dystopian:
I've told you this before, but for fuck's sake, learn how to use the quote tag.
What am I doing wrong?
The proximity of countries does not matter so much in today's world. Only someone with blinders on could possibly think Russia will remain the largest recipient of European investment. Russia's long term economic growth prospects are minimal; especially when compared to China. And unlike Russia, China has not displayed outright hostility towards the EU or it's ambitions.
Natural gas in definitely dependent on geography. Without a pipeline, you cannot transport it cheaply. It has to be liquefied and that means you use up a whole lot of gas just keeping the rest liquid. That's why natural gas prices differ widely from region to region.
Russian growth prospects are limited by her declining population, but she has tremendous resources that European countries would like to exploit. What hostility has Russia shown to Europe's ambitions? There are lots of European countries doing business in Russia. She hadn't imposed sanctions on Europe until Europe joined the US' sanctions regime. Granted, Russia's commercial code and private property laws are antequated and not terribly compatible with the way Western Europe does business, but Russia is working on that and their bringing German experts to advise them on the necessary changes.
Despite their defense spending, I don't think any defense analysts think that Europe alone could stop a Russian invasion of Europe.
You mean no *Russian* defense analysts think that. Nobody else would seriously suggest that Russia could win a conventional war with Europe. At best, Russia might manage some early gains while the EU unifies its defense; but there is absolutely no way that a country with just 144 million people and an economy of 2 trillion dollars could possibly win a conventional conflict against the largest economy on the planet with an economy of more than 17 trillion dollars and a population of more than half a billion (and a nuclear conflict would be bad for everyone, so let's not even go there). Even if Russia had a significant technology advantage over the EU (which it doesn't, EU militaries have the advantage there); there was no way.
By your theory, Canada should eschew good relations with the US and look to China for her security.
You can't leave the nuclear threat out of it. Europe could decide to increase defense spending and reorganize their defenses. Fundamentally, they have the capability of defeating Russia. But they do not have the preparedness at this point in terms of ground troops. So if they lose their trust in the US they have a choice of increasing their defense spending and boosting their nuclear arsenals or reaching an understanding with Russia.
It absolutely should if the US had a habit of invading and annexing countries near Canada while giving them the finger and threatening them.
The US has attacked or invaded way more countries than the Russia has even thought of attacking and that even includes Europe where we attacked Kosovo. Russia has invaded exactly one country - Georgia, and she only did that after Georgia attacked and killed Russian peace-keepers in South Ossetia. Then Russia went in and occupied Tblisi, but she didn't annex Georgia and Putin didn't even set up a puppet government. The current Georgian regime is anti-Russian. She did not attack Crimea. She was permitted to have 25,000 troops there under their treaty for Sevastopol. Putin had a mere 6,000. All he did was replace occupation troops with combat troops to assure that Ukraine didn't try to reconquer Crimea after she seceded. I have seen no evidence that Russia invaded Ukraine despite Western media reports. The Ukrainian army was defeated because they were incompetent and walked into a trap set by the rebels. Again, contrary to US media reports, the Ukrainians were losing prior to the massive defeat at Donetsk. Just check out the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs. They admit to losing far more tanks and other fighting vehicles to the rebels than they conquered from them.
Meanwhile, despite our promise not to expand NATO eastward, the US has admitted nearly all of the Warsaw Pact nations into NATO and established missile bases there while openly admitting that we want to include Ukraine and Georgia as well. These are all very provocative actions by Europe against Russia. Far more than the other way round. And that's without even mentioning our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan or out attacks on Serbia, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Syria. And then there's the coup d'état that we sponsored in Ukraine where we overthrew a democratically elected government. And we have the nerve to claim that RUSSIA is the aggressor? Meanwhile, NATO and EU countries have supported us in most of these operations.
Europe would have a great deal to gain by freer trade with Russia. The reason it isn't happening now is because the US doesn't want it to happen. It is Europe, not the US, that is suffering the most from sanctions against Russia.
The reason it isn't happening is entirely Russia's fault. You may not be aware of the rampant use of sanctions the Russian government is known for whenever a country says or does something they don't like. You can't have free tree trade with a country when that country finds an excuse to ban your cheese or whatever whenever they feel like it.
Free trade is something to be negotiated. A sovereign country is free to impose tariffs whenever if feels like it. It has been our policy for most our history. Meanwhile the US has blocked most favored nation status for Russia so it pretty much has to go it alone.
The reason the EU is more committed to the sanctions now is because we recognize that increased trade with Russia is a noose around the necks of some of our member states. It is not in our interest to increase trade with Russia so long as Russia's behavior doesn't change for good.
Russian behavior is a function of US and European behavior and, as I have noted, the US continues to block most favored nation status. It is the US that is blocking European trade with Russia. But Europe still has a lot of trade with Russia. If it didn't, there would be no point in imposing the current sanctions because the US doesn't have much trade with Russia.
As for us suffering from the sanctions; all I've noticed is my food's getting cheaper. The sanctions are certainly felt a great deal more in Russia.
I think you have it backward. Of course your food is cheaper because Russia isn't buying it. You may like the cheaper prices, but they are a tremendous burden on European farmers who cannot sell the produce. Meanwhile, Russia is buying these things in Latin America which could lead to a permanent loss of business for Europe.
But North Korea is so poor and so dependent on China that they can probably pull it off.
Yes, because crazy dictatorships that don't give a shit about their people have a long history of going 'sure, let's give up our power completely so the peasants can eat. No, no... I'll brook no opposition, don't you know that our nice big neighbors next door asked us nicely?'
The current dictator really has little power. He is dependent on lesser bureaucrats, and they are insisting on opening up N. Korea's economy. In a united Korea they could expect to retain considerable power within the larger bureaucracy.
With US power out of the picture, Taiwan would have no hope of preventing a Chinese invasion. But if China offers to do to Taiwan what it did to Hong Kong (essentially leave it alone), then Taiwanese would likely see that as preferable to getting wiped out.
Countries do not normally give up their independence just because they have no hope of preventing its lose. Also, given that Hong Kong has been embroiled in mass protests over the central government interfering with its shit, I doubt the Taiwanese would be very receptive to the idea.
Then China will just have to take it outright. Without US backing, Taiwan cannot remain independent.
Supporting the idea that the next king should be the guy next in line legally isn't a real indication of popularity.
Except they were also asked whether he should abdicate in favor of Prince William; so it's not at all like how you've decided to characterize it.
That doesn't change the point at all. Who do you think should succeed Obama? Biden or Hillary? At this point Hillary would be strongly favored in an election. But on the death of the president, most people would say Biden, because that's what the law says.
But the royal family has been connected to pedophilia as have many other British politicians. The difficulty is in getting the police and the judiciary to pursue these cases.
You're going to have to put forth some actual evidence instead of gossip mags and whatever you're pulling out of your ass.
That's going to take a little research that I don't have time for at the moment. I'll have to get back to you on that. But I should add that calling this a pedophilia scandal is actually an understatement. It is more like child trafficking rings. Children are being abducted and sold for many reasons, not just sex. It may be for their organs, for use in snuff pornography or even Satanic sacrifices. The bodies of 800 children were recently found in Ireland. They had been beheaded and dismembered which suggests that they were victims of Satanic rituals.
The other important point is that authorities are covering up these crimes. It's happening in many places, not just Britain. The reason I cite Britain is because the local police there seem to be getting disgusted with these cover ups and are going public and doing more thorough investigations. The issue has moved out of the tabloid media into the mainstream press. So it looks like Britain will lead the way, but there are a lot of fingers pointing at the royal family.
I'm not too familiar with Britain, but in the US much of this is revealed in a book called
The Franklin Cover-Up by John DeCamp. It is available on-line.
The royal family in Holland also has such connections.
First of all, there is no royal family in Holland; you mean The Netherlands. Holland is just a region in the country, if you don't even know that much it's hard to take anything you say about the country seriously.
I'm well aware of the fact that Holland is a region of the Netherlands. I'm also well aware of the fact that that term is frequently used to refer to the entire country.
Secondly, no it doesn't.
Certainly, there's evidence of Child trafficking rings in the Netherlands. Whether there is hard evidence pointing to the royal family, I'm not sure. Certainly, many accusations have been directed at Prince Bernhard, but he is dead now. I've not heard any accusations against King Alexander.
It just hasn't been reported
Yet some random dude on the other side of the planet knows about it. No no, do go on. Tell me, someone from the actual fucking country you're talking about, how I don't know what's going here but you do.
I shall do that in due course.
But media in Holland as well as in Belgium haven't covered it.
That's because it isn't there. You do realize that we rank at the top of the world press freedom index, right? Knowing the way our media functions, there is *no way in hell* this type of scandal wouldn't be reported on if it was an actual thing instead of something you pulled out of your ass.
The media will not report on it until they have official information from the police or some other authoritative source. It's called CYA - cover your ass.
<--- stunned face look
