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A lot of what Americans think of as 'American' culture is often from somewhere else!I Or it's more of a 'global' culture, I would suggest that Italy has the greatest food culture, the US when it comes to film, the UK when it comes to books/theatre and sports,we can ALL thank the Greeks for modern Democracy, the British for the Industrial Revolution, the Germans for giving us cars, the Italians for art and the Scots for giving us the TV! As for China, like it or not they have given the world an awful lot over the last 3000 years!
As for military 'super powers' I suggest ANY of the nation's with nuclear military capabilities that have the potential to destroy the world by that very nature is somewhat if a 'super power' no? :-)
By that measure you're down to the US and Russia.......
The rest could inflict some damage but hardly destroy..........
By that measure you're down to the US and Russia.......
The rest could inflict some damage but hardly destroy..........
Oh I reckon any nuclear power could easily put the US and Russia out of action, if you think anybody can claim some kind of military Victory from mutual destruction then you're wrong - everybody loses.
Oh I reckon any nuclear power could easily put the US and Russia out of action, if you think anybody can claim some kind of military Victory from mutual destruction then you're wrong - everybody loses.
At the very least, China belongs in the equation as well.
India I feel is inevitable, will just take time. They will be the next China within 50 years.
Brazil is very longshot hopeful, but they will need to right the ship and find really good leadership for a few decades. The odds of them being considered where the US and China are today though I think are exceptionally remote this century.
None of the others seem at all like "superpower" possibilities today.
Canada can benefit in world influence from climate migration and immigration booms to become a stronger regional power, but actually may lose economic clout with the decline of oil dependency. South Korea I think is possibly riding its highest wave today, with an aging population and below replacement level fertility. The European powers (Germany, UK, France, Italy) will likely experience a bit of waning influence in the world but will remain important through this century. I don't see Russia ever reaching its heights of global influence during the USSR days, I think they've peaked in the past already and hopefully will mature into a good global citizen after its Putin days. Soft power will mean even more for a country going forward this century.
Other darkhorses in the poll: Nigeria and Indonesia as future significant heavyweights of their regions (all of Africa, and Southeast Asia, respectively) but they are nowhere close to even being thought of as possible future superpowers.
The others on the list (Turkey, South Africa, Mexico, Poland, Australia); never in our current lifespans. Some on that list are even hardly regional powers there.
Canada isn't likely to become a superpower, for several reasons, but one big one is, we don't want to be one.
Sort of depends on what we're using as the basis of a superpower. OP somehow listed both Japan and Germany as superpowers, and if their 2018 relative "power" ranking in the world is the cut-off, then I can see Canada being about par relative to such in 30 years. Lots of natural resources, lots of human resources with its corporate base and research institutions, a pretty high standard of living and per capita output that if continued with Canada's pretty rapid population growth, could conceivably put Canada in those ranks.
At the very least, China belongs in the equation as well.
I agree--it's hard to think of putting Russia up there without at least having China as well. Russia has a lot of economic and related corruption issues that make it a hard argument.
As for the topic.
I think it really depends on what threshold we're setting for superpower. I argue that the US and China are definitely a superpower, Russia is a maybe.
I think India has way too many intrinsic issues to get there within 30 years time if the threshold for superpower is the current position of the US and China. Really, that partition was insane and a slightly more loosely federated India that included Pakistan and Bangladesh would have probably been better.
I agree that Brazil seems like a very, very long shot despite its size and population as there's a lot of room to make up and a lot of growing pains. I think similarly of Indonesia and Nigeria though to different degrees of severity.
A peaceably united Korea can be a major power, but it's doubtful it'd be a superpower.
The only other major pathway to this would be stronger federations that then act as nation-states. The most likely of those would be the European Union which has at least the basis of a framework for that. There's also an expanded Russia that gets its act together . Then there are various other proposed ones that aren't as far along and probably won't get that far along in the next 30 years in Latin America, South Africa, the Middle East, and East Africa and are still at the level of customs and common currency unions if that.
Sort of depends on what we're using as the basis of a superpower. OP somehow listed both Japan and Germany as superpowers, and if their 2018 relative "power" ranking in the world is the cut-off, then I can see Canada being about par relative to such in 30 years. Lots of natural resources, lots of human resources with its corporate base and research institutions, a pretty high standard of living and per capita output that if continued with Canada's pretty rapid population growth, could conceivably put Canada in those ranks.
Some of those area yes.
However, not so much the militaristic, pushy, arrogant and full of themselves type of superpowers that existed and exist today.
Sure, but neither Japan nor Germany today (or in 2018 when this thread was created) have that and the OP still listed them as superpowers.
Embrace the Canadian Century and the great Pax Canada
Ha, ha, ha.
I have no doubt Canada's future is one of growth. Maybe it's the term superpower that puts me off.
I'd rather go with a Positive Global Influence.
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