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Being classified as a "superpower" is a term in political science that means the country has the ability to project unparalleled influence on a global scale. D

by dak1 10y ago

Being classified as a "superpower" is a term in political science that means the country has the ability to project unparalleled influence on a global scale. Don't let the prominence of discussions of China's "rise" fool you though, it is most certainly not a superpower. It certainly has the capacity to be one some day, but its power projection capability is fairly restricted to its immediate vicinity in East Asia still.

r00fus 10y ago
I must respectfully disagree. China is the worlds manufacturing center. The power it projects globally cannot be understated.
- ponyfleisch 10y ago
  I think this is about military power.
  - igravious 10y ago
    I am not an expert but I don't think this is true. I think that would make for a very narrow definition of power, and by extension superpower. Intuitively power stems from all sorts of leverage. Could be knowledge based, economic, any number of factors. One term that is often bandied about is so-called soft power, cultural factors and what have you. I say thank goodness military might is not the only measure of power or we'd be in a sad state of affairs when you come to think of it. That's not to undersell the force projection of military might, and does not deny that the US (and Russia to a lesser extent) derive enjoy an outsized place on the world stage owing to military might. Put it another way. You may be right but I do not want you to be right. I don't want to live in that world.
    - philovivero 10y ago
      He's not right. If you discount China as a superpower, then you discount a country that could single-handedly throw the entire world into a state of political, economic, and military chaos overnight. Defining power as military-only is as naîve as defining it as male-only or violence-only or sword-only. You are right. One should take care defining a word so narrowly that it can only apply to one thing. If "superpower" by definition means "characteristics only the USA has" then why not just call it "USA?"
      - billskills 10y ago
        Look, you eggheads can whine about China's economy all you want, fact is, "power projection"/"force projection" is a _military term_ for the ability to assert military force in a given part of the world in a short period of time. You can argue about _that_ being US-centric if you want, and maybe you should, because most accountings of that metric have the US far ahead of the rest of the world.
        Retric 10y ago
        China has nuclear weapons and a massive military so it clearly has force projection. The simple fact is the root of all military power is economic power to support a military. US for example does not spend an unreasonable chunk of it's GDP on the military, it just has a massive economy.
        Hyperborian 10y ago
        China also has a very limited air force and barely significant blue water naval capabilities. They are especially lacking in the kind of heavy lifting and transport necessary to make force projection even possible. Due to the size and power of their army and their nuclear capabilities it's safe to say that China is effectively immune to attack (even from the US), but they have a nearly non-existent ability to project force outside of their immediate sphere of influence. The US, on the other hand, has carrier groups that each have as much military power as many moderately sized nations. And we have ten of them stationed all over the world pretty much all the time. The difference is orders of magnitude.
        bryondowd 10y ago
        That last statement is very debatable. This [1] 2015 data puts us at 20th of around 150 countries with 3.3% of GDP. And most of the countries high on the list have pretty understandable reasons, like a history of local violence, aggressive neighbors, or in the case of Russia, themselves being aggressive. The EU together is reasonably comparable to the US in population, GDP, values, and enemies, but is actually closer to most threats, yet they come in as 1.5% of GDP. The US seems to me to put a rather high allocation toward military spending considering it has no significant enemies in the same hemisphere. None capable of projecting so far logistically. Then there's also what considering only GDP hides, which is the fact that even if every possible enemy to the US combined, the US net military spending would be significantly greater. And if an existential threat arose and warranted redirecting attention to the military, the US has a great deal of raw capacity it could bring to bear fairly quickly, which combined with having no enemies capable of quickly projecting into the US homeland, means there would likely be little issue ramping up in time for any crisis. In other words, I'd be curious to hear a justification for the US military expenditure not being unreasonable, because it seems to me it could be less than half what it is, and still leave the country totally secure against foreign threats. [1] http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?year_high_desc=true http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?year_h...
- overcast 10y ago
  Let's be realistic here, the only reason China is the worlds manufacturing center, is because Western companies are exploiting their cheap labor. Beyond that, they crank out everyone's cheap knockoffs.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
aries1980 10y ago
> is a term in political science that means the country has the ability to project unparalleled influence on a global scale What is the quantitative metric of this?
- thesimpsons1022 10y ago
  GDP, military bases outside of the nation, aircraft carriers, deals/alliances with nations etc. There are far more qualitative ones like influence..
oliwarner 10y ago
And China couldn't? Well beside them making everything, they own or underwrite a vast amount of global infrastructure too. They can buy a lot more influence than the US could.
- novembermike 10y ago
  When faced with economic warfare, a country can simply nationalize all of the enemy country's assets. Who cares if you own every oil well in California, if you try to exploit that we just move troops in and take control. How does China defend the infrastructure they own?
  - oliwarner 10y ago
    Infrastructure funding is political influence. Non-warry stuff. But if you want to wage war on China be prepared to go back to the 50s. China and its immediate neighbours make everything. And have done for decades. No country has the standing manufacturing capability (facilities, machinery or trained/robotic workforce) to replace what China does for them. Some other Asian countries manufacturer electronics and India and Pakistan do textiles like nobody's business. This is where that influence from earlier came in. They've traded cash for foreign government bonds to ensure great tariffs and to stop protectionist policies. They pegged their currency to ensure their exports undercut everybody else. Automobiles are pretty much the last serious manufacturing done in market countries... And where do you think many of those source their parts and steel from? So yeah, you piss off China and they have the physical wherewithal to embargo almost all material imports. Your economy dies overnight. You take back a bridge and a nuclear power plant. Big whoop. What's your next move?

by dak1 10y ago

r00fus 10y ago

I must respectfully disagree. China is the worlds manufacturing center. The power it projects globally cannot be understated.

ponyfleisch 10y ago
I think this is about military power.
- igravious 10y ago
  I am not an expert but I don't think this is true. I think that would make for a very narrow definition of power, and by extension superpower. Intuitively power stems from all sorts of leverage. Could be knowledge based, economic, any number of factors. One term that is often bandied about is so-called soft power, cultural factors and what have you. I say thank goodness military might is not the only measure of power or we'd be in a sad state of affairs when you come to think of it. That's not to undersell the force projection of military might, and does not deny that the US (and Russia to a lesser extent) derive enjoy an outsized place on the world stage owing to military might. Put it another way. You may be right but I do not want you to be right. I don't want to live in that world.
  - philovivero 10y ago
    He's not right. If you discount China as a superpower, then you discount a country that could single-handedly throw the entire world into a state of political, economic, and military chaos overnight. Defining power as military-only is as naîve as defining it as male-only or violence-only or sword-only. You are right. One should take care defining a word so narrowly that it can only apply to one thing. If "superpower" by definition means "characteristics only the USA has" then why not just call it "USA?"
    - billskills 10y ago
      Look, you eggheads can whine about China's economy all you want, fact is, "power projection"/"force projection" is a _military term_ for the ability to assert military force in a given part of the world in a short period of time. You can argue about _that_ being US-centric if you want, and maybe you should, because most accountings of that metric have the US far ahead of the rest of the world.
      - Retric 10y ago
        China has nuclear weapons and a massive military so it clearly has force projection. The simple fact is the root of all military power is economic power to support a military. US for example does not spend an unreasonable chunk of it's GDP on the military, it just has a massive economy.
        Hyperborian 10y ago
        China also has a very limited air force and barely significant blue water naval capabilities. They are especially lacking in the kind of heavy lifting and transport necessary to make force projection even possible. Due to the size and power of their army and their nuclear capabilities it's safe to say that China is effectively immune to attack (even from the US), but they have a nearly non-existent ability to project force outside of their immediate sphere of influence. The US, on the other hand, has carrier groups that each have as much military power as many moderately sized nations. And we have ten of them stationed all over the world pretty much all the time. The difference is orders of magnitude.
        bryondowd 10y ago
        That last statement is very debatable. This [1] 2015 data puts us at 20th of around 150 countries with 3.3% of GDP. And most of the countries high on the list have pretty understandable reasons, like a history of local violence, aggressive neighbors, or in the case of Russia, themselves being aggressive. The EU together is reasonably comparable to the US in population, GDP, values, and enemies, but is actually closer to most threats, yet they come in as 1.5% of GDP. The US seems to me to put a rather high allocation toward military spending considering it has no significant enemies in the same hemisphere. None capable of projecting so far logistically. Then there's also what considering only GDP hides, which is the fact that even if every possible enemy to the US combined, the US net military spending would be significantly greater. And if an existential threat arose and warranted redirecting attention to the military, the US has a great deal of raw capacity it could bring to bear fairly quickly, which combined with having no enemies capable of quickly projecting into the US homeland, means there would likely be little issue ramping up in time for any crisis. In other words, I'd be curious to hear a justification for the US military expenditure not being unreasonable, because it seems to me it could be less than half what it is, and still leave the country totally secure against foreign threats. [1] http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?year_high_desc=true http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?year_h...
overcast 10y ago
Let's be realistic here, the only reason China is the worlds manufacturing center, is because Western companies are exploiting their cheap labor. Beyond that, they crank out everyone's cheap knockoffs.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

aries1980 10y ago

> is a term in political science that means the country has the ability to project unparalleled influence on a global scale What is the quantitative metric of this?

thesimpsons1022 10y ago
GDP, military bases outside of the nation, aircraft carriers, deals/alliances with nations etc. There are far more qualitative ones like influence..

oliwarner 10y ago

And China couldn't? Well beside them making everything, they own or underwrite a vast amount of global infrastructure too. They can buy a lot more influence than the US could.

novembermike 10y ago
When faced with economic warfare, a country can simply nationalize all of the enemy country's assets. Who cares if you own every oil well in California, if you try to exploit that we just move troops in and take control. How does China defend the infrastructure they own?
- oliwarner 10y ago
  Infrastructure funding is political influence. Non-warry stuff. But if you want to wage war on China be prepared to go back to the 50s. China and its immediate neighbours make everything. And have done for decades. No country has the standing manufacturing capability (facilities, machinery or trained/robotic workforce) to replace what China does for them. Some other Asian countries manufacturer electronics and India and Pakistan do textiles like nobody's business. This is where that influence from earlier came in. They've traded cash for foreign government bonds to ensure great tariffs and to stop protectionist policies. They pegged their currency to ensure their exports undercut everybody else. Automobiles are pretty much the last serious manufacturing done in market countries... And where do you think many of those source their parts and steel from? So yeah, you piss off China and they have the physical wherewithal to embargo almost all material imports. Your economy dies overnight. You take back a bridge and a nuclear power plant. Big whoop. What's your next move?