Construction Equipment Declaration Advance: Fill & Download for Free

If I answer the question as literally as possible, I think the biggest winners would be:The United StatesCanadaAustraliaNew ZealandBrazilArgentinaAfrica, and everywhere else not in Europe or AsiaA war- even a conventional war- between all of Europe and all of Asia would devastate the economies of both continents. The infrastructure lost- hell, even just the trade interrupted, would cost China, India, and the EU most of the wealth they’ve gained since World War II.In the modern world of trade, that loss would be a huge business opportunity for those economies not directly involved in the war. This is especially true for the United States and many other non-European nations whose economies are already considered “developed.” They would get the first big boost, as they provide resources to the devastated fighters on both sides. America and the other nations could refuse to sell any weapons- and even enforce the ban- and still come out way ahead in selling food, construction equipment, and even raw materials like steel and lumber that have been disrupted by the war.Poorer non-European, non-Asian countries could also benefit heavily from the disruption. Cottage industries throughout Africa, South America, and the Pacific Islands could develop much better without fierce competition from India and East Asia. As Russian, Central and West Asian oil will mostly go to conducting the war, then Venezuelan, Mexican, Nigerian, Canadian oil (to name just a few) will go up in value- supplying the rest of the world with virtually no competition from Europe and Asia. Hell, if Europe destroys infrastructure in the oil fields in West Asia and Central Asia, then Europe and Asia will likely need to buy a lot of that oil from elsewhere, too.As to the winners between Europe and Asia- who knows? Who cares? Honestly, the winner of that fight will be only slightly less devastated than the loser. And I do not see any conceivable way that virtually all of Europe and all of Asia can go to war with each other, and not drag most of the rest of the world into the war as well. But if it somehow did not happen, I think you can count on the Western Hemisphere, Africa, and the Pacific Islands to take advantage of the situation and advance their own industries by leaps and bounds.

You want an engineer’s opinion on “The Wall”? Okay then.1 - the environmental study will take 3 to 5 years to complete, but only if the project is divided into manageable chunks of 1/2 mile to 2 miles in length. That give us about 1,000 different design sections. And if you think that this phase can be skipped, the lawsuits over that decision will take 10 to 20 years to resolve and the court would probably order the environmental study done anyway.2 - once you have the environmental clearance, the actual design can begin. Don’t think you need to design something as basic as a wall? The first step is to perform soils testing to see what kind of foundation is needed; skip that and your wall has a good chance of falling down or falling over. While, technically, you could probably design a 1/2 mile section of wall in 3 or 4 working days, you also need to account for the approval process and review times. Chances are that the design stage will take a minimum of 18 months.3 - acquiring the land/ right-of-way will take from 4 to 6 months, *provided* that the landowner is willing and you don't have to go to court. That gives you time to get an estimate, get the estimate reviewed and approved, contact the land-owner, make the offer, accept a counter-offer (if they make one) and get the documents signed and sealed. If the land-owner does NOT want to sell, expect a protracted court fight of 3 to 7 years (longer if the land-owner has lots of money). If you can't get the land, go back to step 1 and start over.4 - add on another 4 to 6 months to advertise for bids, accept the bids, make certain that the bidding contractor has done all the proper paperwork and insurance (and isn’t just going to run off with the first payment or produce shoddy work) and generally get the project out the door.5 - building the stupid thing probably takes the least amount of time, but you will still need to allot 2 months for the contractor to mobilize and order the raw materials, plus another 2 to 6 months for construction.Now multiply that by 1,000 different sections of wall.As a civil engineer for the State of Pennsylvania, I oversaw the design of about 100 bridges, so I'm fairly familiar with the system. Oh, and of those 100 bridge projects, exactly *1* of them came in on time. As a general rule, something will go wrong in the design process; if we knew what it was in advance we would budget time for it, but there is no way of knowing in advance what it will be. So this is actually what I would call an *optimistic* appraisal of the possible time-line and I would bet it takes at least twice as long as I have suggested.Hope this helps.Edit: Many folks are commenting on remote sections of the wall that do not have the infrastructure needed to get supplies and equipment to the construction site. You are correct, I did not address that in this answer.Building the roads to get to the remote portions of “The Wall” would require a series of entirely separate projects to build those roads, which would need to go through the 5 steps above. That means each new access road would need an environmental clearance, design, right-of-way/ land acquisition, and so on.But one additional step would also be needed before the road could be built - utility coordination. It is probable that where the access road tied into an existing roadway, there would be utilities that needed to be moved. If utilities needed to be brought to the construction site that would also require coordination with the various utility companies. (It is possible that the contractor could bring their own generators, truck in water and truck-out waste on a daily basis, though.)Working with the utility companies would add another 6 months to 2 years to the project, depending on how many utilities were affected and whether or not electricity, water and sewer were extended to the actual building site.As for housing workers, I imagine that most contractors would rent camping trailers or mobile homes to house the workers on-site in remote areas. Because most contactors already bring in a mobile home (or two, or more) to the site to use as a construction office, I don’t see that this would be a problem - unless the government builds 100 sections of wall simultaneously, in which case the trailers might be in short supply, resulting in higher costs.Edit, the Second: fixed the typo in step 4.Edit, the Third: (2/76/2019) A lot of comments suggest that the President can waive these standards, or that they won’t apply for this reason or that, or that “eminent domain” somehow speeds thing along. The answer is No.No, the President can’t waive the requirements for an environmental document. This document is required by law, and those laws were written and approved by Congress and signed by previous Presidents. If the government won’t follow its own laws, why should anyone else? Declaring a national emergency doesn’t change those laws, nor does anything else.No, eminent domain doesn’t speed up the process of acquiring the land. Eminent domain allows the government to take land FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PUBLIC. The land-owner can dispute the value the government places on the land taken; they can dispute the amount of land being taken; they can dispute the need for their land to be taken to build the project; they can dispute the need for the project (either in its entirety or just that section); or they can demand mitigation measure be taken. Depending on their claim, the Court might stop just that section from advancing or it might stop the entire program from advancing. And, in some cases, the Court will order the government to pay the land-owners costs for the suit. I accounted for the requirements of eminent domain in Stage 3, above.But thanks for the comments anyway.Edit, the Fourth: About Eminent Domain: the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states that the goverment must give just compensation for anything taken by the government. So, no, Eminent Domain does not mean that the government can take the land for “free”, or can take the land by putting some money into a bank account while the land-owner and the government haggle over the value. That would compromise the land-owner’s right to sue to stop the project or to sue to force the government to build somewhere else.

If the Soviets kept pushing West after the fall of Germany, they would have been met with complete and total annihilation.The Soviets had been fighting a war of attrition with Germany for the entire war. Their main (and only true) advantage was overwhelming numerical superiority. With tremendous aid from lend-lease, the USSR was able to construct a massive amount of tanks, munitions and weaponry. Their successes were made possible by engaging the Wehrmacht with massive quantities of troops, their numerical superiority being due in large part to the Western Front occupying a large portion of Germany’s forces. But when faced with the West, they would have seen this:By 1945 and the end of the war in Europe, the Soviet Union had around 6,750,000 operational forces (not including reserves, which totalled around 431,000) in Europe. The Western powers by comparison had approximately 6,411,000 men in Western Europe and Italy. This placed an advantage in manpower to the Soviet Union. This means that on an attrition basis alone, the Soviet Union was in a better position. However, what the USA and Britain lacked in manpower, they made up for it in total airpower, tanks and motor vehicles. During WWII, most vehicles used by the USSR were provided by the USA or Britain. By Spring 1945 the USSR had 387,321 total available vehicles, 12,657 tanks and assault guns, 121,182 artillery and 19,447 combat aircraft (all including reserves). the USA and GB by comparison had 970,000+ vehicles, 28,000+ combat aircraft, 70,200 artillery and approximately 22,200 tanks and assault guns. In July, these proportions stayed relatively similar, with the USSR still possessing far more men and artillery than the West, but with them being in-turn vastly outnumbered in terms of tanks, aircraft and transport vehicles.Had the USSR attempted to launch an offensive into Western Europe, they would have likely seen initial success due to greater manpower and shock factor, pushing back unprepared Western forces with combined infantry and artillery offensives. However, the USSR was not prepared for the same kind of aerial warfare as the Western powers. The Luftwaffe in the Eastern Front used mostly Ju-87 Stukas and BF-109s, but not heavy bombers with long range fighter escorts. The RAF and USAF were responsible for bombing Germany’s industrial capacity into the ground, and in this scenario the Soviets would have found themselves ill equipped to deal with such immensity of strategic air power. Lancasters, B-17s and B29s would deal out destruction from the skies. Besides this, the West have a far stronger logistical capacity and qualitative forces. There would be very little the Soviets could do to counter allied bombers with the B-29 flying far higher than any Soviet fighter’s effective altitude. Most Russian fighters were effective at low altitudes (Yak-3).The Soviet advance would soon be halted, as they would not have the sufficient logistics due to a lack of lend lease, which was instrumental in the Soviet Union being capable of fighting on its own soil in WWII. This would also be the case because their industry would be crippled by joint RAF/USAF air raids. It likely wouldn’t even come to large scale ground battles as Stalin would be forced to sue for peace after the superior allied air forces would annihilate Soviet industry.Another major strength for the West would be in the form of their nuclear capability. If we are to include nuclear weapons in this scenario, every major Russian city is reduced to ashes in days, and the population crippled. The B-29 had a range of 9000km and could easily reach Moscow from Germany, France or even Britain. The minute the USSR declared war on the West would set in motion their destruction.There is no way in which this could end in victory for the Soviet Union. They were used to fighting a numerically inferior enemy, and when the enemy has better equipment and more of it, they will be unable to achieve success.