Man, this is getting ridiculous! I was going to post last week my opinion that Russ was being overly negative, but it is a fact that almost everyone with a rocket program (and certainly those who are manned-lunar capable) developed them with military showing-off in mind. So I concede some apprehension might be reasonable.

OTOH, declaring "independance" on the moon is just plain silly - what are you going to do? "Hey! We're declaring ourselves a new country! Nya!..... say, wouldja mind sending up some burgers? Algae's getting boring. And some oranges if you've got them. Some aspirin wouldn't hurt either..."
Not gonna happen.