superpowers: US
rising superpowers: EU
potential superpowers: China and India (have major hurdles to overcome or will collapse upon reaching this level)

5/15/2007 3:50:28 PM

Russia again in a few more decades.

5/15/2007 3:55:40 PM

South Korea and Japan are technological superpowers (the latter moreso than the first).

Also, Japan is working on rebuilding their military by rewriting their constitution.

http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/world-top-ten-military-spending-countries-map.html

They already are ranked #2 in military spending without a 'military.'

5/15/2007 4:08:00 PM

(powers that can unilaterally impose their will: )

USA
China
Russia

on a lesser level:

Australia
Japan
Britain
Germany and France working together
Brazil
India

[Edited on May 15, 2007 at 4:13 PM. Reason : .]

5/15/2007 4:13:41 PM

So when (if ever) will the US fall from "super power" status? When this happens, what will be the major consequences for us?

5/15/2007 4:19:46 PM

I doubt the US ever will fall from a superpower status in our lifetime, at least militarily. I do think economically we will be surpassed by several countries which will just have us seeing more standard of living stagnation, or slight declines and possible increases in inflation and unemployment.

5/15/2007 4:22:50 PM

I would say the largest state players during the next twenty to thirty years will be the United States, the European Union, and China.

Significant players by region:
Asia/Pacific - Australia, Japan, India, Pakistan, S. Korea, Iran, Egypt, Israel
Europe (Non-EU) - Turkey, Russia
Africa - Nigeria, S. Africa
S. America - Brazil, maybe Argentina

I think that N. Korea and Venezuela will likely implode. Something is going to happen to N. Korea, whether coup or invasion. Hugo Chavez may stay in power in the latter case, but I think his economy will implode, leaving nothing but yet another failed oil state in its wake.

I can't think of any other major players emerging from Africa.

I placed Russia as a regional and not international player because I don't see them projecting power, both military and economic, at the same level as the Americans, Chinese, and the EU in the near future. People still pay attention to Putin, but I feel that Russia needs time to build up.

5/15/2007 5:14:42 PM

Quote :

"Hugo Chavez may stay in power in the latter case, but I think his economy will implode, leaving nothing but yet another failed oil state in its wake."

with the trusted involvement of the CIA and American medaling.

5/15/2007 8:54:33 PM

U.S. will stay superpower as long as it keeps military bases all over the world. When it starts to pull/withdraw bases worldwide, whether its due to expense or just declining international support, then we be looked at with more than

5/15/2007 9:26:30 PM

^^ For someone who lives a lavish lifestyle (not of his own accord) here in the USA, you sure do a lot of USA bashing. Bitch.

5/15/2007 9:58:27 PM

Quote :

"I do think economically we will be surpassed by several countries which will just have us seeing more standard of living stagnation, or slight declines and possible increases in inflation and unemployment."

The latter does not follow from the former. Canada is only the 10th largest economy, surpassed mightely by 9 other nations, yet the average Canadian has a rising standard of living, low inflation, and low unemployment.

How would the United States becoming #2 on an arbitrary list make us worse off than Canadians which are #10 on that same list?

5/15/2007 10:28:03 PM

Quote :

"^^ For someone who lives a lavish lifestyle (not of his own accord) here in the USA, you sure do a lot of USA bashing. Bitch."

el oh el. post stalk much? you are right, it was against my will to provide myself with a decent life style.

but hey, continue to hate the world for your own failures.

[Edited on May 15, 2007 at 11:33 PM. Reason : fda]

5/15/2007 11:32:47 PM

Quote :

"with the trusted involvement of the CIA and American medaling."

With what he's been doing lately, we wouldn't even need to get involved. If we just left him alone, people will start to realize that what he's destroying his own country, and he'll have problems of his own.

5/16/2007 12:18:23 AM

well either way, its not the first time the US or the CIA tipped the balance of power in their favor. Its widely known through out latin american history.

5/16/2007 1:33:33 AM

I'm shocked TWW hasn't made the list.

5/16/2007 1:54:21 AM

china has a piss poor ability to project power militarily their blue water navy is pitiful and their airforce is just as pathetic, their biggest thing they have going is a 100 mil man army... but relatively little in terms of practical battlefield technology, economically they are pretty decent so far, but I think it will be very interesting to see what happens farther down the road for them.... what with internal strife and powergrabs....

russia has a chance and could be, but has more serious internal issues than India and China...

India, theoretically has a good chance, but they have major social issues even more severe than China's

I can't label something as a superpower when millions of it's citizens are starving or are otherwise subjugated...

actually the US has been termed a 'Hyper-power' usually by detractors...


The EU is just about a superpower, they have the greatest overall unity short of the US, and some pretty technologically significant military forces.

5/18/2007 3:46:19 PM

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/21/world/asia/21india.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

case in point about india...

Quote :

"Electricity Crisis Hobbles an India Eager to Ascend J. Adam Huggins for The New York Times One of Gurgaon's malls burns 1,600 gallons of diesel a day. By SOMINI SENGUPTA Published: May 21, 2007 GURGAON, India — This suburb south of New Delhi is where the fruits of India’s economic advance are on full display: sprawling malls, skyscrapers housing India’s acclaimed software companies, condominiums with names as fanciful as Nirvana Country. Skip to next paragraph The New York Times But this fashionable address of the new India is also a portrait of ambition bumping up against reality, namely an electricity crisis that represents one of the major hurdles to India’s ability to hoist itself into the front ranks of the global economy. Look up at the tops of buildings, and on any given day, you are likely to find three, four or six smokestacks poking out of each, blowing gray-black plumes into the clouds. If the smokestacks are being used, it means the power is off and the building — whether bright new mall, condominium or office — is probably being powered by diesel-fed generators. This being India, a country of more than one billion people, the scale is staggering. In just one case, Tata Consultancy Services, a technology company, maintains five giant generators, along with a nearly 5,300-gallon tank of diesel fuel underground, as if it were a gasoline station. The reserve fuel can power the lights, computers and air-conditioners for up to 15 days to keep Tata’s six-story building humming during these hot, dry summer months, when temperatures routinely soar above 100 degrees and power cuts can average eight hours a day. The Gurgaon skyline is studded with hundreds of buildings like this. In Gurgaon alone, the state power authority estimates that the gap between demand and supply hovers around 20 percent, and that is probably a conservative estimate. For all those who suffer from crippling power cuts in cities like this, there are others who have no connection to electricity at all. According to the Planning Commission of India, 600 million people — roughly half the population — are off the electric grid. For this reason, it is impossible to estimate accurately the total national shortfall. But no matter how it is calculated, there is no doubt that India’s electricity crisis is becoming all the more acute for the roaring pace of the country’s economic growth and the new material aspirations it has generated. Rachna Tandon, a prosperous housewife, is a good example. She moved here to a quiet street of row houses 14 years ago, settling in what was one of the first residential sites built by DLF Universal, Gurgaon’s and India’s largest builder. Back then, electricity was in short supply, but she was fully confident things would improve. The advertisements at the time described Gurgaon as the best address south of Delhi. It was pitched as a millennium city. Today Ms. Tandon says she prefers to think of it as a medieval city. The day before, the power went out for roughly 11 hours. Her power inverter, which is basically a series of rechargeable batteries — a household necessity here — failed after four hours. For respite, some of her neighbors drove around in their air-conditioned cars. Her own children lingered outside and finally, when they nodded off to sleep, they lay on the living room floor, the coolest spot in the house. Each appliance in her well-stocked home — an air-conditioner in each room, a flat-screen television, a microwave and an electric stove — speaks to the gap between India’s dreams and its realities. The power cuts thawed the chicken sausage in her freezer and she had to throw it away, just in case it had spoiled. She did not dare use her electric oven, for fear that the power would go out in the middle of baking. With no television, her 10-year-old son has been so bored that he took out his old cricket bat and ended up putting a ball through the kitchen window. Her daughter, 13, has had to study by flashlight. This summer, Ms. Tandon said, the family will have to choose between buying a generator and going on vacation. “We’re living in the Dark Ages,” she said. For all her middle-class suffering, a reminder of the other India came earlier in the week, when her mother called from her hometown in rural north India and said she had had electricity for just one hour during the day."

Quote :

"Electricity Crisis Hobbles an India Eager to Ascend (Page 2 of 2) In part because of these limitations, Indians are, for now, relatively conservative consumers of energy: about 600 units per capita per year, or one-fifth that of a typical American. But that will certainly increase as Indian desires reach those of the wealthy Western countries. A recent report by McKinsey Global Institute frothily predicted a fourfold increase in consumer spending by 2025, vaulting India, as it said, “into the premier league among the world’s consumer markets.” McKinsey forecast that India would surpass Germany as the fifth-largest market in the world. Driven by the increasing need for power, India has stepped up generation in recent years at the pace of about 6 percent a year. It is a pittance compared with what neighboring China adds on each year and in any case insufficient to keep up with India’s galloping demand. The government has promised electric connections for all — which means access to the grid, not round-the-clock power — by 2009. That is a target that does not seem plausible at current rates of power generation. The development of power plants, meanwhile, is constrained by a lack of access to land, fuel and water, all of which a power plant needs in large quantities. The power grid remains weak. In Gurgaon, for instance, transformers routinely blow out because of heavy loads. Voltage fluctuations damage electrical appliances of all sorts. What the state cannot provide efficiently, many take for themselves. The World Bank estimates that at least $4 billion in electricity is unaccounted for each year — that is to say, stolen. Transparency International estimated in 2005 that Indians paid $480 million in bribes to put in new connections or correct bills. The country’s energy needs are one of the government’s main arguments for a nuclear deal with the United States, which would allow India to buy reactors and fuel from the world market. But even if the deal goes through, it would lift nuclear power, which provides 3 percent of India’s energy, to no more than 9 percent, said Leena Srivastava, executive director of the Energy and Resources Institute, a private research group. Similarly, in the coming years, alternative sources of energy, like wind, are expected to double, but to no more than about 8 percent of supply. Coal will continue to dominate power generation, and already more than a third of India’s coal plants do not meet national emissions standards. For Indian business, coping with chronic power shortages is a part of the cost of business. At Tata, company managers took pains to say that power shortages did not hinder their ability to meet deadlines for their clients. “The work as such does not suffer,” said Gurinder Virk, an assistant general manager. “We have sufficient stocks of diesel at all times.” Behind the building, three generators purred as a sweltering evening descended. A 2004 World Bank survey found that 60 percent of companies in India have such facilities. Still, construction here surges ahead. With few exceptions, there is little effort to reduce power consumption, beyond the use of low-energy light bulbs. Gurgaon is dotted with buildings that are effectively curtains of glass, soaking up the searing summer heat. “It’s good for New York, not Gurgaon,” was the verdict of Niranjan Khatri, a general manager with ITC, an Indian conglomerate whose office tower here is one of the few to comply with so-called green building codes. Across the highway, the nearly completed Ambi Mall promises almost a mile of shopping on each floor. Next to it, a billboard for the Mall of India promises an even bigger shopping center, one that will put India on the “global retail map.” Never mind that Gurgaon does not have a sewage treatment plant of its own, or that the city’s Metropolitan Mall burns an average of 1,600 gallons of diesel a day to run its generators during power cuts. Farther south, in Nirvana Country, there are only generators. The 800-unit complex of row houses and apartment blocks, still under construction, is not even connected to the electric grid. It swallows 6,000 gallons of diesel each week to meet its needs — with only a fifth of its units occupied. It was unclear how the power needs would be met once it reached full occupancy, said M. K. Pant, a retired army colonel who is now Nirvana’s estate manager. “There’s nothing in the files,” he said. “There’s nothing in the thinking also.” No matter. Newspaper advertisements for Nirvana Country promise “air-conditioning in all rooms.”"

5/21/2007 3:15:46 PM

Quote :

"The EU is just about a superpower, they have the greatest overall unity short of the US, and some pretty technologically significant military forces."

I'm not sure that I agree that the EU is overall unified. On paper, sure, but it falls dismally short at the lower levels. There are obviously national allegiances in play and there is a distinct rift among many of the 'old europe' states and the new accession states. Heck, having spent some time in Brussels recently with the EU, there are huge rifts between the parliament, commission, and council of ministers that make it nothing short of amazing that they can actually acomplish anything.

And while you are correct, there are technologically significant military forces among the EU member states, there is nothing resembling a standing army for the EU. While there is the common foreign and sercurity policy in place, it is ultimately up to each member state to decide how their military forces are used. Which is why you see many operating independently of the EU in theater's around the world. I know that there are some that are advocating for a more militarily influencial role for the EU, that likely will take some serious work to see to fruition. NATO is even working with the EU currently to merge the interests of the two while not creating duplicate alliances.

5/21/2007 3:36:11 PM

very true, i meant that compared to China (rising middle class none too happy about being under commie rule) and India (caste system and still hugely rife religious issues.) the EU is pretty unified...

Brazil / Argentina are really jockeying for primacy over South America... Brazil could do really well in this regard partly by saving it's rain forests more and then making a killing off of the tourist trade as a result....

Japan has done well and I'm sure will be around to exploit China when the inevitable collapse of the Chinese system occurs... as is S. Korea

Africa? sub-Saharan it's godawful, with S. Africa being the only relatively stable local power... Niger and Nigeria have ambitions but that entire stretch of Africa has some major major issues... North Africa I would have to go with Egypt and Ethiopia being the current dominant forces...

5/22/2007 10:53:14 AM

China is much more unified than the EU. Make no mistake, when it comes time to fight or get something done, the Chinese band together.

The EU can't even ratify a constitution. Every large-scale project they bite off sinks from excessive bureaucracy and too many hands in the pot. Just look at their space program.

It's like the Articles of Confederation over there.

5/22/2007 11:28:09 AM

Quote :

"very true, i meant that compared to China (rising middle class none too happy about being under commie rule) and India (caste system and still hugely rife religious issues.) the EU is pretty unified..."

Ah, I gotcha. I can certainly buy that. If nothing else, Europe is unified in the sense of advancing the economic interests and gains of all the member states.

Quote :

"The EU can't even ratify a constitution"

This is true, but it was in large part due to the french rejecting it in referendum. It has since been acknowledged that their vote had less to do with their rejection of the constitution and more to do with them expressing their disappointment of their own government. I'd go so far as to say that with the Sarkozy government in place, there will be a new wave of interest in a constitution and it will stand a much better chance of passing. However, the EU has some serious issues to tackle in the form of a democratic defecit and bureacratic efficiency with many decisions being made by unanimity among the 27 member states.

5/22/2007 11:40:56 AM

i have to give to you guys on those points...

5/22/2007 3:10:16 PM

You forgot Poland!1

5/22/2007 4:07:43 PM

Superpowers:
United States
China
Russia

Countries that will impose their will regardless:
Great Britain
Israel
Japan

Countries with potential:
Germany
South Korea
India

5/22/2007 6:08:29 PM