On to the fun stuff, though where do I start? I just spent a lot of time discussing the importance of the situation at hand, so I could start discussing economics, globalization, Syria, technological changes, nuclear weapons, or any other number of things. And I'll probably get to those. Eventually.
For now I want to start with the basics. Geopolitics. Let's start with existential threats. Here's a map of the United States:
The United States is in a pretty enviable position here. The continental US has two large oceans to our east and west. Our major neighbors are Canada and Mexico, neither of which is (currently) much of a threat. People don't always realize just how much space we're talking about here, either. I mean, you can drive across England in about 13 or 14 hours, which is almost as long as it takes an American to drive through Texas.
We get along pretty well with Canada (shared language and history), though our relationship with Mexico is a little more problematic. Actually, one of the worst case conventional scenarios I could imagine is a hostile Mexico allied with a large enemy. A force like that could cross our border and drive straight up the middle. Yes, I know, doesn't seem likely right now...but I think a core policy should be keeping our neighbors friendly. Neutral at worst. And we definitely don't want to push them into outright hostility. (A realist may point out that we could instead try to keep our neighbors weak. Sort of like Richelieu and what came to be Germany. I personally don't think it's a good idea, partly because even if they're weak they can ally with a larger hostile country, partly because you will probably fail eventually, partly because changing norms make it less acceptable today than back in Richelieu's day, but primarily because I don't think our strength is dependent on keeping others weak. And if you believe in free trade, which is kind of a big question this year, you must admit that countries with strong economies make better trading partners. If we worked with Mexico to end the drug war, undercut the cartels, get the corrupting drug money out of Mexican politics, and basically did our bit to help Mexico grow then one side effect is they'd probably have fewer people trying to immigrate here illegally.)
So. It wouldn't be easy to attack us directly. Probably the only nations with a better geography are islands like the UK, Japan, and Australia. Which is where the next bit comes in - population.
Yes, China and India together make up 36% of the world population. They have a LOT of people. China has four times our own population.
And we have twice as many as Russia. Almost as much as Russia, Iran and the Philippines combined. (Actually, I find this sort of comparison very interesting. I didn't realize Japan had almost as many people as Russia.) Population count isn't everything, of course. Some countries are aging, others have too many men and not enough women. There are different education levels and different fitness levels. Yet the population count does help give some perspective on what size military you can expect a nation to field.
We, for example, have less than a half a percentage of our entire population in the armed forces. And yet we still have a larger military than Russia (according to this site, Russia has the fourth largest military with 766,055 to our 1,400,000. In 2014 they're also estimated to spend 4.5% of their GDP on defense spending, as opposed to our 3.5%.)
Speaking of GDP, here's some world rankings:
Nation GDP (in billions) Rank
United States 18,561.93 1
China 11,391.62 2
Japan 4,730.30 3
Germany 3,494.90 4
India 2,250.99 7
Russia 1,267.75 12
So what does it all mean? Well, if you don't count nukes, or cyberwarfare, or terrorism, or pandemics and large scale natural disasters, then we're pretty much unassailable on the continental United States.
I hate saying that, and I keep trying to quality it further. It feels like the kind of statement the world loves to prove wrong. At the same time if I throw in too many exceptions it weakens the point - We're large both physically and demographically, we've got good geographic boundaries, and we have a strong economy. We'd be really, really, hard to take on directly.
That's not the entire story, of course. Just keep it in the back of your mind when I get into the next bit.
For now I want to start with the basics. Geopolitics. Let's start with existential threats. Here's a map of the United States:
The United States is in a pretty enviable position here. The continental US has two large oceans to our east and west. Our major neighbors are Canada and Mexico, neither of which is (currently) much of a threat. People don't always realize just how much space we're talking about here, either. I mean, you can drive across England in about 13 or 14 hours, which is almost as long as it takes an American to drive through Texas.
We get along pretty well with Canada (shared language and history), though our relationship with Mexico is a little more problematic. Actually, one of the worst case conventional scenarios I could imagine is a hostile Mexico allied with a large enemy. A force like that could cross our border and drive straight up the middle. Yes, I know, doesn't seem likely right now...but I think a core policy should be keeping our neighbors friendly. Neutral at worst. And we definitely don't want to push them into outright hostility. (A realist may point out that we could instead try to keep our neighbors weak. Sort of like Richelieu and what came to be Germany. I personally don't think it's a good idea, partly because even if they're weak they can ally with a larger hostile country, partly because you will probably fail eventually, partly because changing norms make it less acceptable today than back in Richelieu's day, but primarily because I don't think our strength is dependent on keeping others weak. And if you believe in free trade, which is kind of a big question this year, you must admit that countries with strong economies make better trading partners. If we worked with Mexico to end the drug war, undercut the cartels, get the corrupting drug money out of Mexican politics, and basically did our bit to help Mexico grow then one side effect is they'd probably have fewer people trying to immigrate here illegally.)
So. It wouldn't be easy to attack us directly. Probably the only nations with a better geography are islands like the UK, Japan, and Australia. Which is where the next bit comes in - population.
| Rank | Country | Population | % of Population |
| World | 7,256,490,011 | ||
| 1 | China | 1,367,485,388 | 18.84% |
| 2 | India | 1,251,695,584 | 17.25% |
| 3 | United States | 321,368,864 | 4.43% |
| 9 | Russia | 142,423,773 | 1.96% |
| 10 | Japan | 126,919,659 | 1.75% |
| 11 | Mexico | 121,736,809 | 1.68% |
| 12 | Philippines | 100,998,376 | 1.39% |
| 16 | Iran | 81,824,270 | 1.13% |
| 17 | Germany | 80,854,408 | 1.11% |
| 18 | Turkey | 79,414,269 | 1.09% |
| 21 | France | 66,553,766 | 0.92% |
| 22 | United Kingdom | 64,088,222 | 0.88% |
| 23 | Italy | 61,855,120 | 0.85% |
Yes, China and India together make up 36% of the world population. They have a LOT of people. China has four times our own population.
And we have twice as many as Russia. Almost as much as Russia, Iran and the Philippines combined. (Actually, I find this sort of comparison very interesting. I didn't realize Japan had almost as many people as Russia.) Population count isn't everything, of course. Some countries are aging, others have too many men and not enough women. There are different education levels and different fitness levels. Yet the population count does help give some perspective on what size military you can expect a nation to field.
We, for example, have less than a half a percentage of our entire population in the armed forces. And yet we still have a larger military than Russia (according to this site, Russia has the fourth largest military with 766,055 to our 1,400,000. In 2014 they're also estimated to spend 4.5% of their GDP on defense spending, as opposed to our 3.5%.)
Speaking of GDP, here's some world rankings:
Nation GDP (in billions) Rank
United States 18,561.93 1
China 11,391.62 2
Japan 4,730.30 3
Germany 3,494.90 4
India 2,250.99 7
Russia 1,267.75 12
So what does it all mean? Well, if you don't count nukes, or cyberwarfare, or terrorism, or pandemics and large scale natural disasters, then we're pretty much unassailable on the continental United States.
I hate saying that, and I keep trying to quality it further. It feels like the kind of statement the world loves to prove wrong. At the same time if I throw in too many exceptions it weakens the point - We're large both physically and demographically, we've got good geographic boundaries, and we have a strong economy. We'd be really, really, hard to take on directly.
That's not the entire story, of course. Just keep it in the back of your mind when I get into the next bit.
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