Posted on 04/17/2005 10:44:32 PM PDT by Destro
World Powers in 2030? a shift in the balance of power continues
Those who grew up during the Cold War may have trouble keeping up with shifts among major world powers. Some still think that Russia will reemerge as a superpower, even though it is not even one the world's top 15 economic powers. One may dismiss Japan as a major military power, not realizing that it is the world's second largest economic power whose military spending exceeds that of China. The respected Economist magazine recently published: "World in Figures, 2004." Data has been extracted from this book to provide a brief comparison of world powers in 2004:
Population is one measure. While Western military analysts focus on material, manpower is critical. Providing AK-47s and RPGs to several million men creates a powerful force, albeit not one capable of major operations. Recall that a million Chinese foot soldiers fought the modern US Army to a stalemate in Korea, and thousands of illiterate Somalis mauled US Army Rangers in 1993. Today, the most populous nations are: #1 China; #2 India (which will surpass China by 2030); a distant #3 United States; #4 Indonesia; #5 Brazil. Pakistan is #6, just ahead of Russia. Bangladesh is #8, Japan at #9 and Nigeria at #10.
Gross Domestic Product is a measure of economic activity, not of wealth, and total population is a major factor. The busiest economies are: #1 United States; #2 Japan (about half of the US); #3 Germany; #4 United Kingdom; #5 France. Yes, the UK and France remain ahead of China which is #6. Surprisingly, Mexico is #9 and Brazil #11, while Russia is way down at #16, even behind South Korea at #13 and the Netherlands at #14. Keep in mind that GDP is misleading. For example, at least 10% of the GDP for the USA comes from borrowing overseas, something that will end, some day. In addition, some 3% of American GDP is created by civil lawsuits because that is "activity."
Current Account is a measure of which nations are accumulating wealth though savings and have an annual surplus: #1 Japan; #2 Russia (rebuilding); #3 Norway (lots of oil profits); #4 Switzerland (secret banking); #5 France. Nations which are bleeding wealth through borrowing have an annual deficit, and are led by: #1 United States, which has an annual deficit 17 times greater than #2 United Kingdom; #3 Brazil (improving though); #4 Mexico; #5 Spain. One final measure is Industrial Output: #1 United States; #2 Japan; #3 China (growing rapidly); #4 Germany; #5 United Kingdom. Of interest is South Korea at #9 while Russia is way down at #14, behind #13 India.
World Powers in 2030?
#1 China
#2 European Union
#3 Japan
#4 United States (bankrupt)
#5 India
#6 Korea (unified)
#7 Russia (recovered)
#8 Brazil
#9 United Kingdom
#10 Mexico
While the United States is the clear superpower today, the European Union surpasses the USA in population, GDP, and industrial output. So if the EU continues to merge politically and militarily, it will become a superpower.
China's high growth rate will allow it to match the United States economically by 2020, perhaps sooner if the USA suffers a major economic setback by failing to address its massive current account deficit (budget and trade imbalances.)
Although Japan will lose population in the years ahead, it is likely to remain the world's most technologically advanced nation. It will prosper once it finds more cash paying customers and stops granting $200 billion in credit each year to the soon to be bankrupt USA, which will be forced to cut it's military budget in half.
India is growing fast and Brazil is booming due to the increased worldwide demand for raw materials.
Pakistan and Indonesia have potential, but political instability is likely to hamper development.
These are just basic statistics, but they probably surprise many readers who have not updated their perceptions of world powers.
Carlton Meyer editor@G2mil.com
Does it matter America may be 30%-40% Latin American?
I did ping you.
ONe problem the U.S. has going for it is low birth rate. If we can't get our birth rate up we are going to need a lot of immigration of productive poeple.
Friedman may have missed that because he paints it as a negative for us Americans. Freidman's recent book should be subtitled "I still am for globalization but I am afraid America is becoming less competative when I thought we would be ahead of the pack".
Our Latin American immigration hides the low borth rates which kind of mirror Western Europe's birthrates.
I referred to "human capital". There's no point in inheriting, say, a factory, if nobody works there, nobody can design new products, and there aren't any customers left.
Woe is me ALERT. The sky is not falling.
Carlton Meyer is very consistent.
Consistently wrong.
His analysis is worthy of a college freshman who reads Chomsky for analytical depth. He is a shrill isolationist who make Pat Buchanan look like Woodrow Wilson.
Population is as much a drag as a benefit. China is aging very quickly. Median age will be 39 by 2020. One child policy is now really starting to skew the sex ratio significantly. Chinese military is mostly a jobs program. Fihter pilots barely given enough fuel to fly so they don't defect to Taiwan. Most of their tanks are T55 equivalents. China manufactures trinkets and junk. How many Chinese made cars or TVs or home computers are on the world market?
Europe's economy has many problems in its foundation. Plus the citizens of France may just very well repudiate their elite political class and vote NO on te EU Constitution. The EU may soon join the USSR in the dust bin of history.
Japan has been in recession since 1991 or so? Ever bought a can of Coke in Tokyo?
Our economy can weather rough spots like no other in the world. If we go bankrupt, the whole world economy collapses.
A) China is more likely to have an economic cataclysm than the United States. China is in a full-blown bubble - bigtime.
B) The European Union includes the UK.
C) If Korea unifies, they will (1) scale back their military spending in a major way; (2) their finances will be sucked into rehabilitating the North for several decades.
D) If Mexico ends up in any Top 10 world powers list in 2030, I will eat this page. ;) Why won't they? Because they have no geopolitical reason to build up their military to that extent.
The top 10 military powers in 2030 (counting the EU as one, and ignoring Israel's and Pakistan's nukes):
1) United States
2) European Union
3) Japan
4) China
5) Russia
6) India
7) Korea (unified)
8) Australia
9) Iraq
10) Iran
Eurosocialism is as Eurosocialism does.
Oh, so THAT's what this whole thing was about. And here I thought it was a futile attempt at stand up comedy.
This is one of the most profoundly idiotic attempts at economic analyses I've seen in a good, long while.
Indonesia?!? They won't even be in the same city as the ballpark.. They spend about the same on their military as Peru (tied at 50) and 33% less than Austria..
I'd bump Japan to 2 and India to 3, otherwise a much smarter list. I'd only include the EU so long as it includes the UK, otherwise, no way.
Of course, making a prediction of how the world will look in 25 years is teetering on the brink of madness.
Who predicted anything remotely close to the current state of the world in 1988? 1994? 1999? Much less 1980.
The EU combined spends about $180 billion annually on their military; that still way ahead of China ($55 billion) and Japan ($40 billion). I do think that Japan's figure will go up as they become more globally active. I think China will have serious economic & political difficulties in the next 25 years that will drag them down from where they would be otherwise (#3).
India doesn't spend anywhere near enough ($11 billion) to get much higher, and they may even be too high if they don't pick up from where they are now.
Also, Iraq will be in the top 10 so long as they get it together and stay closely allied with the U.S. as I think they will. Otherwise, no.
"Of course China will have a larger GDP than the United States eventually, 1 billion people live there!"
Not necessarily. It's a factor of time and currency appreciation. On strict growth alone, China would likely never get there, especially with the U.S. population continuing to expand and the GDP gap already being so massive.
"According to the CIA fact book the GDP of the two blocks/countries are even at 11 trillions. If you don't adjust for PPP the EU comes out ahead."
US GDP is currently at about $12 trillion USD.
The EU-25 GDP is currently a bit larger on the basis of the overvalued euro. Regardless, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who believes that the U.S. won't outgrow the EU (even EU-30) just as it did the last time the EU's aggregate GDP was larger than America's.
Regardless, it's really foolish to ever compare the EU's "GDP" to that of America. It's simply not a single economic entity. If the comparison is taken as valid, then you have to insert enough wiggle room that you should more accurately compare NAFTA and the EU.
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