Earlier quoted context omitted.
My overarching point here is that it’s pointless to debate Switzerland v Germany as if they exist in some sort of vacuum without interaction. Without Germany, there is no Switzerland. Without Switzerland, there is not Germany. A theory where every nation is a data point can’t get you anywhere. All the nations interact meaning we should reason about the system as a whole. I say something about a nation, you expect me…
> I say something about a nation, you expect me to back it up with other nations. But there are very few data points, and they are interconnected, and the problem has a huge number of dimensions. Sure, but there's little/nothing that suggests the effect you speculate about, it seems to have no parallel in history although empires have existed before, there are counter examples ... so it seems not too likely that that…
I’m not asking you to accept anything: I don’t evangelize. In particular I have no theory that generalizes over nations. It seems very limiting. Like ignoring a mechanism I see work in my apartment because it doesn’t hold true for buildings writ large.
Edit: Probably shouldn’t have written “the superpower” posts ago because that makes it sound like a general claim.