The US, GB, France, Russia, Japan, were all about the same weight class as Germany. Slightly behind that came middle powers like Italy and Austria Hungary and e

The US, GB, France, Russia, Japan, were all about the same weight class as Germany. Slightly behind that came middle powers like Italy and Austria Hungary and even further behind countries like China and Turkey, that did have the potential but were not in a good position at that point in time. All in all, the playing field was much more diverse back than. Edit: To emphasize my point: Around 1900, Germany was in constant search for allies to break out of the entanglement between GB, Russia, and France. Germany could manage to win a war against one or with some luck even two of their opponents. Three were always considered too much. China and the US nowadays only ever need to win one war against one opponent to win unopposed world dominance.