Russia, and China have every right to conduct trade with Africa, and that will mean their competition with the West, and each other. We wanted a capitalist Russia and China, well, now we've got 'em. We have no business whining about it, the days when we could pressure people over who they traded with are now long past.

We are rapidly approaching a post-nationalistic world order, one dominated by giant multinational corporations instead of nation-states. They will increasingly compete and cooperate with each other without paying any attention to the needs or interests of countries (or people, for that matter!). Markets, workforces, raw materials, capital, finance, all manipulated, shared, or fought over as if there were no national boundaries. I'm glad I won't live long enough to see it fully shake itself out. Just think, the worst nightmare of the right, a world government, except it will be run by the worst nightmare of the left, international monopoly capitalism. Who needs the UN? It's a Rollerball World after all, and you can kiss government regulation and the Kyoto Protocols goodbye.

"Imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do..." -- John Lennon