Sarah Paine

You need a dense internal transportation grid to get the goods out in peacetime, reliable egress by sea to get the Navy out in wartime, a dense coastal population that's going to be running all the trade, commerce-driven economy, and then you need a government that's stable that is going to support

Funding a navy and supporting commerce.

Okay, let's line up Russia and China with these prerequisites.

Well, neither one's got a moat.

They got more neighbors than any two other countries on the planet.

So definitely not that.

Internal transportation grid.

Russia's remains lamentable.

China's is getting better.

Neither one has reliable egress by sea with these narrow seas.

Sure, Russia's got the Arctic, but there's nothing up there.

They're polar bears.

Great.

Go get bitten.

And as for dense coastal population, yes, China has a dense coastal population, but Russia doesn't way up north.

Russia has never had a commerce-driven economy.

China was more so under Deng Xiaoping, but under Xi Jinping, he is privileging the crony sector over the private sector, and neither one has stable government institutions.

The litmus test of that one is whether you have transparent, regular transfers of power, usually through elections, and dictator for life does not remotely exist.

So, sure, China and Russia remain continental problems, but I don't think they understand the maritime limitations of where they're at.

And, of course, peace would be the better thing.