Who is the next superpower?

Who do you think would be the next superpower to replace or challenge the United States?


* Assuming it someday becomes integrated more like an actual country.

Wow! I'm in first. That rarely happens. Now I feel like I have to explain China as my answer. It was just a guess.

New Zealand

I not sure any state is interested in taking over America's role as the global power. Its a costly business and as long as America is keeping the seas clear, the oil flowing, and battling Jihadists, drug smugglers and all sorts of bad guys from everybody why should someone else want to step up?

US will stay the superpower this century.

i don't think europe will be able to put aside all its problems and unite in a fashion that will allow it to become a superpower, china and india, while both have a rising economy and large population, they need to sort out alot of internal problems before they can become viable superpowers, americas days as top dog are numbered, but they'll stay there for the next couple of centuries at least.

China or India. Europe and the EU are a joke, when they start learning how to defend themselves without us then maybe we start talking about superpower status.

spud_meister said:

New Zealand

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:lamo..................

My biggest worry is that China tries to form some sort of East Asian bloc. China is already a borderline superpower, but that would turn them into a megapower. South Korea would be the Randy Savage to China's Hulk Hogan.

China has insane amounts of resources, a huge population of cheap labor just waiting to be exploited, and - worse of all - major influence in American economy. If they ever turned a political revolution and embodied free-market practices, look out.

chevydriver1123 said:

China or India. Europe and the EU are a joke, when they start learning how to defend themselves without us then maybe we start talking about superpower status.

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China & India both have horrible poverty.
The EU is capable of defending itself, they just don't want to put up the effort anymore after having fought with eachother for so long, once the old generation goes out by 2050. We will see how the EU is doing.

New America in the year 2100 after 25-50 years of Mad Max style shenanigans.

Depends what you mean by a Superpower. If you mean one that operates without check across the World both militarily and politically, then there are only a couple of possible contenders for the US's current crown. I'd suggest China and Russia both have the military and economic capacity to ignore international opinion in relation to their external activities. By that criterion, both are already Superpowers.

It makes me smile when commentators refer to the US as the World's only superpower. Were the US to attempt to interfere in what Russia or China view as their "spheres of influence" the response would be severe. China chooses to limit its response to the US supplying arms to Taiwan to diplomatic objections because it sees Taiwan as no threat and its business interests with the US more important than its claim to sovereignty.

The US pulled back from stronger support for Georgia during the South Ossetia debacle because of its nervousness about Russia's possible response.

No country acts without considering the wider ramifications of its action, especially the largest powers.

The threat to the US's current primacy lies mostly in its own ambitions to be the global policeman. The more it seeks to export its own brand of democracy the bigger the eventual bill it will have to pay. The more unilateral the action the bigger proportion of the cost of that action the US will have to pay. Those bills have to be paid by the American economy and that in turn will have repercussions for domestic prosperity. The attitude of the US electorate will be key to limiting or extending US interventions abroad.

With limited resources a democratic nation can decide between domestic prosperity or international influence. The political limits within which a government can operate are necessaily limited by these two competing imperatives.

Well, to be fair, the U.S. wasn't really the world's only superpower. Instead we were the world's only hyperpower, too powerful for any one single nation to oppose. This state of the U.S. being a hyperpower started after the collapse of the Soviet Union and has been declining since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The four wars we're currently fighting has taken away much of our resources, and free trade has allowed other countries to rapidly raise themselves up.

As for who the next superpowers to rival the U.S. are, I'd say that Russia and China qualify. Russia is trying to exert it's influence once again on the world stage, but I think China is more of a contender since they are closer trading partners with the U.S. However, I don't think any real conflict will happen between those three nations, except for a conflict with each other and Canada over the resources underneath the Arctic. I don't think the E.U. will emerge as a superpower any time soon, not until they start to centralize their administration and military, if they ever do at all.

I don't think any African nations will ever become a world power, and that's unfortunate. The ethnic and religious violence are really inhibiting their progress, and so none will rival any American, European, or Asian country. Likewise, I don't think any Central American or South American nation will become a world power either, mostly because I don't really think any of those countries want to become a world power. Most of them are too busy dealing with internal drug violence to become a stable world power. Maybe if more of those nations legalized drugs and developed a strong labor movement that could compromise with businessmen there would be something, but I don't think that will happen any time soon.

samsmart said:

Well, to be fair, the U.S. wasn't really the world's only superpower. Instead we were the world's only hyperpower, too powerful for any one single nation to oppose. This state of the U.S. being a hyperpower started after the collapse of the Soviet Union and has been declining since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The four wars we're currently fighting has taken away much of our resources, and free trade has allowed other countries to rapidly raise themselves up.

As for who the next superpowers to rival the U.S. are, I'd say that Russia and China qualify. Russia is trying to exert it's influence once again on the world stage, but I think China is more of a contender since they are closer trading partners with the U.S. However, I don't think any real conflict will happen between those three nations, except for a conflict with each other and Canada over the resources underneath the Arctic. I don't think the E.U. will emerge as a superpower any time soon, not until they start to centralize their administration and military, if they ever do at all.

I don't think any African nations will ever become a world power, and that's unfortunate. The ethnic and religious violence are really inhibiting their progress, and so none will rival any American, European, or Asian country. Likewise, I don't think any Central American or South American nation will become a world power either, mostly because I don't really think any of those countries want to become a world power. Most of them are too busy dealing with internal drug violence to become a stable world power. Maybe if more of those nations legalized drugs and developed a strong labor movement that could compromise with businessmen there would be something, but I don't think that will happen any time soon.

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I think you are right about Europe not becoming a superpower, not militarily anyway. Too many of us have too much collective fear of developing over-powerful militaries to be prepared to go down the whole rearming road again.

This is just a theory of mine, but I think that one of the reasons for the ambivalent attitude of many Europeans, particularly in western continental Europe, towards the US is because they see and fear a tooled-up and aggressive superpower, even one that helped save them from a previous and infinitely more malevolent one. The more militaristic the US becomes (and its forces have expanded hugely since 9/11) the more fearful we become because, unlike the US public, we don't share that confidence in the US's benevolent intentions.

This fear is manifested in suspicion of US intentions and power but it doesn't translate into any strong impetus to develop a Europe-wide military capability. It has been suggested and is on the agenda (I think) but no one either takes it seriously or shows any enthusiasm.

Personally, I'm cool with that. I don't think super-powers make for very happy peoples. Ask the X-Men.

Hopefully, there is no next superpower. Hopefully, the United States retains the crown indefinitely. Space is the final frontier, and whoever wins the race to space will probably win the race forevermore.

In civilization's history European dominance is much more of a "15 sec of fame" than a trend. It is normally between Mesopotamian civilizations and China.

Since Mesopotamia is currently FUBAR, then China will be the next superpower.

samsmart said:

This state of the U.S. being a hyperpower started after the collapse of the Soviet Union and has been declining since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The four wars we're currently fighting has taken away much of our resources, and free trade has allowed other countries to rapidly raise themselves up.

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Why do you say "[we] has been declining since the wars in Iraq and AFG"? The four wars we are in? What four? Do you really think we have lost unreplacable resources? How has free trade allowed other countries to rise up to the point that they are a contender? Nobody comes close. Russia is growing older and can't handle the changing demographics. China is internally focussed as always and doesn't control any sea lanes. We are it, baby!

Andalublue said:

I think you are right about Europe not becoming a superpower, not militarily anyway. Too many of us have too much collective fear of developing over-powerful militaries to be prepared to go down the whole rearming road again.

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Europe doesn't have a need for it anyway. This was shown in your own country when they strayed from the path set about by Aznar and (mistakingly, in my eyes) started following the Zap-man. It almost seems as if any time a European country starts a bit of an ascencion to the top, they topple it over with a misinformed decision. England probably thought they were invincible during reigning Thatcherism, even though her conservative view on labor laws were abruptly derailed by general populace belief in unions and how they're some sort of save-all to the downtrodden.

The whole continent has a "don't rock the boat" mentality, even if rocking benefits them. They seem to follow the Japanese philosophy of "the tallest nail gets hammered first". If any government in Europe shed that idea and actually started to free-market their way to greatness, you'd see a military starting to form, and rightfully so.

I am with Andalublue on this one. China already is a super power and is on the rise. The US influence in Asia is on the wane. There was a recent article somewhere but I do not remember where it was about some of the economic actions that China has taken recently against other countries including the EU that would not do what China wanted.

It was tied into the recent arms sales to Taiwan by the US. In Asia these days before anybody does anything they look to see what China thinks about it first.

Moe

China already has proxy control of its neighbouring nations, except for Japan. If U.S. influence were to decline in military influence, China would seize most of its region of Asia, and, given the chance, would try obliterate Japan because of its past misdeeds. The hatred for Japan is unending within China.

China is taking the fast track to modernization though, and there are many potential pitfalls. While it has a lot of economic power right now, most of that power comes from being interdependent with the U.S. If the U.S. ever stopped buying, China would be in big trouble... so a decline of the U.S. would result in mutual decline. The Communists would then be tossed out (since modernization is the only reason why they are tolerated), and China would likely plunge into revolution before being able to regroup as a potent power.

Russia could be a potential contendor, but as a global hegemon I doubt it. The U.S. isn't even a global hegemon. As the most powerful nation, Russia would still have to form alliances and contend with Europe (which, despite the propaganda, could still put up a fight if necessary) and China if an alliance isn't formed. Given Russia's history with the CCP, I doubt that would happen too quickly.

Classic power scenarios don't fully apply to the modern era because of nuclear weapons, so it could go any which way.

Gipper said:

Europe doesn't have a need for it anyway. This was shown in your own country when they strayed from the path set about by Aznar and (mistakingly, in my eyes) started following the Zap-man. It almost seems as if any time a European country starts a bit of an ascencion to the top, they topple it over with a misinformed decision. England probably thought they were invincible during reigning Thatcherism, even though her conservative view on labor laws were abruptly derailed by general populace belief in unions and how they're some sort of save-all to the downtrodden.

The whole continent has a "don't rock the boat" mentality, even if rocking benefits them. They seem to follow the Japanese philosophy of "the tallest nail gets hammered first". If any government in Europe shed that idea and actually started to free-market their way to greatness, you'd see a military starting to form, and rightfully so.

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Not sure where to start really. I'll start at the end. "If any government in Europe shed that idea and actually started to free-market their way to greatness, you'd see a military starting to form, and rightfully so."

What is "rightfully so" about forming a military? Every European nation has one. What do you mean by this? Do you mean becoming militarily aggressive? Asserting the nation's 'success' through show of arms? If so, that's nonsense.

The only thing in your post I can agree with is, "Europe doesn't have a need for it anyway." That's right. How does being a "superpower" benefit anyone? To what extent is it benefitting the US being involved in so many global interventions?

I see the neo-con ideological point of "exporting democracy" as just that, an ideological mission to extend to other nations (however selected) the idea of a pluralist, representative democracy that they would have no possibility of achieving if left to their own devices. The intention is not all bad, although naïve. What I think you are missing entirely is that many (or most) European nations do not have that ideological drive to convert. It might be insular or isolationist not to have that, but history has knocked that out of them.

I don't subscribe to your "tall poppy" theory. It doesn't apply to Spain's withdrawal from Iraq, or indeed any other political development I'm aware of. Spain's rejection of Aznar and the PP was a result of the clear and proven deception that they attempted in the aftermath of 11M to pin the terrorist attacks on ETA. They lied to the Spanish people and were caught out in that lie. They also lied about the reasons for entering into the Iraq war in the same way Bush and Blair lied to their people too. The Spanish people, God bless them, rejected the ETA lies and the WMD lies and kicked his ass.

Phantom said:

Who do you think would be the next superpower to replace or challenge the United States?


* Assuming it someday becomes integrated more like an actual country.

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I say Europe is a superpower and definetely is challenging and replacing the US already. China is likely to join a trio eventually, where the power of the US will fade more and more. Russia ofcourse will be the fourth. A fight superpower is more likely to be Brazil than India in my opinion.

But...

Better question is...

Which countries will be/remain full dimensional superpowers in 2030?

Andalublue said:

Were the US to attempt to interfere in what Russia or China view as their "spheres of influence" the response would be severe.

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While the US is ruining its image around the world(this is IMO the greatest decrease in US power), China is trying their very best to improve their image. China avoids conflict and confrontation at any cost... Russia just stays "savage", they dont care..

Maximus Zeebra said:

I say Europe is a superpower

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Also Europe is the only state which is intentionally building a superpower from scratch, and the only one to ever do so. And it has all the experience of all previous superpowers to draw from.

I would be surprised if Europes rise to superpower would even slow down, rather than keep accelerating indefinetely.
Not all people like this, many view it as a "political elite" project, an unstoppable force towards a super state.

Maximus Zeebra said:

Also Europe is the only state which is intentionally building a superpower from scratch, and the only one to ever do so. And it has all the experience of all previous superpowers to draw from.

I would be surprised if Europes rise to superpower would even slow down, rather than keep accelerating indefinetely.
Not all people like this, many view it as a "political elite" project, an unstoppable force towards a super state.

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Europe has united quite a bit since World War II, but it isn't a state, at least not yet.