The future

[shaky]

With all this talk about the US being the only real superpower in the world, I wondered a couple things:

Who is going to be the next superpower? Some would say China is the leader, mainly because of a population and economy that is capable. Which leads to my next question:

What would make another country a superpower? Sheer troop numbers or nuclear proliferation? Or is it that black and white?

If the next country was a proliferator of nuclear arms, do you think we'd ever see a nuclear bomb/missile used in combat in our lifetimes? Or have they been relegated to simply being a deterrent?

[GearGod]

China, India... European Union!

[Seiyuuki]

China will not be the next superpower, I CAN GUARANTEE YOU THAT!!!

[GearGod]

Why is that? Whats the weakness in the Chinese Gov't? Seems to me they have alot of "potential" power

[Ratamacue]

You guys may not realize it, but China is still technically a 3rd World Country.

[ScopeScene]

Weaknesses of Chinese Gov't:
-They're communist!

[Bing]

"Weaknesses of Chinese Gov't:
-They're communist!"

so were the Russians during the cold war, that doesn't mean they weren't a superpower. The Cuban missile crisis was a standoff between the two main superpowers.

China may have "3rd world nation" conditions in some of its areas, but the fact that it is economically necessary to the United States makes it a huge player in the world...i mean cheap labor...it's one of those "necessary evils" that the US will tolerate. That's why Mainland China was recognized and replaced Tai-wan as the representative to the UN. This was an initiative taken by the US president.

[HMMcrewchief]

I have to agree and say China. The US was a third world country at one time (relative to Britain, France, etc.) and that didn't stop us. The fact that China is communist I believe makes it easier for them to spend money and play politics without having to worry about a reaction. Hey who knows maybe France will make a comeback rofl . Only time will tell.

[cut]

China's economy is growing very fast so it could be them

India a far from being a world power but militarily they are impressive purely coz they spend their money on military instead of development and their population, because of the ongoing threats to their borders from both china and pakistan.
also a few years (decades) ago, the chinese army marghed into india and claimed a chunk of land which is still in their possibilty

if it is possible for the EU to ever work together, they would easily outstrip the US in every way, even militarily (given time to join/coordinate the various armies) and the more countirs join the more the power, (although maybe the harder to agree)

[JiJoMacLE45]

California, or maybe Texas.

[Seiyuuki]

China will not be the next superpower, I CAN GUARANTEE YOU THAT!!!

Re-phrase:

China will not be the next superpower, WE CAN GUARANTEE YOU THAT!!!

Conspiracy theory, elitist theory, apply all of those and use your imagination...

[OzMan]

I think the EU will slowly rise to become the next superpower. And they have stated that their mission "Is to become the world's greatest economic power"...can only wonder what they meant by that.

In my opinion, being a "superpower" is defined by every aspect of the nation. That includes the economy, the military strength (not numbers), the technological advances, etc.

[budanski]

Broken China

Is the world's largest nation a wonder of growth? Don't believe it. The growth figures are cooked. A lot of problems are kept out of sight. Think Japan, 1988.

If you think China is the economic wonder of the world, you have plenty of company. The country reports that its gross domestic product is rising 8% annually at a time when fully developed countries are stagnant. It is enjoying the good deflation of excess supply, driven by rapid industrialization and Western technology. China is the global low-cost producer of a widening array of manufactured goods. For many U.S. manufacturers the choices are these: Slash prices and costs to meet those of Chinese imports, move production to China or fold up shop.

Other Asian lands ran out of unemployed people as they developed and had to shift to more sophisticated output to accommodate increasingly expensive labor. China has not. Almost half of its 320 million farmers are not needed to work the land, by the reckoning of the Ministry of Agriculture. There are around 80 million redundant workers in government and government enterprises, not to mention the 100 million squatting in the coastal regions, looking for work, and also the soon-to-be-employable youth--a quarter of the Chinese are under age 15. So China has 500 million potential new workers.

How long could China maintain 8% annual economic growth before exhausting this huge pool of unemployed? About 30 years, assuming 4% annual productivity growth--no great feat for a developing country that can adopt modern technology. Also, the growing Chinese middle class promises strong domestic demand, which will reduce dependence on exports and lead to greater imports. Maybe one day each of those 1.3 billion Chinese will drink one can of Pepsi.

But if you are awed by China's current and potential power, think twice. Recall the awe over Japan during its 1980s bubble days. Remember how we were all going to be sweeping up around Japanese computers? My contrarian forecast in 1988 was that Japan's bubble was about to break. I feel the same way now about China.

To begin, I don't believe China's official 8% growth figure. It's a politically mandated number, first conjured up in 1988 by Chinese officials. Independent surveys of industrial capacity, energy use, employment, consumer income and spending and farm output imply much slower growth. Chinese from the top down have long known this: In 1999 Premier Zhu Rongji complained that "falsification and exaggeration are rampant." The official 4% urban unemployment rate jumps to 9.3% when laid-off workers, who receive modest stipends, are added to the registered unemployed. And while the official poverty rate in cities is 2%, the Asian Development Bank estimates it's 11%. Note that the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations were preceded by urban labor unrest.

So China needs rapid growth to employ the urban idle and the inflow from farms and to fund adequate roads, housing and farming modernization. Huge education outlays are needed to turn those rural youths into productive urban workers. Pensions and social security, new to China, are gigantic money sinks. The military is another big drain. China also has to rescue the state banks, which are essentially broke because of the bad loans used to support equally bankrupt and overstaffed government-owned businesses.

What's more, China's two recent growth engines are highly vulnerable. First are exports. Official data show that from 1997 to 2001 exports averaged 21% of GDP but accounted for 48% of GDP growth. And most of those exports go directly or indirectly to the U.S. American consumers have ended their 20-year borrowing-and-spending binge and are embarking on a saving spree, which I forecast in past columns. So the outlook for Chinese exports is glum. Ditto for foreign direct investment in exporting businesses that employ 6 million.

Government deficit spending is the other growth source, and it's under pressure. Officially China is running a surplus equal to 2% of GDP. The reality, though, is that if all the off-balance-sheet financing and capital outlays are included, the country is running a deficit of at least 4%. Government debt, 17% of GDP, may seem small, but potential liabilities run that to 150%, gigantic for a primitive financial structure. As for the Chinese middle class, surveys dispute government data and show that both urban and rural consumers are, despite falling consumer prices, big savers, not lavish spenders.

China will continue to be the low-cost producer of many manufactured goods. Beware, though. The nation's attention may be diverted by domestic unrest and restructuring problems. This could hurt both securities investments in China and foreign direct investments.

source: Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/columnists/forbes/2003/0512/156.html)

[96B]

Communism will never prevail over Democracy...

[Sabre]

China isn't reallly communist. No nation has ever really been communist. Before Stalin, the USSR was more of an idea than a reality because the reality was civil war. That made a truly communist/soviet state impossible to set up. Stalin then changed the system and from then on most 'communist' states were really 'stalinist'. China has the worst of stalinism (there aren't really any good bits!) and capitalism. By that I mean it has a brutal totalitarian leadership made up of paranoid geriatrics who sell the people off to work for pitiful wages to make someone else rich. I don't think China will really become a superpower to oppose the US because it relies on US business to boost its economy.
The problem with all these stalinist regimes is the ludite mentality they have. Irrational and brutal decisions like imprisoning/killing educated people or turning the clock back agriculturally don't have any foundation in marxist/communist theory. They just come out of the leaderships' imaginations.
The 'soviet' was a council of workers/peasants and soldiers (the majority of people at the time) who made descisions and passed the conclusions up the line to the 'supreme soviet'. In theory this is a very good form of proportional representation and democracy. The idea being that groups of workers from a plant would be able to voice concerns that affected their jobs as one, so could teachers, communities etc. The problem came when people like stalin took control and turned lenin, marx etc into figureheads to be reveared and interpreted their ideas literally. In other words, only workers and soldiers deserved to be represented; soldiers did what they were told (and could be controlled) and workers were meant to value the whole more than the individual, seeing themselves as just a cog in the machine.
The whole point of the 'soviet' system was to give people more control, to enhance the individual's role in determining their future. In reality, the opposite happend because in the harsh, chaotic environment in which it was created, people like stalin (an ex con, murderer etc) still had the old imperial mentality and, to be honest, weren't inteligent enough to grasp the ideals fully. It's a fact that the instigators of these revolutions were intellectuals and so people like stalin, Mao etc feared them the most and brutally purged them.
These countries aren't really communist. Their leaders have just hijacked the good intentions of the people and turned them upside down.

[cut]

Communism will never prevail over Democracy...

yes good will always provail over evil.... too much hollywood?

[cut]

California, or maybe Texas. rofl

[HMMcrewchief]

Semperfi2003 Can you back that statement up? Because from what I know and have seen it usually a tie.

[Sabre]

My last post on the subject was to show that true a communist/soviet state (doesn't exist, hasn't existed) would be democratic.

'Democracy vs communism' ideologically doesn't make any sense as they are both the same theoretically.

Maybe 'Western Democracy vs Soviet socialism' could be argued. But it's not as sensationalist and there are no examples of proper soviet systems to compare.

Capitalism vs Communism is a different matter, and is more about the economics that anything else.

[Sabre]

BTW: I'm not a card carrying member of the communist party or anything!

I'm just saying that the origional ideas of the soviet system were good. They were based on somewhat radical 19th century views and unfortunately were implemented too fast.

The problem is human nature, people don't like change and other people think about themselves more then others.

The rest of the world was scared by the changes and tried to scuttle them. Also, in the power vacuum some less than ideal characters saw their chance for imortality and seized it, ie Stalin.

Who knows, it could have worked.

[sunnysandy]

CUT wrote
India a far from being a world power but militarily they are impressive purely coz they spend their money on military instead of development and their population, because of the ongoing threats to their borders from both china and pakistan.
also a few years (decades) ago, the chinese army marghed into india and claimed a chunk of land which is still in their possibilty

My dear friend,seems to me that you need to be educated about India.India spends more on Development Projects and its Population than on its military.Militarily she is strong because of the quality of discipline of the men and women in her armed forces,but equipment wise we are using stuff that belongs in the 70s.
The war with China was fought in 1962,and they did not march right into India,Indians soldiers fought Chineese soldiers armed with AK 47s with vintage WW 2 british rifles,and the chunk of land they captured is an high altitude area which a handfull of Indian soldiers defended against thousands of chineese .The chineese would attack in huge waves of a few thousand men ,facing them were say 20 to 30 indian soldiers .They would shoot as many chineese they could till they ran out of Ammo & then switch to bayonets.It was just a waste of good men.
And the reason why the Indians were poorly equipped is because the govt decided to spend more on its population rather than the military.

About being a world power,i dont think that is possible at least in the next 10 or 20 years.

[/quote]

[shaky]

*Note to self.. have McCarthy check out Sabre just to be safe* :)

[Seiyuuki]

There are also other factors when considering if a country will become a superpower or not...A country/ies could have a huge capacity for becoming an industrial strength and the population to do it with, but if the isolationist mood is persisted among the populace and represented in the government, then that could potentially prevent that country/ies from becoming a major player in the world arena...

Then again, in the world today, I doubt isolationism will be growing strong.

[Duke]

'Democracy vs communism' ideologically doesn't make any sense as they are both the same theoretically...

...Capitalism vs Communism is a different matter, and is more about the economics that anything else.
Sabre's two statements conflict, first Sabre says the two countries are the same, and then different. Listen, capitalism spawns from the freedoms inherent in a democracy. The capitalism and democracy represent two sides of the same coin. A society cannot have one without the other. Imagine life without the Freedom of Assembly, which allows economic markets to exist. Understand??

Next, for the younger ones, back in the Cold War the world contained three tiers of countries. Our side, the USA, lead the FREE WORLD, which included France, West Germany, Canada and any other highly industrialized democratic based country. The Soviet Union, conversely, lead what was known as the Communist Bloc, included were East Germany, Red China, Bulgaria and any other communistic styled government. Okay...the last group was the "THIRD WORLD", countries whose economic system and government could neither afford a place in the fomer two. Today, a decade from the end of the Cold War, we no longer have the Warsaw Pact and the Communist Bloc, hence most use the word Developed (Industrialized) and Developing (Poor). China has never been termed a third world country and today is considered a develped country.
UBERPOWER
Today, to see eye to eye with the US as a superpower would entail a comparable military and economic might. The EU could fit that, but are too fractured (Britain is highly independent). China, however, seems a strong possible candidate for UberPower, just look at their strong military, the large supply of natural resources and fastest growing economy. Unfortunately for them, a major arresting factor in China's quest as a superpower, is it's huge disparage between the many poor and a few wealthy. More importantly, China's "have and have not" scenario causes politically agitation by its own people, specifically between political hack/military officers and their family who run China's industries and the poor educated masses. China can either plunge itself in a violent civil war or reform itself. With a democratic revolution China becomes a benign superpower, and without reforms China is the country many of us will face as the new Red Menace.

[Duke]

Why the **** does my quote button never WORK??

[cut]

CUT wrote
India a far from being a world power but militarily they are impressive purely coz they spend their money on military instead of development and their population, because of the ongoing threats to their borders from both china and pakistan.
also a few years (decades) ago, the chinese army marghed into india and claimed a chunk of land which is still in their possibilty

My dear friend,seems to me that you need to be educated about India.India spends more on Development Projects and its Population than on its military.Militarily she is strong because of the quality of discipline of the men and women in her armed forces,but equipment wise we are using stuff that belongs in the 70s.
The war with China was fought in 1962,and they did not march right into India,Indians soldiers fought Chineese soldiers armed with AK 47s with vintage WW 2 british rifles,and the chunk of land they captured is an high altitude area which a handfull of Indian soldiers defended against thousands of chineese .The chineese would attack in huge waves of a few thousand men ,facing them were say 20 to 30 indian soldiers .They would shoot as many chineese they could till they ran out of Ammo & then switch to bayonets.It was just a waste of good men.
And the reason why the Indians were poorly equipped is because the govt decided to spend more on its population rather than the military.

About being a world power,i dont think that is possible at least in the next 10 or 20 years.

[/quote]

the point I was making is that India and Pakistan spend TO MUCH money on defence. If India had a less nationalist government that was less confrontational with the pakistani muslims it would be able to structure the country, I know that's a massive task but a sturcture country will mean more unity, the BJP aren't creating unity they are tearing the country appart. I would say even the fact that the state of Bihar, for example is being run by crimminals with most of its government have criminal records, do they not.

I understand the defensive stance india takes but it should build from the inside out, otherwise there is no point defneding the borders only for india to implode through internal tensions.

also there's no point spending money on Devolpment projects if the local government is just going to waste it because of a mixture incompetense and corruption.

Don't take this personally, I love india and I spend most of last year there but it does have a lot of problems. Like many countries with the right government and a bit of luck India could have been well on it's way to becomming the next superpower by now.

[96B]

In the perfect world Communism would probably be the best type of government but the world isnt perfect.

Example of Democracy vs Communism, where is the USSR? I know China is not a true communist country, I was simply saying that Communism would not win over Democracy.

If somebody thinks otherwise and that a Communist country today would succeed over America then sound off.

Lets see our main contestants, China, North Korea and Cuba.... I can see how it is so much better than our way of governing :roll:

[USMA Pistol]

There are several places where Communism has "won" or nearly won in the face of U.S. opposition, even after WWII, when the U.S. was (and still is) widely regarded as the sole liberal superpower in the world:

1) China, 1949: U.S.-supported Chiang Kai-shek and his regime move to Taiwan, after defeat by Mao Zedong's Communists. Communist China is later recognized, by the United States, as the sole rep. of China at the U.N. The Taiwanese independence movement is still a taboo subject for American foreign relations today.

2) Korea, 1953: After 3 years of bloody war with North Koreans and Chicoms (during which they nearly pushed the American forces off the peninsula), a cease-fire is signed, and today, we (America) have thousands of troops (of which I will soon be one) defending the DMZ to ensure that several million North Korean troops can't do the same thing again.

3) Cuba, 1959: Castro's revolutionaries overthrow the democratically elected Batista, and establish the Communist government still in power today.

4) Vietnam, 1975: After several years of bloody war with Communist North Vietnam, American troops withdraw from "the jewel of Southeast Asia", allowing the North Vietnamese to defeat the 'democratic' (not quite) South and establish the Communist government still in power there today.

5) Central America, 1950s-1980s: The U.S. infuses a GREAT deal of money and resources (including military aid) to support oppressive, but anti-Communist regimes...kind of like in Vietnam...

6) Africa, Cold War: Communism in Angola, Congo, Ethiopia, etc; most of the Communist nations have only recently turned to Capitalism.

As far as democracy and capitalism being two sides of the same coin, one must remember that democracy is a theory of governance, while capitalism is a theory of economics...for example, Chiang Kai-shek's China (both on the mainland and in Taiwan) could hardly be considered democratic, but it surely was capitalist. A modern day example of a non-democratic capitalist state is Brunei; the last election for legislative representatives in that nation occured in 1962! And the Sultan, rolling in cash and hot women, certainly doesn't seem too Communist to me! Anyhow, I guess if you subscribe to Francis Fukoyama's theory of world-wide liberal democracy leading to the "end of history," the Communist v. Capitalist argument doesn't matter anyway.

In any event, the past decade has shown a move of Red Communist nations to Green Capitalism, including China, Vietnam, Cuba (to an extent), and probably several other Communist or former Communist nations. In terms of military power, it is best to look at capabilities rather than intent. While nations like China and India have ginormous quantities of people, technology acts as the greatest combat multiplier, and neither China nor India are as well-endowed technologically as the U.S. or the nations of Western Europe.

Instead of thinking about who's next in line to fight a war against, why don't we come up with creative ways NOT to fight another war? The game of "Deterrence", by Milton-Bradley...

[shaky]

Ok, a lot of good replies about China and who could be next, but nobody has really addressed the nuclear factor. Look at all the attention NK is getting, and because of what? A couple nukes? Albeit with the capacity and desire to add more.... but my point is, if little old NK can garner so much attention, and be so much of a pain in the ass by having a couple nukes, who could be next? Where are the signs pointing to? Or do most people think that world is generally safe from future nuclear threats by the monitoring and careful regulations?

[budanski]

Lets see how fast the chicoms would disarm NK if we armed Japan and Taiwan with nuclear weapons to counter NK. I doubt this would happen though but if needed, Japan is quite capable of building their own nuclear bomb.

[OzMan]

Personally, I don't think anyone (barring dumbasses like Hussein, etc.) is really dumb enough to use nuclear weapons in war again. Look at India/Pakistan over Kashmir. They fought what, six wars over that little splinter and then both sides lit off nukes and then there have been no wars since? Now I'm not saying in the least bit that Kashmir is not a problem, but there haven't been any major advances from either side in the last few years.

(I know, a little pre-9/11 syndrome) I think the world is pretty safe from the nuclear threat. Yes, the nuclear capability does factor into the "superpower" status, but when you look at actual combat capability, no one cares about nukes.

And these nuclear restrictions are rediculous. Even though they are cutting back on numbers, it's stupid. "Ok guys, instead of blowing up the earth 400 times, let's only have enough to blow it up 200 times. That should be enough." I think each country should get just one, and once you use that, you're done.

[Sabre]

Lads, democracy is really dodgy to define and even harder to achieve.

Western countries are really representative rather than democratic. To be truly democratic, everyone would have to be involved in every decision that was made. How impractical would that be? Instead, a few people are picked out of a bunch of others to make decisions for us, allowing us to do what ever it is we do. It's not perfect, but we work with it.

The thing is that these countries are stable because of a long process of change. Only reasonably recently were women allowed to vote and only a little before then were all men able to. Hell its only 140 years since African-Americans were given basic rights in the US.

The problem with many countries is not the system they have (though it is with some, ie Iraq...) but with rapid change. All of the 'communist' countries came about through violent revolution against oppressive/unjust regimes. The sudden collapse of the old institutions and building of new ones always leads to a power vacuum. Just look at Iraq. The difference is that Iraq now has outside institutions (Coalition forces, NGO's etc) to help rebuild where as internal revolutions are in chaos. The people who then take over these countries are naturally the most greedy, oportunistic and ruthless people going. They had to be to muscle their way into power.

What we see now is a stigma attached to the word 'communist'/'soviet' etc because of what such people called themselves. The 'Ba'ath' party was originally a proper party who were opposed to the puppet monarchy in Iraq. Saddam Hussein came out of the woodwork after the revolution and took over the party, killing those who opposed him. After all, with no fully functioning government who was going to stop him? So the first we hear of the Ba'ath party is when Saddam's in charge, and we don't like what we see, quite naturally.
Again 'aristocracy' implies a ruling/upper class descended along a family line. In fact, it really means 'rule by the best' and was an ancient greek idea where the most inteligent/skilled/bravest people lead the country. Not at all the same as the widespread understanding of the word.
Furthermore, the NSDAP weren't very radical before Hitler (granted, nor were they popular).

The point is that the well-intentioned often get taken in by the devious and cruel, and don't often win. This was the case with a great many good-hearted people around the world who saw 'communist' ideals as being the best way to get their countries out of poverty or tyranny. Unfortunately, it wasn't to happen because of a few 'rotten eggs'.

P.S. Capitalism has been around far longer than democracy. People have been buying and selling goods (sometimes eachother) for literally ages. The idea that capitalism happens because of the freedom of democracy and that the two are mutually reliant is flawed.

[cut]

you blatantly study or studied politics

[Sabre]

No, just interested.

I like to be informed, otherwise my opinions are just that, personal opinions with no basis in fact.

I'd like to think that with the freedom of discussion that we have we can at least find out the truth before we go ranting on at eachother.

[cut]

well, I'd let you take my politics exam any day

[Sabre]

No way, got enough work to do!

Thanks anyway.