If a country wanted to take over the world without firing a shot, how would they do it?
In a world where a loaf of bread isn't made without goods etc criss crossing the globe throughout it's supply chain, a likely avenue would be to try to gain the ability to have enough leverage over trade worldwide that you can boss anyone around. Kinda like the trade federation in star wars episode 1...
Interesting open ended modeling question: what percentage of world trade infrastructure would a country need to control (especially things like ports) in order to have effective leverage over any country in the world?
Assume these ports / infrastructure would be made so they could be made non functional as a last resort, requiring the home county to spend years rebuilding etc.
Aka, even if this dominating country didn't control your ports, they control enough destinations that can deny your cargo that it doesn't matter if you still control your own port.
Relevant news articles:
https://www.barrons.com/news/us-worries-china-wil…
A country wouldn't even have to control the port, just the major infrastructure in it:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/pentagon-sees-giant-…
Who are ZPMG's top western competitors (port crane infrastructure mfg)? They might have their hands full over the next few years...
One example: Konecranes (KCR)
Thinking too small. It's who controls the currency.
I agree that currency is a powerful tool along those lines, but I disagree in that all the $$ in the world or a mountain of gold can't feed your people if you can't get supplies into your country.
They do go hand in hand though. It's part of the reason why China is trying to internationalize the usage of renminbi (to mixed success clearly).
A similar approach is expanding your diplomatic footprint (they have more embassies abroad now than we do), and also increasing the profile of your nation through international aid (AIIB vs ADB) and putting your people in important positions (a lot of UN positions are manned by Chinese nationals). No shots fired.
Good points. Also, remember how much power they already demonstrated by slowing down international trade for a single item, chips, recently. Being able to cut off or significantly restrain any single important item / commodity etc can bring any modern economy to it's knees, unless they worked for years to be able to insulate themselves from that... Is there a country that seems to have been doing that for years now...?
You forgot the /s there I believe? To my point about currency, IE the Petrodollar, BRICs are in the race to replace that with the yuan. Even signing up KSA in their roll. The belt and road initiative is what you're leaning at?
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