December 25th 07, 08:51 PM
twentieth century. With the absorption of Europe by Russia and of the
British Empire by the United States, two of the three existing powers,
Eurasia and Oceania, were already effectively in being. The third,
Eastasia, only emerged as a distinct unit after another decade of confused
fighting. The frontiers between the three super-states are in some places
arbitrary, and in others they fluctuate according to the fortunes of war,
but in general they follow geographical lines. Eurasia comprises the whole
of the northern part of the European and Asiatic land-mass, from Portugal
to the Bering Strait. Oceania comprises the Americas, the Atlantic islands
including the British Isles, Australasia, and the southern portion of
Africa. Eastasia, smaller than the others and with a less definite western
frontier, comprises China and the countries to the south of it, the
Japanese islands and a large but fluctuating portion of Manchuria,
Mongolia, and Tibet.
In one combination or another, these three super-states are
permanently at war, and have been so for the past twenty-five years. War,
however, is no longer the desperate, annihilating struggle that it was in
the early decades of the twentieth century. It is a warfare of limited aims
between combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no material
cause for fighting and are not divided by any genuine ideological
difference This is not to say that
British Empire by the United States, two of the three existing powers,
Eurasia and Oceania, were already effectively in being. The third,
Eastasia, only emerged as a distinct unit after another decade of confused
fighting. The frontiers between the three super-states are in some places
arbitrary, and in others they fluctuate according to the fortunes of war,
but in general they follow geographical lines. Eurasia comprises the whole
of the northern part of the European and Asiatic land-mass, from Portugal
to the Bering Strait. Oceania comprises the Americas, the Atlantic islands
including the British Isles, Australasia, and the southern portion of
Africa. Eastasia, smaller than the others and with a less definite western
frontier, comprises China and the countries to the south of it, the
Japanese islands and a large but fluctuating portion of Manchuria,
Mongolia, and Tibet.
In one combination or another, these three super-states are
permanently at war, and have been so for the past twenty-five years. War,
however, is no longer the desperate, annihilating struggle that it was in
the early decades of the twentieth century. It is a warfare of limited aims
between combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no material
cause for fighting and are not divided by any genuine ideological
difference This is not to say that