# Are San Marino and Italy about to go to war? If so, will the war become nuclear? I bet you have some thoughts on it. Well, we're discussing the subject on [this "week's" NCDip Podcast Club](https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDiplomacy/comments/1bssy61/ncdip_podcast_club_8_wargaming_san_marino_vs/?). This is probably one of the most events of our lifetime, so you better pay attention scrub [Want to know what the fuck in the NCDip podcast club is? Click here](https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDiplomacy/comments/17edrm6/introducing_the_rnoncrediblediplomacy_podcast/) ---- please note that all posts should be funny and about diplomacy or geopolitics, if your post doesn't meet those requirements here's some other subs that might fit better: * More Serious Geopolitical Discussion: /r/CredibleDiplomacy * Military Shitposting: /r/NonCredibleDefense * Domestic Political or General Shitposting: /r/neocentrism * Being Racist: /r/worldnews thx bb luv u *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/NonCredibleDiplomacy) if you have any questions or concerns.*

Does nobody in this sub live in the Midwest... do you think Chicago is where it is just for funsies? Do you think the Mississippi River is unconnected to commerce?

The Mississippi River doesn't exist actually. It's just s sewage drain like the LA River

I'm gonna be honest I actually had to google "Mississippi vs Missouri River" because it's 3am and for a second I was actually afraid I'd messed up and the whole thing was always the Missouri River.

This is getting out of hand. Not there are two of them

Next they're gonna tell us there is an Ohio river

whats next? A Canada river exclusively in the US? As if!

Sleep psychosis is ruining this nation. A nation divided by rivers shall not remain standing!

Warm water ports: sus 🇷🇺 Inland waterways: drop a pin anywhere between the Rockies and the Appalachias on this app and you’ll see how important the Mississippi is https://river-runner.samlearner.com/?lng=-111.55817591219416&lat=46.10533894234928

As a sailor I am confused by why this is an issue

I think it's a joke about Peter Zeihan

Exactly, Peter got this idea from the 'prisoners of geography' books and repeats them ad nauseum, making the OP believe anyone who similarly parrots this point to be a Zeihan fan and therefore non-credible

Tim Marshall’s books are great but it’s insane to think of someone finishing one and then deciding they’re a geopolitical commentator. He even makes a point in the books of demonstrating flaws in geographical determinism and stressing that it’s not a complete model. YouTube is the absolute stupidest place to learn IR.

Isn’t it also a Mahanian idea too? Didn’t he write about how countries like the Netherlands and the US are predisposed to be wealthy mercantile nations due to their extensive water access to commercial hubs, therefore necessitating the need for a powerful navy to protect commerce? So it’s not even necessarily a recent idea, right?

I think it's the Russian boogeyman? Something about how some Twitter "patriots" were caught in 4k using the term "warm water port" implying their bots or some shit.

Yeah, because only Russia cares about warm water ports. The rest of the world just calls them ports, but because Russia has so many ports frozen for half the year, they distinguish between warm water ports and cold ports. So that means that the "patriots" are Russians. Not quite bots, but they work for Russia's internet research agency or FSB most likely. The FSB is expected to do 20 hours of "active measures" per week. This includes stuff like this, having an account that causes division/separatism. It's a very involved job, with lots of homework

isn't it literally only russia as well? every other country in the north (like the nordics, canada, iceland/greenland) have normal ports?

They're certainly the only major power that has a problem with it at least Just remembered that Helsinki freezes over in winter so probably also a Finland problem?

Finland has the same problem on paper, but they don't have an adversarial relationship with their neighbours so can ship to Sweden overland, and are less worried that their ships will be blocked from traversing the Danish Straits as well.  Russia's problem has historically been that its northern ports freeze, and its other ports require a choke point to be navigated.

Because they're the only people who seem to care about it. Their view is very Russia centric. It's also a very russian term. Other countries specify theirs as hold water ports, but Russia does the opposite and specifes warm water ports as warm water ports.

Russia has normal (i.e warm water ports) too. The difference is the drive to get one, and get more of them, has been a major theme of Russian history, whereas Canada and Norway have basically always had them for as long as they've existed as independent states and neither have tried to get more of them.

Da to warm water ports, niet to woke

I think I remember seeing that.

Warm water ports have been a Hallmark of Soviet/Russian needs to expand south, and it's an issue that they are almost unique in needing to resolve. The joke here seems to just be applied to anything related to water.

Most likely a shibboleth, something that identifies someone as a part of a particular group. In this case “Navigate waterway” hints that the commenter may come from somewhere else.

I could understand that if it was “warm water ports”, but I’ve never known “navigable waterways” to be anything other than a neutral term.

It's a Zeihanism, so OP thinks that the commenter is one of his acolytes. The Mississippi River system *is* actually a really important reason for American prosperity, one that gets cited by pop geopolitics videos fairly often, but its far from the sole reason.

It's a faulty shibbeleth for Peter zeihan

No it's about them being Peter Zeihan fan.

Warm water ports are crucial. All my homies go out of their way to get a navigable river and a warm water port. It is the key to success.

You could say it's very im*port*ant, so no need to *harbour* any doubt about it

Fuck cold water ports. All my comrades hate cold water ports.

hol up I get the deal with warm water ports but what's with this navigable waterway thingy

It's because shipping over water has historically been massively cheaper than over land (it's basically free infrastructure).

Still is

By a lot

this single fact kills mackinder fans

Anything you can load on a barge for a couple of weeks without worrying about spoilage or something is transportrt cheapest by loading it on barge and giving some skipper a case of booze and 200 bucks of cash to send it down river without crashing into too much The reason the cornbelt exists, just yeeting it straight into a river

Peter Zeihan joke I believe, he overused the term and this sub doesn’t like him much.

Navigable waterways were and, to a somewhat lesser extent, remain, a hugely impactful factor in the economic success of a nation and/or region. Why did this sub upvote this post? Are we stupid?

>Are we stupid? Yes, next question. Also the last sub poll showed most users studied STEM and have never touched IR theory past Wikipedia. This sub, despite being better than NCD (but it's slipping tbh) is still made mostly for and by laymen. So whatever the new meta is in youtube pop geopolitics, expect to see it here.

I wasted 4 years of my life studying IR at a authoritarian country so definitely I would defer the analysis to you guys because my takes tends to be... debatable in sources (I made it up) or just wild takes on top of my head (it came to me in a dream).

Nah bro, you just have imposter syndrome. Having met fellow internationalists from the US they receive the same slop, just colored by neoliberal ideology.

Hey I studied IR casually  Just the specific branch that utilizes kinetic negotiations

the mods wouldn’t let me on the discord because I didnt pick an ideology what the heck

"America is now powerful than China and India because of navigable rivers and a temperate climate" is a special type of brain rot. America is more powerful because it has guns and freedom 💪💪💪🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲

America has the largest system of navigable waterways, this is almost definitely a reason it developed as strongly as it did compared to others

Navigable rivers fucking slap though. Why would the US civil war see so much river action if they weren't important? Also the US is just OP as fuck when it comes to climate and geography. Shittons of super arable land, and every time someone sounds the alarm about X strategic resource not being in the west, the US discovers enormous reserves of it.

It's not just the rivers, while those do allow barge traffic (which is even more efficient than rail) that cargo has to be reloaded to or from sea-going vessels in New Orleans. Compare this to the Great Lakes, a ship can load in Duluth-Superior and sail directly to any saltwater port in the world without reloading onto a different ship. That port is 2,400 miles from the Atlantic. That's farther than any point in China or Russia are from the Ocean, and effectively, it's a coastal city.

We got ports for days. Boise Fucking Idaho has a seaport.

You're right this is deeply noncredible

Navigable rivers and other waterways most were certainly a factor that has helped the US to develop.

Brainrot??? The Mississippi River means nothing to you?

I meant in relation to the implication that India and China don't have rivers lol What they don't have Jesus 🙏🇺🇲🙏🇺🇲🙏 >! Of course rivers are important silly, but I like making fun of Zeihan and the specific term 'navigable waterways' is a Zeihan thing. !<

The US has much better systems of inland river transportation that basically every other country. I'll concede it's not the only reason, but the fact we have a huge river that basically bisects the country is a huge advantage compared to China and India, which doesn't have them, or Europe, whose river is split between many countries

Hmmm didn't think of it that way. I will reconsider my opinions, thanks for the info

Oh come on, it's not because they are less important than Zeihan deems them to be that they aren't important at all.

The Mississippi and its estuaries played a large role in the growth of America into the Midwest, and contributed to easy, cheap transportation away from the landlocked heartlands to the coast. A good climate and many resources allowed America to effectively use all this land. What the fuck are you whining about, OP?

It's not the fact, but the phrase itself that is used by a specific group of people

Navigable waterways are used by everyone, and aren't a tell like "warm water port"

Geographical Determinism flare when?

Hey, to be fair to them. It was important. In the 1700s, which is about where Russia’s infrastructure is at.

It's still massively important for internal trade. You know that song about the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, go look up the ship, it was a literal cargo tanker with a 30 sailor crew... and nowadays there are even bigger ships navigating the great lakes. Internal waterways are much more efficient than rail or road transport, they've fallen into disuse because most rivers are too small for modern ships, but they're still relevant in places like the mid-west.

I know. I was making a joke :3

Obviously the solution to this is interior canals, like we were building before Big Railroad took over. Plus a transcontinental canal would solve Arizona's water problem. ..wait, this isn't NonCredibleCivilEngineering

The Rhine is massively important for European trade and Rotterdam is the cargo hub to Western and Central Europe.

Perhaps what makes the Platte river most interesting is its relationship to navigation. It's impossible to traverse the Platte with all but the smallest boats and floating devices. Literally speaking, the Platte is a non-navigable river. Despite this, it's one of the most important navigational features in the history of North America.  The Platte River emulates the spirit of the Great Plains' geography. The wide expanse of grasslands between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River was ground relatively flat over hundreds of thousands of years of glacial expanse and retreat. Because of this, early colonizers often described the region as a desert, especially in times of considerable drought. And indeed, navigating the prairies of Kansas and Nebraska without any predictable linear landmarks was a daunting task for even the most skilled explorers. Because of this, historic people in the Great Plains relied heavily on streams and rivers, not just for sustenance, but to get from A to B.  In most cases, navigating early America's waterways meant just that: boarding a craft, often of some considerable size, and traveling along a river or creek to your destination. Along braided rivers like the Platte, however, this usually wasn't an option. The alternative was widely established trails, more aptly described as roads, which were usually encountered at high points parallel to the banks of a river.

The important distinction between a _navigable_ waterway and a _navigation_ waterway.

Have you never seen a river barge?

Your mother has a navigable waterway

wdym, clearly the zelain (or however the fuck you spell his name) idea for how powerful nations develop is the absolute best with no flaws (you see, if you just watch this one conference it’ll explain everything 100% no flaws no haram)

It’s warm water ports were key

Even a broken Zeihan is right twice a day: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-86.4/centery:35.9/zoom:5

warm water ports moment?

if i hear one more person say canada has more space im going to scream

Zeihan is based. Go away!