That doesn't seem to be much of a thing these days. If you look at Russia/Ukraine or China/Taiwan there's not much scarcity. It's more bullying dictator wants to control the neighbours issues.
If you ignore Gaza and whole of Africa, maybe.
Then again, it's more of a logistics challenge, and if e.g. California were to invade Canada for its water supply, how are they going to get it all the way down there?
I can see it happening in Africa though, a long string of countries rely on the Nile, but large hydropower dams built in Sudan and Ethiopia are reducing the water flow, which Egypt is really not happy about as it's costing them water supply and irrigated land. I wouldn't be surprised if Egypt and its allies declares war on those countries and aims to have the dams broken. Then again, that's been going on for some years now and nothing has happened yet as far as I'm aware.
(the above is armchair theorycrafting from thousands of miles away based on superficial information and a lively imagination at best)
South Sudan is some ridiculous thing where two rival generals are fighting for control. Are there any wars which are mostly about scarcity at the moment?
Even in Europe extremists are propped up by promise of "cheap energies" from Russia.
I guess if you dont see the link this is not the place to explain it.
That's why Israelis gladly handed back the Sinai desert to Egypt, but have kept Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, Shaba Farms, and continuously confiscate Palestinian farmlands in the West Bank.
There is nothing arbitrary or religious about which lands Zionists are occupying and which they're leaving to arabs.
The main military thing going on there - I was in Dahab where there are endless military checkpoints - is Hamas like guys trying to come over and overthrow the fairly moderate Egyptian government and replace it with a hardline Hamas type islamic dictatorship for the glorification of Allah etc. Again it's not about reducing scarcity - more about increasing scarcity in return for political control. Dahab and Cairo are both a few hours drive from Gaza.
and a bureaucratic one as well. in Germany, they want to trim bureaucratic necessities while (not) expecting multiple millions of climate refugees.
lot's of undocumented STUFF (undocumented have nowhere to go so they don't get vaccines, proper help when sick, injured, mentally unstable, threatened, abused) incoming which means more disease, crime, theft, money for security firms and insurance companies, which means more smuggle, more fear-mongering via media, more polarization, more hard-coding of subservience into the young, more financial fascism overall, less art, zero authenticity, and a spawn of VR worlds where the old rules apply forever.
plus more STDs and micro-pandemics due to viral mutations because people will be even more careless when partying under second-semester light-shows in metropolitan city clubs and festivals and when selling out for an "adventurous" quick potent buck and bug, which of course means more money pouring into pharma who won't be able to test their drugs thoroughly (and won't have to, not requiring platforms to fact check will transfer somewhat into the pharma industry) because the population will be more diverse in terms of their bio-chemical reactions towards ingredients in context of their "fluid" habitats chemical and psycho-social make-ups.
but it's cool, let's not solve the biggest problems before pseudo-transcending into the AGI era. will make for a really great impression, especially those who had the means, brains, skills, (past) careers, opportunity and peace of mind.
To be explicitly clear, the US granting largess to tech companies for datacenters also counts as a misallocation in my view.
The current situation with Russia and China seems caused by them becoming prosperous. In the 1960s in China and 1990s in Russia they were broke. Now they have money they can afford to put it into their militaries and try to attack the neighbours.
I'm reminded of the KAL cartoon on Russia https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=8... That was from 2014. Already Russia is heading to the next panel in the cycle.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-an...
The rest is fees from the Panama (EDIT: Suez) Canal and tourism. Getting into a war, particularly with a country on the Red Sea, is suicide. (Also, the main flash point between Egypt and Ethipia has receded since the GERD finished filling.)
https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/d5f32ef28464d01f195827b...
Furthermore, they became #4 GDP PPP last year and and were reclassified as a high income country.
https://www.intellinews.com/russia-s-economy-is-booming-3289...
The poorer regions are actually benefiting from high contract salaries. How sustainable that is, guess we'll see.
Putin growing concerned by Russia’s economy, as Trump pushes for Ukraine deal https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-growing-concerned...
Also basically the whole western world are progressively sanctioning them eg. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-imposes-new-wave-of-sa... and https://kyivindependent.com/us-likely-to-sanction-russia-if-...
Plus the war is expensive. Plus Ukraine's main strategy at the moment seems to be to take out their oil and related industries using drones https://www.newsweek.com/russia-map-shows-critical-infrastru...
I'm not sure it's going to change unless there is some sort of deal or Putin goes.
That doesn't mean much on its own. Their per capita GDP is still low.
Also arguably their GDP figures are worth even less than Ireland's. A huge proportion of Russia's economy is tied in military production (and huge proportion of that is funded through debt).
If you make a rocket worth $1 million and then blow it up the next month that cost is obviously included in GDP but it's literally the equivalent of burning money/productivity.
- They are run by the mob
- They export a lot of natural resources but don’t have a strong manufacturing base. They don’t have high tech, they don’t export many manufactured items to developed countries. It’s a mob run country, resources are easy to extract.
And they are out manufacturing the combined west on pretty complex stuff like missiles, air defense systems, drones, artillery. Plus, due to sanctions, their civilian industrial sector has grown so much that's theres a shortage of facilities (not to mention labor).
But again, I don’t see them out manufacturing the west on military equipment when some of that equipment is getting overrun easily by 40 year old western equipment. It’s still a poor nation being run by the mob with some shining spots.
Allegedly almost half of their defense budget since the war began was funded through private forced loans issues by banks directly to (effectively state owned?) military contractors. So that's not reflected in their military budget.
Also I doubt Russia could borrow a lot on the international markets even if they wanted to. Certainly not cheaply (like the US or especially Eurozone countries)
> And PPP is the number that matters - its one of the big factors which governs quality of life
Again... Russia's GDP per capita is still quite low (even if significantly higher than nominal).
Also if your nominal GDP is inflated by defence spending and energy exports and you multiply it with PPP (i.e. consumer price index) what exactly do you get?
> PPP is the number
Metrics adjusted by PPP might. What do you mean by PPP as such? The multiplier itself? https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/PA.NUS.PPPC.RF?most_rec...
Generally low prices indicate that the country is poor overall.
> its one of the big factors which governs quality of life,
PPP adjusted GDP per capita? Really? That's certainly not the best indicator of those things (even if there is strong correlation overall).
Do you think a median person in Ireland is 30% better off than the average Swiss or 2x better off than the average German?
Anyway, going back to Russia. If e.g. $100 comes in into the country through energy exports and is spent making bombs and other equipment what fraction do you think trickles down to the local economy?
