Re: Madison Nightmare (Geopolitics in Jon's Universe)

On Mon, 8 Sep 1997, John D. Hamill wrote:

> Mikko Kurki-Suonio wrote:
> > 
> > On Fri, 5 Sep 1997, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> > 
> > > Obscure? An Indonesia which has conquered most of the Tigers, or
the
> > > combination of Argentina and Brazil... OK, the Islamics and the
> > > Pan-Africans would probably be hard pressed; but they still have a
_lot_
> > > more natural resources as well as a population base more than
twenty
> > > times ours.
> > 
> > I think the level of industrialization is far more important than
> > population count, or even natural resources.
> > 
> > > Somehow I find it more likely that the ESU and NAC sponsor
> > > third world countries than us, too :-/
> > 
> > Yeah, that's the only way I can buy the Israelis being a space
power.
> > 
> > --
> > maxxon@swob.dna.fi (Mikko Kurki-Suonio)	      | A pig who
doesn't fly
> > +358 50 5596411 GSM +358 9 80926 78/FAX 81/Voice  | is just an
ordinary pig.
> > Maininkitie 8A8 02320 ESPOO FINLAND | Hate me?    | 	 - Porco
Rosso
> > http://www.swob.dna.fi/~maxxon/	| hateme.html |
> The reason the Israelis are a space power is that they invented FTL,
> along with the help of the Japanese. As far as the other countries go,
> it doesn't take a large population to get into space, just money and
> technology. If the Scandinavian countries could pool their resources
> they have more than enough to build ships and go exploring. If you
look
> at colonial history, people will reproduce to fill their space, so if
> they started a colony you might find that its pop. growth vastly
> exceeded the home countries.
> 
Have to agree with the above -- industrialization matters more, really,
than population base - and no-one can seriously argue that the
Scandanavian countries are technologically backward - far from it, esp.
a
unified or partly-unified Scandanavian Commonwealth or similar. 

The colonial effort would be slowed by lack of excess population, but
for
many applications, what is needed isn't lots of warm bodies but few,
highly educated people to run machinery. I could see the Scandanavians
being a major supplier of specialized machinery, and electronics, in the
future. And the Scandanavian mercs mentioned elsewhere could be one of
the
high-tech 'Dorsai'-type units, not just a 'warm-body' unit...

Brian (burger00@camosun.bc.ca)