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A comment on The U.S. drops out of the top 10 in innovation ranking. Parent comment

Re:The U.S. drops out of the top 10 in innovation ranking by AnimalMuppet on Tuesday January 23, 2018 @05:09PM (#16218255)
True, the EU is a confederation. Also true: it's not a country.

What's a country? Well, it has a single currency. The EU does... almost.

A country has a border that it controls. The EU does... more or less.

A country has a military. The EU absolutely does not.

And a country thinks of itself as a country. The EU does not. I suspect that this last reason is why the media doesn't report on the EU as if it were a single country.

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Re:The U.S. drops out of the top 10 in innovation ranking by virmundi on Wednesday January 24, 2018 @08:57AM (#16222639)
The US didn't think of itself as a country until after the civil war. Even once the Federal government took power, individuals aligned more with their state than their State.

As to the EU having a military? They're getting there with the US finally starting to get tired of defending the region with little respect. https://www.wikitribune.com/story/2017/11/15/european_union/...

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