Demand will top world production in 2017. That is the only projection worth a damn right now.

That is true, it is also down internationally.

Can you read your own posts, dipshit. The conversation was not about the relative strength between NATO and Russia it was NATO 8 years ago and NATO today. Of course the NATO countries are collectively economically stronger, that's been true for centuries. It's only important if and how that strength is used.

NATO is weaker today than 8 years ago. Period. And Russia's behavior is an acknowledgement of that weakness.

I love it when dipshits get taken to task

"Top officials at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) privately planned how to undermine Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign, according to a trove of emails released by WikiLeaks on Friday.

The Sanders campaign had long claimed the DNC and Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz had tipped the scales in favor of Hillary Clinton during the party's presidential primary.

Guccifer 2.0 told The Hill he leaked the documents to Wikileaks.

In one May 21 email, DNC press secretary Mark Paustenbach writes to communications director Luis Miranda about planting a narrative to the media that Sanders's "campaign was a mess."

"Specifically, [Wasserman Schultz] had to call Bernie directly in order to get the campaign to do things because they'd either ignored or forgotten to something critical," he wrote......

In another email from early May, DNC CFO Brad Marshall appears to write about a plan to question Sanders's religion.

The email does not name the Vermont senator, but it talks about a man of "Jewish heritage" Marshall believes to be an atheist. It makes reference to voters in Kentucky and West Virginia, two states that were weeks away from a Democratic primary at the time.

"It might may no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist," the email says.....


Wasserman Schultz sent an email to NBC anchor Chuck Todd held the subject line "Chuck, this must stop," and set up a time for the two to talk about MSNBC's "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski calling on Wasserman Schultz to step down."


So The Bern was right, the DNC is dirty as hell, Hillary knows this all BTW, and Wasserman Putz was actually attempting to manipulate the media. Shocked, I tell ya.

The Hilldesleaze just keeps on coming

I guess I will have to spell it out for you with really small words. Yes NATO has downsized since the end of the Cold War. But not nearly as much as Russia has downsized. Smaller is NOT weaker when the opponent is also smaller. NATO is considerably more high-tech these days, too. Much more than Russia. Net result = NATO is still stronger than Russia and is not threatened by Russia.

Russian has not taken advantage of NATO's imaginary "weakness". It took advantage of Ukraine's very real weakness. NATO has no worries about a Russian invasion. But the other former Soviet Republics that did not join NATO probably should. Putin wants the Soviet Union back, but he isn't taking it away from NATO, is he? He's bullying weaklings on Russia's traditional old turf.

You don't have a clue what you are talking about, do you?

Not surprising you are never informed with your own original study..

https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1200/RR1253/RAND_RR1253.pdf

"In a series of wargames conducted between summer 2014 and spring 2015, the RAND Corporation examined the shape and probable outcome of a near-term Russian invasion of the Baltic states. The games’ findings are unambiguous: As currently postured, NATO cannot successfully defend the territory of its most exposed members. Across multiple games using a wide range of expert participants in and out of uniform playing both sides, the longest it has taken Russian forces to reach the outskirts of the Estonian and/or Latvian capitals of Tallinn and Riga, respectively, is 60 hours. Such a rapid defeat would leave NATO with a limited number of options, all bad: a bloody counteroffensive, fraught with escalatory risk, to liberate the Baltics; to escalate itself, as it threatened to do to avert defeat during the Cold War; or to concede at least temporary defeat, with uncertain but predictably disastrous consequences for the Alliance and, not incidentally, the people of the Baltics."

Actually, I know so much about what I am talking about its German to you.