Emerging Superpowers

It is often wondered how the superpowers achieved their position of dominance. It seems that the maturing of the two superpowers, Russia and the US, can be traced to Second World War. To be a superpower, a nation needs to have a strong economy, an overpowering military, immense international political power and, related to this, a strong national ideology. It was this war, and its results, that caused either of these superpowers to experience such a preponderance of power. Before the war, both nations were fit to be described as great powers, but it would be erroneous to say that they were superpowers at that point.

What is a Superpower?
A superpower is a state with a leading position in the international system and the ability to influence events and project power on a worldwide scale. It is traditionally considered to be one step higher than a great power or a country that has the capacity to project dominating power and influence anywhere in the world, and sometimes, in more than one region of the globe at a time, and so may plausibly attain the status of global hegemonic. After the Cold War, the most common belief held is that only the US fulfills the criteria to be considered a superpower. Brazil, China, the European Union, India and Russia are thought to have the potential of achieving superpower status within the 21st century.

The British Empire was the most extensive empire in world history, which was considered the foremost great power and by 1921, held sway over 25 per cent of the world’s population and controlled about 25 per cent of the Earth’s total land area, while the United States and the Soviet Union both proved their newly gained power in Second World War. The British Empire emerged from Second World War significantly weakened and recognized to have lost its superpower status, while the Soviet Union and the United States were recog­nised as the two remaining superpowers.

Rise of New Superpowers
Academics predict the possible rise of new superpowers in the 21st century, mentioning four possible superpower candidates. Whether the Federative Republic of Brazil, Russian Federation, and the People’s Republic of China, Republic of India or the European Union will be future superpowers is a matter of ongoing debate.

The European Union has been called an emerging superpower by academics who believe that the power of the European Union will rival that of the United States in the 21st century. Several factors: the EU’s large population, large economy, low inflation rates, the unpopularity and perceived failure of US foreign policy in recent years, and certain EU members states’ high quality of life (when measured in terms such as hours worked per week).

The People’s Republic of China receives continual coverage in the popular press of its potential superpower status, and has been identified as a rising or emerging economic and military superpower by academics and other experts. China will overtake the US to become the world’s largest economy by 2038 if current growth rates continue and that China’s GDP will overtake that of Japan by 2017 or 2018, and Germany’s in 2008 itself.

Under an optimistic scenario, China could become a real superpower in 30 years’ time. Though in late 2007, China’s economic power ’shrank’ when the World Bank reported that they had overestimated China’s economy by about 40 per cent. Although, the finding was based on a PPP estimation of the Chinese GDP, which the above estimations do not depend on.

India’s Position
The Republic of India is in its potential of becoming a superpower. With 9.4 per cent GDP growth in 2007, Goldman Sachs predicts that as 700 million Indians are expected to move to cities by 2050, the Indian economy may surpass the United States (in US$) by 2043. India has moved onto a much faster growth trajectory than the World Bank had previously expected, fueled by strong and steady productivity gains in its legions of new factories, which are producing everything from inner wear to cars. India’s strength lies in its demographics; more than 50 per cent of India’s population is under 25. India has a great potential to become an economic superpower because of its growing young population.

The Russian Federation is a suggested potential candidate for re­achieving superpower status in the twenty-first century due to its fast-growing economy, sizeable energy resources and the size of its military. Russia intends to reemerge as a full-fledged superpower,” and contrary to conventional wisdom, this goal is easily within the Kremlin’s grasp, but the cost to the Russian people and global security would be immense. Russia has an intact military-industrial complex and the mineral wealth to reactivate its dormant structurally militarized potential and that supply-side constraints don’t preclude a return to prodigal superpower-dom.

The Federative Republic of Brazil has been suggested as a potential candidate for superpower status. It is the fifth-largest country by geographical area, the fifth most populous country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world. Brazil has one of the ten largest economies in the world; in addition to having one of the largest defense budgets, and armed forces in the world. On the global stage Brazil is a member of the G8+5, a political and economic group composed of emerging economic powers and the G8. Brazil is one of the BRIC countries—a Goldman Sachs thesis projecting that the economic potential of Brazil, Russia, India, and China is such that they may become among the four most dominant economies by the year 2050.

Multipolar World
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 that ended the Cold War, the post-Cold War world is widely considered as a unipolar world; with the US as the world’s sole remaining superpower. The United States, of course, is the sole State with preeminence in every domain of power—economic, military, diplomatic, ideological, technological, and cultural—with the reach and capabilities to promote its interests in virtually every part of the world. With previous superpowers in history, the US is the last remaining superpower in the world. Some experts argue that this mainstream assessment of current global politics is too simplified, in part because of the difficulty in classifying the European Union at its current stage of development. Others argue that the notion of a superpower is outdated, considering complex global economic interdependencies, and propose that the world is multipolar.