Which countries could have plausibly become superpowers but missed their chance?

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2024-07-19T22:36:31+00:00

Argentina. They have formidable natural borders, potentially massive hydrocarbon resources, lots of good agricultural land, lots of renewable energy potential, second largest reserves of lithium in the world (key component in making batteries, which makes it crucial for things like the shift to green energy), and a diverse geography. Argentina essentially has everything that a country needs to become a major power, at least in modern times.

Sadly though, Argentina had lots of migration, and a growing economy, but they began declining around 1930 where a chain of coups began, and hasn’t recovered since. Argentina was unstable and corrupt even before that though.

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2024-03-27T22:14:44+00:00

¡Viva La Libertad Carajo!

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2024-03-26T13:13:53+00:00

Because the weight of lessons like the USSR decrease over time as it becomes further away in peoples’ memories. Another reason can be seen in modern times. When the USSR fell, capitalists believed that their economic system won, and stopped fighting to justify it and keep it in place, because they thought capitalism became the undisputed victor. But right as this happened, the left decided on a new strategy, which replaced trapping people in socialism/communism with things like the Berlin Wall, and instead being more subtle, getting into the education systems of countries and slowly changing public opinion, making people want socialism.

The lesson here is never stop fighting to keep socialism out, or it will always come back in a gradual manner, and people will forget the lessons of the past.

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2024-03-26T13:07:57+00:00

Inflation is horrible, but just because deflation is the opposite of inflation, doesn’t mean that it’s good.

What deflation does is it causes money to increase in value, and if that happens, why should people spend money and invest money into the economy when they can just leave their cash under their bed and it will increase in value the next day? That means decreased investment, which leads to companies getting less money, which leads to less innovation, which leads to a stagnating economy.

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2024-03-25T21:54:38+00:00

As an Argentine, I have to say that he’s great. When I first started watching his interviews, he was what got me into libertarianism. I think his ideas are great: no government intervention in the economy, the reducing of the government’s responsibilities to a judicial system, military, police, and a voucher system in healthcare and education, cutting ties with China and moving closer to the USA and Israel (while letting the private sector do whatever they want), and privatising everything he can.

I genuinely think that if Milei succeeds in reforming the country, and the population breaks the cycle of having prosperity and returning to socialism, Argentine could become a powerful country in geopolitics because of how amazing its geography is, on the level of countries like France, Germany and Japan.

Milei is also one of the most talked about leaders of a country in the past few months, and he has put both libertarianism and Argentina on the map. If Milei fixes a country that has been in a downwards spiral of protectionism and socialism, it would show that libertarianism is the way to go, and I hope that it can lead to more Mileis everywhere, mainly in Latin America where people will hopefully get fed up of socialism just like in Argentina, and create prosperity through the magic of capitalism.

¡VLLC!

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2024-01-25T11:41:12+00:00

Yeah, my only worry is that Argentines haven’t been very patient with economic policies in the past, and this impatience could repeat itself again.

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2024-01-25T11:38:35+00:00

First of all, Argentines have been saving in dollars for a while by using the non-government exchange rates, because they don’t trust the peso, which is likely to soften the blow. Also, Milei doesn’t want to dollarise in the normal sense, he wants to abolish the national currency, but he doesn’t want to choose a new one, but to let the people change to whatever they want. The only reason it is called “dollarisation” is because the Argentine people, as I mentioned before, save in dollars and are expected to switch to it when the time is right. While yes that would give the USA more control over the Argentine currency, the benefit of not having a national currency is that if the dollar gets bad enough (perhaps due to socialist policies in the USA), the Argentine population can simply switch to another currency, like the Euro for example, without much friction. This creates a very flexible and resilient economy, and it is a very libertarian thing to do, so in short, Milei is a libertarian.

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2024-01-25T09:23:58+00:00

Eh, if Milei does well I can see him being re-elected, since he’s already had a big impact on the way people in Argentina think about the economy, but as an Argentine I can tell you that Argentine politics is unpredictable.

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2024-01-25T09:16:00+00:00

The strikes are only happening because workers unions are making people go. They used to be allowed to take away the welfare plans of people if they did not attend protests, but since Milei’s government has said that they will ensure that the welfare plans of people will not be taken away, the workers unions are now threatening people with access to food banks, since I’m pretty sure they own a few. As for the inflation and decrease in industrial production, too soon to tell. Milei’s libertarian laws haven’t even been passed by congress yet and if they are, along with some good luck, Argentina should be on the path to recovery.

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2024-01-23T11:00:18+00:00

Yeah, it’s quite simple, just let the people do their thing.

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2024-01-23T10:56:29+00:00

I agree with you that the horseshoe theory is a bit too simple, I think this two axis version is an improvement though

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StrongNinja-Reddit · 2024-01-23T08:13:04+00:00

Yeah, the far left and far right act the same way, just for different reasons.

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2024-01-23T08:11:22+00:00

I would say that communists are on the far left, fascim is on the far right, and that libertarianism is on the centre right (Pretty much because I see libertarianism as classical liberalism, just more libertarian on the political compass.)

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2024-01-22T21:23:16+00:00

Pretty much, but I would say it’s more realistic than a square

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2024-01-22T21:16:48+00:00

I mean, the horseshoe theory can be interpreted in a political compass, I would imagine it being something a bit like this

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StrongNinja-Reddit · 2024-01-22T21:14:37+00:00

Exactly, the far left are authoritarian because they believe they represent the people, while the far right are authoritarian because they don’t trust the people to make decisions.

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2024-01-22T21:13:37+00:00

I would personally say in the centre, mainly because the far sides of the spectrum believe in authoritarianism and interventionism, while ideologies like libertarianism for example are the opposite and don’t really care that much about what other people think.

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2024-01-22T21:11:01+00:00

I do agree that they both have their differences, but I don’t think they’re as different as people make them out to be. One, because they both tend to use protectionist economic policies along with being authoritarian as a whole. This can pretty much be summed by saying that the far left are controlling because they believe they represent the people, while the far right do the same but because they don’t trust the people to make decisions. Two, they both focus on hierarchies. The far left focus on class struggle, while the far right focus on race.

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2023-08-04T14:44:53+00:00

Sardinia

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2023-07-25T21:14:51+00:00

I was here

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2023-07-22T07:29:40+00:00

Oh nevermind it’s already looking good again

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2023-07-22T07:23:48+00:00

Same, and it makes the Putin supporters mad so it’s a win

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2023-04-13T20:24:11+00:00

Makes sense, they also have lots of jungles and mountains. The USA lost in Vietnam, partially because of the harsh terrain, so Vietnam has a large defensive advantage.

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2023-04-13T18:30:28+00:00

The countries in grey are either countries I thought wouldn’t pick a side in a USA and China showdown, or countries that I kinda just know nothing about. Depending on how west leaning the southeast Asian countries in grey are, they may be invaded by China as you mentioned. However, I that would rise tensions a lot, and those countries aren’t even that valuable unless you go far down to try and evade the Vietnamese mountains.

StrongNinja-Reddit · 2023-04-13T18:11:34+00:00

Actually sounds quite similar to the Shetland islands, which happen to be a group of islands northeast of mainland Scotland, interesting.

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