Dragaera

Defender always wins? (Was: Re: on contradictions and s

Fri Feb 11 06:50:20 PST 2005

On Fri, 11 Feb 2005, Howard Brazee wrote:

@> >> Oh, by all means. I don't consider securing vital resources an
@> >> inappropriate US priority. As you say, it's pretty far down the
@> >> list, but it's on it.
@>
@> > "Securing vital resources"?  Great big Latin words for . . . what?
@> > Going in and taking something we use far too much of, and waste far
@> > too much of, and are going to run out of anyway.  Besides being
@> > utterly lawless, how stupid is that?
@> >
@>
@> "Securing" is not the same as "taking".

In the above sentence, it is exactly the same (to get possession of).

@> But the question is "securing from what"?   If those resources stay in the
@> ground, our long term interests are helped.   If they are sold on the world
@> market, our short term interests are helped.  If they are sold to China
@> instead of to the U.S., it keeps the price of Venezuelan oil down.

This is true. It has no particular relation to what we're doing in Iraq,
but it's true.

@> The only real issue is that China is becoming a major industrial power -
@> using oil the way we have.   Unless we are willing to stop them, we need to
@> secure recourses by building nuclear plants or something similar.

Or we could do something less insane, like investing in sustainable energy
sources that don't produce toxic waste and horrific weapons.

@> Do Dragaera and the East compete economically?   What kind of relationship
@> do they have with each other economically?

Hmm. It appears as if there's some kind of trade, and given that the East
is not a single unified nation, it seems likely that competition is
occurring (and between the Empire, Elde, and Greenaere there certainly
must be competition).