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By PPP GDP India is already the fourth largest economy in the world, and Brazil ranks ahead of the UK and France. Both nations have space programs and both have a lot more potential than the three mature but smaller powers. Don't forget India has nukes and is moving up quickly in tech.
By PPP GDP India is already the fourth largest economy in the world, and Brazil ranks ahead of the UK and France. Both nations have space programs and both have a lot more potential than the three mature but smaller powers. Don't forget India has nukes and is moving up quickly in tech.
The UK and France are also major nuclear powers. The same applies to the space program.
Meanwhile, one of my close Indian friends has been dealing with regular power outages in Delhi. India has a long way to go before it comes close to matching the aforementioned countries.
I will echo some of the other posters who said Russia is easily number 3. It could be number 2 actually but I would give that to China. The top 3 are easy to figure out. Number 4 is debatable. I would say Germany for number 4 because of its power position within the EU.
If we are talking politically then Germany has one MASSIVE disadvantage - the EU! Germany cannot come to any major 'global' political decision without the 'OK' from 20 something other sovereign states first! Thats a huge handicap!
If we are talking politically then Germany has one MASSIVE disadvantage - the EU! Germany cannot come to any major 'global' political decision without the 'OK' from 20 something other sovereign states first! Thats a huge handicap!
Except out of these 20+ Germany only cares about France, they even forget Spain and Italy exist nevermind Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechia etc. One way to end this though is already heavily in the making: smaller countries create subunion in the eu that grows stronger, examples: Nordic union, V4 (central europe) - very soon the EU will be just Germany, France, Benelux, V4 + some sort of southern europe etc.
I will echo some of the other posters who said Russia is easily number 3. It could be number 2 actually but I would give that to China. The top 3 are easy to figure out. Number 4 is debatable. I would say Germany for number 4 because of its power position within the EU.
If we are talking politically then Germany has one MASSIVE disadvantage - the EU! Germany cannot come to any major 'global' political decision without the 'OK' from 20 something other sovereign states first! Thats a huge handicap!
The UK and France are also major nuclear powers. The same applies to the space program.
Meanwhile, one of my close Indian friends has been dealing with regular power outages in Delhi. India has a long way to go before it comes close to matching the aforementioned countries.
We're not talking about living standards but influence. Size matters whether you like it or not. Brazil for example has enough land to feed another half billion people if its wants, or let the Amazon burn and raise atmospheric carbon significantly. Businesses can more easily ignore the French or German market than the Indian market.
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Originally Posted by easthome
If we are talking politically then Germany has one MASSIVE disadvantage - the EU! Germany cannot come to any major 'global' political decision without the 'OK' from 20 something other sovereign states first! Thats a huge handicap!
The other problem with Germany is that it is reluctant to deploy it's military abroad and is very much a European power rather than a country that gets involved in Foreign affairs outside of Europe.
Germany has a small navy and tends to be concentrated on defending it's own borders and it's also not a nuclear power. The EU is also a paper tiger, and this was shown during the Balkan Wars when the EU sat on it's hands and the situation was eventually resolved by the US and NATO.
The UK and France are the two European nations that tend to become more involved in gobal issues and both work closely together in areas such as defence based around the Lancaster House Treaties. Britain and France also have a Combined Joint Expeditionary Force which can be rapidly deployed where ever needed.
The UK also has a lot of power in terms of the UN Security Council, NATO, the Commonwealth and it's relationship with the US, it also has a large foreign aid budget and a media presents in most of the world with the BBC World Service covering most of the globe and breoadcast in nearly every language.
Post Brexit, the UK will maintain ties with Europe as well as exploring closer anglosphere ties.
In terms of who is third in the world, India is still too poor to be seen as a top three country and it doesn't have the same impact on the global stae as Putin's Russia, which is definately third imho and that's despite it's relatively lacklustre economy.
Last edited by Brave New World; 01-30-2020 at 09:45 AM..
This. Russia has a lot more geopolitical weight than these other countries. I disagree with the North Korea comparison (I understand why a Russia hater like euro123 would say that however), because Russia’s foreign policy has had a lot more effects on other countries and existing conflicts than NK, which people only care about when they have nothing else to deal with.
To me, a big item in the CON column for Japan, Germany, the UK and France is the fact that on many questions, they are still so closely aligned with the US that it is very difficult to argue that they truly have influence. Now if the EU (and therefore Germany and France although all countries would contribute to its political weight) struck any sort of significant deal on climate with China and India but without the US (or even against the US), then that could change.
Russia is a master in manipulation and most importantly, it has a global reach. It's a major security threat to Europe and the US, is one of the most influential players in the Middle East, has some interests in the Far East, and controls a ton of oil and gas. It's less influential in Latin America and Africa, but these 2 continents are by far the most irrelevant anyway. Germany, France, and the UK don't measure up at all.
Germany is an economic powerhouse and is the backbone of Europe, but beyond that it has very little agency in geopolitics today outside of its own continent. It's not a major player elsewhere at all and has no military capacity. France and the UK have deep rooted interests in the Middle East and Africa and they have nuclear warheads, but they are next to total non-entities in Asia-Pacific (esp. France), which is the epicentre of the world stage atm.
Japan is a huge player in the Asia-Pacific region and North America, but has little influence everywhere else. They keep a very low-profile in world affairs apart from those that would affect themselves, which really are just their disputes with North Korea, South Korea, and China.
In the end Russia is the indisputable #3, and in some ways even #2. There'd be more of a debate on #4, but none of the candidates really hold a candle against the the top 3.
^ The only indisputable thing about russia is that no one in eastern europe speaks russian these days compared to 1980.
Both France and the UK have 10 times more power separately compared to Russia in every single aspect: language influence, economy, tourism, currencies, startups, financial centres, gdp projections, influence over other countries etc etc.
Just because the American media obsess with Ukraine/Russia for some reason doesn't mean america is the only trustworthy source of news in this world.
The thread title does say politically influential. Not economic, cultural, language, technology or innovation etc. Russia wields a considerably heavier hand of political will than the rest of Europe.
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