EU Constitution in trouble

As much as the euros piss me off sometimes, you have to understand what they as nations have been through the last 100 years. 2 devastating wars like that in such a short time span can really affect the course of your nation's politics. They had to deal with issues that the US couldn't really imagine.

 

The last century was no different from the last 10 in Europe.. Europe has been in a constant state of war. because of their monarchial ties each war,e ven between the smallest of countries, usually pulled in all of Europe as well as Russia. The Cold war was the same, 2 sides aligned with a greater power.. the EU is just a continuation of the cycle... EU vs. Non-EU, except this war is through economics instead of guns.

 

I guess your right if you get particular about the definition of super power as oppossed to great power - I was using it more casually. During the cold war, I don't think anyone would have argued about Russia being a super power, (except people who just wanted to deny anything making Russia look good). Hindsight is 20/20 - at the time, we didn't know who would win. It could have been Russia that become the true super power.

 

True enough, but with the exception of the Black Plague, WWI & WWII devestated Europe like no other periods in history. The Napoleonic Wars, Franco-Prussian, Prussian-Austrian, and earlier wars were wars of government vs. government. The wars of the 20th century affected the general population to a much, much greater extent. That's the difference, and that's why most European governments, and populations, for that matter, take the stance they do with regards to conflict.

 

I thought the USSR qualified as a superpower during the Cold War. They, like the U.S, had the ability to project power and influence worldwide. True, they did it on a much lower budget and with inferior technology, but often, their methods of power projection and spreading their governing philosophy (Communism) worked a lot better than ours did (see Vietnam).

At the height of their power, the USSR had satellites and client states on five continents (if you count the Caribbean as part of North America, six if you count Australia and Oceania as part of the same entity) and had a conventional army and air force that dwarfed the U.S and NATO nations. Of course, their economy was much weaker, and they could only achieve conventional military superiority at the price of a harsh standard of living for their people. So, speaking strictly in terms of economics, the USSR was never a superpower and probably much weaker than India at the time.

Will China rise to superpower status? I used to think so, but now I'm not so sure. China is dealing with a laundry list of grave internal problems. Like the U.S., they are facing a pension/retirement system crisis which threatens to bankrupt the nation in less than 50 years. Despite the one-child policy, their population is running away from them. Also, internal dissent is more common in China than we see in the outside world, and it's growing more difficult to control, both in Tibet and in the home cities. Fuel and raw materials consumption is growing exponentially, and unlike the U.S., China does not have the military capability to keep the supply lines open by brute force.

If we cut off all trade with China tomorrow, our economy would be badly hurt, and prices on consumer goods would spike in the short term, but we would survive and adjust. China, on the other hand, would be devastated. With no markets for their goods, their factories would shut down, and they would suddenly have hundreds of millions of unemployed and very ticked off people to repress. Not a job I'm eager to handle if I'm a general in the People's Liberation Army.

The Communist Party of China knows they are one big internal crisis away from being swept from power. They value stability above all and are trying as hard as they can to avery runaway democratic reforms, but I don't know how much longer they can keep a lid on it. India, on the other hand, is democratic and very stable, has a young but flourishing computer industry, a growing professional middle class, and can plug right into the global market with respected universities and widespread use of English as the country's second official language. China has the advantage in infrastructure, cheap labor, and military power, but none of those three are beyond India's capabilities.

China has what it takes to be a superpower, and if they make it, I would have no problem with that, IF they were a democracy. Democracies can be reasoned with, and regular folks don't want war over simple economic issues or territory. I fear a powerful red China, however, that may have designs on expanding their sphere of influence in the Far East and the Pacific Rim, and may see the U.S. as an obstacle to that end.

I seem to remember another Asian nation, with military power and a rapidly expanding economy, viewing us in the same ominous way back in the late 1930s. We all know what happened with that.

 

Straight out of Mahan, and entirely true, IMO. Until the technology is developed for aircraft with the capacity of a freighter or tanker, control of the seas will always be the ultimate determining factor in global supremacy. Just ask Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Adolf Hitler. Actually Wilhelm understood this, but England had a head start in capital ships and Germany went to war before they could redress the balance.

 

The Soviets actually had a very large and powerful navy at the height of their power, and even with the dramatic scaledown since the end of the Cold war, the Russian Navy is still the 2nd most powerful in the world. Their [/I]Typhoon class ballistic missile subs, Akula and Oscar II attack subs, and Kirov class battlecruisers could match up with anything the U.S. Navy had. We had technological superiority 90% of the time, however, and were always able to better detect and track Soviet submarines.

Where they fell short was naval aviation; the Soviets never built aircraft carriers. Publicly, they thumped their chests that they didn't need them. But they didn't build carriers because they couldn't afford them and because of the already difficult time they were having transferring surface forces from one fleet to another (Northern/Arctic, Baltic, Black, and Pacific fleets). Their geography as it relates to the sea really screwed them as far as naval operations goes.

China, of course, has a pathetically small fleet, and would be overmatched against the French or Royal Canadian Navy, much less facing a carrier battle group in a theoretical sea battle resulting from, say, an invasion of Taiwan.

 

The Soviet Fleet was large, but it is doubtful that it would have seriously challenged the US fleet. The great bulk of the Soviet (now Russian) fleet is concentrated in ports on the Barents', Baltic, and Black Seas. Ships and subs sailing from these ports are relatively easy to track because of the limited access they have to the open ocean. The submarines were obviously of particular interest. I was stationed in Keflavik, Iceland from 1988-1991 working avionics on the P-3 Orions there. Every September/October operations tempo would increase about five times normal as the Soviets would send their missile subs out before the ports iced over in the winter. Between the P-3s, attack subs, and SOSUS chain, we would have a pretty good idea on where they all were.

The Soviets did build one carrier, although it didn't come close to the size of a US one. They followed the European model, smaller size with a "ski ramp" bow. I don't know if it ever became operational before the fall of Communism, but they were headed in that direction.