A superpower is a state with a dominant position in the international system which has the ability to influence events and its own interests and project power on a worldwide scale to protect those interests. A superpower is traditionally considered to be a step higher than a great power.
Alice Lyman Miller (Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School), defines a superpower as "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 hegemony."[1]
It was a term first applied in 1944 to the British Empire, the Soviet Union and the United States of America. Following World War II, as the British Empire transformed itself into the Commonwealth and its territories became independent, the Soviet Union and the United States generally came to be regarded as the only two superpowers, and confronted each other in the Cold War.
After the Cold War, only the United States appeared to fulfill the criteria to be considered a world superpower.[2] The term second superpower has also been applied by scholars to the possibility that China will emerge as second superpower on par with the United States.[3][4][5] Also, Brazil, the European Union, India, and Russia[6][7][8][9] are thought to have the potential of achieving superpower status within the 21st century[10]
Some people doubt the existence of superpowers in the post Cold War era altogether, stating that today's complex global marketplace and the rising interdependency between the world's nations has made the concept of a superpower an idea of the past and that the world is now multipolar.[11][12][13][14]
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The term superpower was used to describe nations with greater than great power status as early as 1944, but only gained its specific meaning with regard to the United States, the British Empire and the Soviet Union after World War II. This was because the United States and the Soviet Union had proved themselves to be capable of casting great influence in global politics.
There have been attempts to apply the term superpower retrospectively, and sometimes very loosely, to a variety of past entities such as Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, China,[15] India,[15] the Persian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Roman Empire,[16][17] the Mongol Empire, Portuguese Empire, the Spanish Empire,[18][19] France,[20][21] and the British Empire.
Recognition by historians of these older states as superpowers may focus on various superlative traits exhibited by them. For example, at its peak the British Empire was the largest in history with 1 in every 4 people in the world living under its flag.
The term in its current political meaning was coined by Dutch-American geostrategist Nicholas Spykman in a series of lectures in 1943 about the potential shape of a new post-war world order. This formed the foundation for the book The Geography of the Peace, which referred primarily to the unmatched maritime global supremacy of the United Kingdom and United States as essential for peace and prosperity in the world.
A year later, William T.R. Fox, an American foreign policy professor, elaborated on the concept in the book The Superpowers: The United States, Britain and the Soviet Union – Their Responsibility for Peace (1944), which spoke of the global reach of a super-empowered nation.[22] Fox used the word Superpower to identify a new category of power able to occupy the highest status in a world in which, as the war then raging demonstrated, states could challenge and fight each other on a global scale.
According to him, there were (at that moment) three states that were superpowers: Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union. 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% of the world's population[23] and controlled about 25% of the Earth's total land area,[24] while the United States and the Soviet Union grew in power in World War II.
The criteria of a superpower are not clearly defined[2] and as a consequence they may differ between sources.
According to Lyman Miller, "The basic components of superpower stature may be measured along four axes of power: military, economic, political, and cultural (or what political scientist Joseph Nye has termed “soft power”).[1]
In the opinion of Kim Richard Nossal of Queen's University, "generally this term was used to signify a political community that occupied a continental-sized landmass, had a sizable population (relative at least to other major powers); a superordinate economic capacity, including ample indigenous supplies of food and natural resources; enjoyed a high degree of non-dependence on international intercourse; and, most importantly, had a well-developed nuclear capacity (eventually normally defined as second-strike capability)."[2]
In the opinion of Professor Paul Dukes, "a superpower must be able to conduct a global strategy including the possibility of destroying the world; to command vast economic potential and influence; and to present a universal ideology". Although, "many modifications may be made to this basic definition".[25] According to Professor June Teufel Dreyer, "A superpower must be able to project its power, soft and hard, globally."[26]
The 1956 Suez Crisis suggested that Britain, financially weakened by two world wars, could not then pursue its foreign policy objectives on an equal footing with the new superpowers without sacrificing convertibility of its reserve currency as a central goal of policy.[27] As the majority of World War II had been fought far from its national boundaries, the United States had not suffered the industrial destruction or massive civilian casualties that marked the wartime situation of the countries in Europe or Asia.
The war had reinforced the position of the United States as the world's largest long-term creditor nation and its principal supplier of goods; moreover it had built up a strong industrial and technological infrastructure that had greatly advanced its military strength into a primary position on the global stage.
Despite attempts to create multinational coalitions or legislative bodies (such as the United Nations), it became increasingly clear that the superpowers had very different visions about what the post-war world ought to look like, and after the withdrawal of British aid to Greece in 1947 the United States took the lead in containing Soviet expansion in the Cold War.[28]
The two countries opposed each other ideologically, politically, militarily, and economically. The Soviet Union promoted the ideology of communism: planned economy and a one-party state, whilst the United States promoted the ideologies of liberal democracy and the free market. This was reflected in the Warsaw Pact and NATO military alliances, respectively, as most of Europe became aligned either with the United States or the Soviet Union. These alliances implied that these two nations were part of an emerging bipolar world, in contrast with a previously multipolar world.
The Soviet Union and the United States fulfilled the superpower criteria in the following ways:
| Soviet Union | United States | |
|---|---|---|
| Political | Strong Communist state. Permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Strong ties with Eastern Europe, anti-colonialist movements, labour parties, and some countries in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. | Strong capitalist federation/constitutional republic. Permanent seat on the UN Security Council plus two allies with permanent seats. Strong ties with Western Europe, Latin America, Commonwealth of Nations, and several East Asian countries. |
| Geographic | Largest country in the world, with a surface area of 22.27 million km²[29] | Fourth largest country in the world (after the Soviet Union, Canada & China), with an area of approximately 9.37 million km².[30] |
| Cultural | Press explicitly controlled and censored. Promoted, through the use of propaganda, its Communist and Socialist ideal that workers of all countries should unite to overthrow capitalist society and what they called the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and replace it with a socialist society where all means of production are publicly owned. | Maintained constitutional guarantees for freedom of speech and freedom of press, though the ongoing Cold War did lead to a degree of censorship and oppression. Rich cultural influence in music, television, films, food, art, and fashion. |
| Military | Possessed largest armed forces in the world, an air force second in size to only the US, and one of the world's largest navies. Also held the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons for the second half of the Cold War. Founder of Warsaw Pact with satellite states in Eastern Europe. Global intelligence network with GRU and the First Chief Directorate of KGB. Ties with paramilitary and guerrilla groups in the developing world. Large armament production industry with global distribution. | Highest military expenditure in the world,[31] with the world's largest navy surpassing the next 13 largest navies combined,[32][33] and an army and air force rivaled only by that of the Soviet Union. Possessed bases around the world, particularly in an incomplete "ring" bordering the Warsaw Pact to the West, South and East. Largest nuclear arsenal in the world during the first half of the Cold War. Powerful military allies in Western Europe (NATO) with their own nuclear capabilities. Global intelligence network, the CIA. Ties with paramilitary and guerrilla groups in the developing world. Large armament production through defence contractors along with its developed allies for the global market. |
| Economic | GDP of $2.9 trillion in 1990. Second largest economy in the world.[34] Enormous mineral energy resources and fuel supply. Generally self-sufficient using a minimal amount of imports, though suffered resource inadequacies such as in agriculture. Marxist economic theory based primarily on production: industrial production directed by centralised state organs leading to a high degree of inefficiency. Five-year plans frequently used to accomplish economic goals. Economic benefits such as guaranteed employment, free healthcare, free education on all levels formally assured for all citizens. Economy tied to Eastern-European satellite states. | GDP of $5.2 trillion in 1990. Largest economy in the world. Capitalist free market economic theory based on supply and demand: production determined by customers' demands. Enormous industrial base and a large and modernized farming industry. Large volume of imports and exports. Large resources of minerals, energy resources, metals, and timber. High standard of living with accessibility to many manufactured goods. Home to a multitude of the largest global corporations. U.S. Dollar served as the dominant world reserve currency under Bretton Woods Conference. Allied with G7 major economies. Supported allied countries' economies via such programmes as the Marshall Plan. |
| Demographic | Had a population of 286.7 million in 1989, the third largest on Earth behind China and India (this included all of the republics of the USSR, not just that of Russia).[29] | Had a population of 248.7 million in 1990, at that time the fourth largest on Earth.[35] |
The idea that the Cold War period revolved around only two blocs, or even only two nations, has been challenged by some scholars in the post–Cold War era, who have noted that the bipolar world only exists if one ignores all of the various movements and conflicts that occurred without influence from either of the two superpowers. Additionally, much of the conflict between the superpowers was fought in "proxy wars", which more often than not involved issues more complex than the standard Cold War oppositions.
After the Soviet Union disintegrated in the early 1990s, the term hyperpower began to be applied to the United States, as the sole remaining superpower of the Cold War era.[2] This term, coined by French foreign minister Hubert Védrine in the 1990s, is controversial and the validity of classifying the United States in this way is disputed. One notable opponent to this theory, Samuel P. Huntington, rejects this theory in favor of a multipolar balance of power.
Other International Relations theorists, such as Henry Kissinger, theorize that because the threat of the Soviet Union no longer exists to formerly American-dominated regions such as Japan and Western Europe, American influence is only declining since the end of the Cold War, because such regions no longer need protection or have necessarily similar foreign policies as the United States.[36]
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 that ended the Cold War, the post–Cold War world was sometimes considered as a unipolar world,[37][38] with the United States as the world's sole remaining superpower[39] but within the 21st century some analysts believe Russia has risen back to superpower status.[40][41][42][43][44] In the opinion of Samuel P. Huntington, "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."[45]
Experts argue that this older assessment of global politics was 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.[11][12][13][14] According to Samuel P. Huntington, "There is now only one superpower. But that does not mean that the world is unipolar. A unipolar system would have one superpower, no significant major powers, and many minor powers." Huntington thinks, "Contemporary international politics" ... "is instead a strange hybrid, a uni-multipolar system with one superpower and several major powers."[45]
Additionally, there has been some recent speculation that the United States is declining in relative power as the rest of the world rises to match its levels of economic and technological development. Citing economic hardships, Cold War allies becoming less dependent on the United States, a declining dollar, and the rise of other great powers around the world, some experts have suggested the possibility of the United States losing its superpower status in the future.[46][47][48][49]
Academics and other qualified commentators sometimes identify potential superpowers thought to have a strong likelihood of being recognized as superpowers in the 21st century. The record of such predictions has not been perfect. For example in the 1980s some commentators thought Japan would become a superpower, due to its large GDP and high economic growth at the time.[52] However the prediction has not come to fruition.
Due to their large markets, growing military strength, and economic potential and influence in international affairs, the Federative Republic of Brazil,[53][54][55] the People's Republic of China,[56][57] the European Union,[58][59] Republic of India and the Russian Federation,[60][61][62] are among the powers which are most often cited as having the ability to influence future world politics and reach the status of superpower in the 21st century. While some believe one (or more) of these countries may replace the United States as a superpower, others claim they will rise to rival, but not replace, the United States.[37]
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