs it badly. I would love to have the nice things that Empire prevents, like basic health insurance for all.
It's just a pipe dream, of course, until and unless we figure out how to wrest all the money stolen from working people away from the billionaires. It might take a financial meltdown to do that.
However, dumping Empire would be a great first step to getting our country back from global game players.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,719 posts)That our balance between individual initiative and collective responsibility, the rule of law, pluralism, and free elections make us a beacon to the world.
k8conant
(3,030 posts)We will never be "exceptional" in a good sense, because many other countries have gone far beyond us while we quibble about whether the dollar is our king.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,719 posts)Covered under collective responsibility:
"... That our balance between individual initiative and collective responsibility..."
-DemocratSinceBirth
I want you do your level best but if you stumble I am there to help you.
k8conant
(3,030 posts)not with the 45ers.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,719 posts)exboyfil
(17,865 posts)that is gone. We are now the fascists (not that we were ever free of our own original sins).
First Speaker
(4,858 posts)...Bismarck might have complied, but he'd have had an informal understanding with Russia to go along with it. Weird how history keeps rhyming...
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,719 posts)luvMIdog
(2,533 posts)Blue_true
(31,261 posts)And China is slowly, really too slowly, cleaning up it's human rights record. I can see the EU working more with China on many issues of worldwide impact as long as it is not going to war.
exboyfil
(17,865 posts)and surely not the right messenger, but the sentiment that Europe pay for its own defense is the correct one. The thing that contradicts Trump's approach is the 10% increase to the military budget. That makes no sense (other than as part of the base political log rolling).
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)And Europe cannot overpower the might of Russia.
exboyfil
(17,865 posts)It is not being isolationist. If they did that then Russia would not be a threat to them. Germany at 1.2%. France at 2.1%. UK at 1.9%. Western Europe is no longer weak. It hasn't been weak in a very long time.
The best opportunity for the U.S. was after the Wall came down. Unfortunately that is not the direction Bush I and Clinton chose to go.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,719 posts)Germany and France both have larger and infinitely more diversified economies than Russia. Russia has 8,000 nukes but France has 300 nukes and Germany can go nuclear in a New York minute. In an anarchic world which is what Trump and the Deplorables are jonesing for the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty isn't worth the paper it's printed on.
In any case the Russians aren't going to roll their tanks through Europe. They just want to Finlandize Europe. European nations can have their own domestic policies but Russia would control their own foreign policies.
Ezior
(505 posts)I don't know what exactly they're doing with all that money, but we don't have a lot of military gear. And the few hundred tanks and couple of planes that we have don't work very well. Even our guns fail to shoot straight.
We have no aircraft carriers and no nukes.
I guess the soldiers get some good training, which is a start.
democratisphere
(17,235 posts)Xolodno
(6,412 posts)There is already a deep military alliance with the Nordic countries. No doubt there will be increased ties that go from Spain-France-Germany-Poland and then south to Italy. No thanks to 45.
Russia and China have a strong economic and military partnership, they need each other and share a paranoia.
Just speculating here, but if NATO did dissolve, wonder what would happen to the frozen conflict between Turkey and Greece. Russia has cozyed up to both. You still have the Cyprus question and the issue of Istanbul/Constantinople.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)Doreen
(11,686 posts)I have always said that no matter how much others want to believe they are, China is not our friend. Yes, we have a lot of financial dealing with each other but that does not mean they are our friends. No one talks about it but I think we should be as worried about China as we are about Russia. They are one of the least humanitarian countries in the world and would never fit in well with Germany and France. Yes, I know Germany and France has some dealings with them but I do not think it is to the extent the U.S has with them.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,719 posts)Calista241
(5,586 posts)That's not going to change anytime soon.