On 21May2020 1859, Alex Goodwin wrote:
> Terran geopolitics are as per GT:IW, pp20 - 26. Note the AZS nuclear
> attack on Terra, canonically in 2148 AD, will probably not happen in its
> canonical form.
>
> Superpowers (collated from GT:IW, plus some of my own changes):
>
> - USA
>
> - EU (fast coalescing to a federation - only the Old Dart, France and
> Germany retain any real capability of independent action
I am to take it 'Old Dart' is England? Where'd that reference come from?
I'd heard it called 'Blighty' or 'Merry Old' but 'Old Dart' is a new one on me.
When you rescinded Brexit, did you also assume the EU wouldn't continue to fracture (seems so)?
> - China
>
> - India
>
> - Japan
I've always appreciated aspects of Japan, but I've never been able to see them directly as a top tier world power. The dependence they have for so many things imported and their very limited land space kind of limits that. 2nd tier, yeah, I could buy that on strength of technology and science. To me first tier powers almost require significant force projection and I don't think Japan can ever manage that.
And with any sort of ascendant China, assuming China and India don't eventually have one heck of a conflict which isn't without possibility, Japan is right in their expanded back yard which seems like it would hem them in (and sadly, that would cover NZ and Australia too, given expanding naval and economic power in China).
> Second-tier powers:
>
> - Russia
Maybe. It's hard to see what comes when Putin goes. More of same? Or a further erosion of the state in favour of crony capitalism, corruption, and organized crime? Kleptocracy?
>
> - United Korea (although coming up fast on the supers)
That ought to happen, but I can't quite wrap my head around how North Korean paranoia and just fears are laid aside enough for that. They really are in a corner. Maybe if the US declines or falls apart and the EU stops paying attention, they can ratchet down their fears. That plus some suasion from China might help, though they are dealing beyond the neighborhood now and have some newer allies.
> - Argentina
>
Don't hear much about them these days. South America (other than Brazil) seems to not get much press in the US or Canada these days.
> Third-tier powers:
>
Presumably a longer list overall... the higher the tier number, the larger the count of countries in it.
> - Thailand
>
> - Australia (still reeling somewhat from New Zealand's accession as the
> NZ Special Autonomous Region in the 2030s)
I can only assume that the Business Round Table managed to buy a
(National Party) government, because nobody else here would contemplate
such a thing.
Maybe with a little help from Chinese bankers?
It's surprising how attitudes can change though. My cousin started out in Scotland as ambivalent about separation from England (I'd say the UK, but it's really England that he now sees as the issue). Enough cases of benefits of one sort or another either not making it to Scotland at the same time as England or not making it at all and cases of things like taxes applied in Scotland long before they were in England and so on took him into the separation camp. Then Brexit where the majority of Scots do NOT want to leave the EU and he's pretty strident about his wish to see Scotland out from under the English (lots of dirty pool in some of the political manouverings wrt Brexit and the Scots elections in the last bunch of years).
If you'd have told me fifteen years ago that we'd see a growth of the alt-right in Canada, a growth in the anti-vaxxer/anti-science folks, and a general polarization of politics to the point of stupidity on all sides to no good end, I'd have thought that unlikely.
If you'd have told me a decade ago that Mr. Trump (a businessman with a checkered past in terms of project success, a reality TV git, and someone who clearly was not someone who would respect the highest office in the land) would end up cleaning up and coming to power in the GOP and all the decent Republicans would leave, die or be cowed to silence... and we'd have him as the US President and casting shade and making threats to his NATO/NORAD and trading partners and cuddling up with Chinese, Russian and North Korean strong men... I'd have told you you were raving.
And if we step a decade back, to 1929, I suppose some folk were concerned about Germany, but they sure wouldn't have expected what would have unfolded by 1939...
Not trying to pick at anyone's political alignments, just trying to point out that there's some huge changes that, even 10-20 years before one would not have expected. They look hard to understand from the mindset a decade or more before, but a lot can change in that time.
Tom B
--
Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>
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