2. Geopolitics Different than history in that it looks backwards just for the purpose of looking forward, where history looks backward just to look backwards. Friedrich Ratzel argued that empires are like rubber bands, they need to stretch as people move and extend loyalty across the territory as far as they can without making the rubber band snap. He also felt that empires need to stretch to survive.
3. Expanding EU After communism many were looking for other better ways of living, they turned to the EU. After the collapse of the Soviet Union on average one country per year had become a part of the EU. On May 1, 2004 over a hundred million citizens in ten different countries officially became European. These countries were Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
4. Ukraine’s Struggle After the Soviet Collapse “We are no longer a Soviet republic, but we don’t automatically trust the other side either. Replacing one form of domination with another is not our idea of progress.” Was stated by a Russian-leaning media tycoon. Ukraine was left just as it was for centuries after the fall of the Soviet Union, split along the Dnieper River into one side that favored Europe and their ways, and the other side which favored Russia and their ways, and people rarely crossed sides. Severe inflation that still happens today is what hurts Ukraine the most.
5. Georgia is not European The leadership in Georgia is so convinced that it is Western that is does almost nothing to prove it. There country is full of abandoned villages, collapsed buildings, old battered trucks, homeless, and children bathing in drying riverbeds. Major of the country may be Christian but they are a far cry from being European in any meaningful sense. They are so determined that they even fly the EU flag but are compared to being a white Cuba.
6. The Ever Growing Europe They had received many warnings about expanding to far but they feel as though the costs of non-enlargement are far greater than the burdens of enlargement. They are following Newton’s law of inertia of when an object is in motion it remains in motion. With this thought it is believed that they need to avoid rest because that would only leave openings for external threats.
