Merkel Is Getting Me All Hot And Bothered

[gaelic cowboy]

That is definitely not the case. Volga passes through major industrial and agricultural regions of Russia. It is quite easily the most important Russian river.

Indeed but the Missippi Missouri Ohio river system is practically an integrated highway system and it flows to the correct population centers or to the Gulf to allow transport by sea to New York

The Volga however does not have the same advantage.

Let's not forget that one can get lots of carts for the price of one ship.

Ah come on now your just being silly here during the time people used carts for moving trade goods the roads were also either non-existent or few and far between. It wasnt until the 19th early 20th that we had the technology with trains to overcome these disadvantages, but I cant think of a country that didnt already have most of it's cultural tics by then.

And thats what we were talkin about initially anyway.

But my points stands: Canada was not a suitable trading partner for the U.S.

Thats interesting but that wasnt the point I was making to begin with Canada could trade from her martitime cores on either side early on. Then later she had the ability to trade with Detroit an Chicago cities that developed industry due to there proximity to the great lakes and rivers of the American heartland.

[rvg]

Indeed but the Missippi Missouri Ohio river system is practically an integrated highway system and it flows to the correct population centers or to the Gulf to allow transport by sea to New York

The Volga however does not have the same advantage.

Sure it does. Most of European Russia's important industrial centers are situated on the banks of Volga or its tributaries.

Ah come on now your just being silly here during the time people used carts for moving trade goods the roads were also either non-existent or few and far between. It wasnt until the 19th early 20th that we had the technology with trains to overcome these disadvantages, but I cant think of a country that didnt already have most of it's cultural tics by then.

And thats what we were talkin about initially anyway.

Except that you're not taking into account that an overland journey would be much shorter than a transoceanic one. A couple of hundred miles on bad roads vs a few thousand miles across the ocean.

Thats interesting but that wasnt the point I was making to begin with Canada could trade from her martitime cores on either side early on. Then later she had the ability to trade with Detroit an Chicago cities that developed industry due to there proximity to the great lakes and rivers of the American heartland.

All of that is good and such, but the U.S. commodities still have to cross an ocean to be traded.

[gaelic cowboy]

Sure it does. Most of European Russia's important industrial centers are situated on the banks of Volga or its tributaries.

You said it yourself who would they trade with Iran?? You need access to the sea an Russia never had proper access to secure blue water ports with which to trade from.

Except that you're not taking into account that an overland journey would be much shorter than a transoceanic one. A couple of hundred miles on bad roads vs a few thousand miles across the ocean.

All of that is good and such, but the U.S. commodities still have to cross an ocean to be traded.

I think you will find sending a barrel or whatever from America by boat to England will beat a barrel sent by cart from Russia plus they can carry more stuff reducing price and thereby reducing the cost of the voyage.


Russia is and always has been a landpower geography and security considerations have always made it so and it's lack of development has also hampered it.
But this does not mean Russia cannot be powerful chiefly again due to pure size.

[rvg]

You said it yourself who would they trade with Iran?? You need access to the sea an Russia never had proper access to secure blue water ports with which to trade from.

Why wouldn't they trade with Iran. They'd trade with whoever would be willing to pay.

I think you will find sending a barrel or whatever from America by boat to England will beat a barrel sent by cart from Russia plus they can carry more stuff reducing price and thereby reducing the cost of the voyage.

What holds true for England wouldn't hold true for, say, Poland.

Russia is and always has been a landpower geography and security considerations have always made it so and it's lack of development has also hampered it. But this does not mean Russia cannot be powerful chiefly again due to pure size.

If size was all that mattered, Russia should have been more powerful than anybody else simply because it's significantly larger than the competition.

[gaelic cowboy]

Why wouldn't they trade with Iran. They'd trade with whoever would be willing to pay.

Could they afford it Iran I mean by the time Russia could trade in 19th early 20th there industrila development was primitive at best. Later there products were not required because until the Shah was toppled as Iran was outside there orbit. Afterwards what did they have to give them only weapons a typical obsession of a land based power.

What holds true for England wouldn't hold true for, say, Poland.

Interesting and this proves what exactly that you can send a cartload of barrels to Poland it will still be more exspensive and awkard to trade this way. A horse needs feeding and it can only travel in daylight, while a ship can move all day an night and can carry it's crew supplies and trade goods together.

Land based trade required the train and the further east you went the less developed and integrated a rail network you had. By the time the Soviets arrived to get rail moving they were behind in the goods we might buy from them and crucially they isolated themselves from potential buyers though communism.

If size was all that mattered, Russia should have been more powerful than anybody else simply because it's significantly larger than the competition.

I said Russia can be powerful due to it's size I did not say they would or even can be all powerful.

[rvg]

Could they afford it Iran I mean by the time Russia could trade in 19th early 20th there industrila development was primitive at best.

Russia has traded with Persia for a lot longer than that.

Later there products were not required because until the Shah was toppled as Iran was outside there orbit. Afterwards what did they have to give them only weapons a typical obsession of a land based power.

It wasn't an issue of orbit. Shah's dollars were just as green, and Russia traded extensively.

Interesting and this proves what exactly that you can send a cartload of barrels to Poland it will still be more exspensive and awkard to trade this way. A horse needs feeding and it can only travel in daylight, while a ship can move all day an night and can carry it's crew supplies and trade goods together.

Don't sailors need to eat and sleep?

Land based trade required the train and the further east you went the less developed and integrated a rail network you had.

If the land based trade required the train, then how was it possible to conduct land based trade before railroads came to be?

I said Russia can be powerful due to it's size I did not say they would or even can be all powerful.

And I didn't accuse you of saying that. My point all along has been that neither size nor population nor coastline can account for the success of the US as a nation: Russia has far more land, China has far more people, and Britain historically had a far better maritime trade network.

[gaelic cowboy]

Russia has traded with Persia for a lot longer than that.


It wasn't an issue of orbit. Shah's dollars were just as green, and Russia traded extensively.


Don't sailors need to eat and sleep?


If the land based trade required the train, then how was it possible to conduct land based trade before railroads came to be?



And I didn't accuse you of saying that. My point all along has been that neither size nor population nor coastline can account for the success of the US as a nation: Russia has far more land, China has far more people, and Britain historically had a far better maritime trade network.

Because before real sea trade got going everyone was landbased which removed any cmopetitive adavantage they might potentially have.
A cart driver needs to stop at night and change horses to contiue the journey safely, while a boat has a crew that can eat and sleep in shifts.

As already discussed once colonialism got really going the ship massively boosted trade and the train while good back then was not nearly good enough to go from China to France.


Crucially Russia and China also have problems with both restive populations and with greater actual security threats to the core. This has encouraged expansion to give strategic depth to secure there cores. There economies are landbased and while that was fine in the 14th century it was not fine in the 16th century and as discussed already China shut itself off which negatied it's own maritime advantage.

This has all combined to give them the typical landbased mindset always looking west and east in Russias case or inwards in Chinas case.

[gaelic cowboy]

Now RVG I have really had enough of this continual back and forth were way off what the original statement I was trying to make.

This is that America was influenced in it's national character by it's size, because there was room to develop and crucially the means to do so both from a geographic and technical point of view.

[rvg]

Now RVG I have really had enough of this continual back and forth were way off what the original statement I was trying to make.

This is that America was influenced in it's national character by it's size, because there was room to develop and crucially the means to do so both from a geographic and technical point of view.

So...here we go again: if size is so important, why isn't Russia or China further ahead? You keep mentioning the size, and I keep thinking about how the small nation of Japan, with barely any land or natural resources managed to first whip Russia in 1905 and later on make a mess out of China.