[richlevy]

Originally Posted by classicman

He lost me when he thought that the three would work in concert with each other and that there would be no clear single leader in the world. Thats just counter to human nature. Even if it is not in the best interest of the globe, each individual will try to do what is best for their country.

I think the idea is that no one would be able to dominate the other two, and that while they would compete, noone would be dumb enough to destabilize the status quo to the point that everyone would suffer.

Of course, there have been cases in the past when the US and China have both backed dangerous leaders or insurgents that later came back to haunt them.

Still, think of it as a primary where the competing candidates will snipe at one another but only to a point since they realize that they do not want to jeopardize the eventual winner's position with the voter because any one of them might be the winner. In the case of 3 'first world' countries competing for second- and third- world countries, noone wants to have it get so ugly that they are all thrown out of the contest.

In this case the down and dirty US political system might be a good training ground for dealing with this type of situation if a president is smart enough to realize that the 'my way or the highway' approach will no longer work when these countries have a choice.