Quote Originally Posted by marct View Post
Hmmm, actually, it's not a consequence of industrialization per se but, rather, a consequence of a certain type of industrialization that has been pushed for the past 80 years or so. It is quite possible to industrialize and have mass transport capabilities that do not rely on fleets of trucks: canal systems and rail systems being the two main alternatives...

...I'm not saying that all countries which get tanks will do this. All I am saying is that if they get tanks and try and do things most efficiently, they will have a number of social consequences that may not be optimal for security and stability.
Certainly it's possible to hypothesize a development model that does not rely on concrete roads, and with sufficient central direction (sufficient meaning a whole lot) one might even implement such a model. While the desire for military mobility in general (not only for tanks) has in many cases driven road construction programs, I'm not convinced that military considerations in general or tanks specifically have been the principal reason for the emergence of road/motor-based development paradigms.

To assess the social consequences of the decision to acquire tanks and the (frequently absent) decision to use them efficiently you'd hve to separate those consequences from those of a whole raft of other parallel factors, and I suspect that at the end of the day the causative role of the decision to acquire tanks would be fairly minor.

Why do we worry about Venezuela? Damned if I know.
Does anyone worry about Venezuela? I can't see why, at least in the military sense, and even in the political sphere poor Hugo seems more a minor irritant than a serious concern. Of course a spat with Colombia is not outside the realm of possibility and could be an awkward thing, if only for the potential impact on oil prices!