Quote Originally Posted by omarali50 View Post
Carl, It seems to me (from a very low personal knowledge base, I admit) that Russia is not a viable superpower now and will not be in the days to come. Poor Ukraine (lets not forget how hopelessly incapable Ukraine is as a "soveriegn" state at this time) and a few other similarly weak and divided countries around Russia will no doubt find themselves in a lot of trouble, but Russia just does not have the capacity to take on Western Europe or the system to finance such a capacity in the future.
Too naive?
About China, I think they are very much capable of becoming a great power, but would they really want to invade Guam and Hawaii? They would have to cross Japan first. Even the Mongols couldnt do that.
Omar:

Russia is weak. But that weakness is only exposed if they are opposed. A boxer with a glass jaw will never lose if nobody ever throws a punch at him. That is not to say that they don't have some strength, as Stan says, but some strength is not winning strength. If we don't throw a punch so to speak, their glass jaw is no weakness.

I didn't mean to suggest they would invade Guam and Hawaii. If they sank a bunch of ships, took 10,000 Americans sailors off sunk ships prisoner, killed most of our tankers and C-17s and then proposed negotiations, why who knows where that would lead? Just because reparations and territorial demands are out of style (maybe not so much lately) doesn't mean they won't come back.