"Superpowers"

Can there ever be a national "super-power" to surpass the USA? Assuming that one accepts the idea that the USA is "the" super-power, I sometimes think it seems a stretch to imagine the "next" super-power. Even most books these days that set themselves in the future still have USA as the numero uno. Yet history suggests that the next super-power civilization already exists. So who will it be??

If I may be so naive as to propose one, and as much as I hate to admit it: Australia.

Oh, how disappointing. I thought this was a thread about super-heroes.

Australia? Please. The only reason they're any good in Risk is because they're isolated.

LOL same here transtemporal
oh well

yea dammit i was going to talk aboot starwars

Aussie won't be a super power. they have an island that is mostly uninhabitabal.

I too was sucked in by the title.


I'd say China or maybe even Samoa well before Austraila.

China, without a doubt.

And that fact scares me, a whole shitload.

China's already a superpower dpt. Where have you been living for the past decade?! My picks are India and Taiwan - both prolific industrial centers of technology. Not necessarily Military though.

borinscary - spot the comic people!

Japan

If youve been there you'll know why

India has too many social-economic problems to become a superpower, over 70% of the population do not have a secondary school education.

China are already a superpower and will surpass America if the yanks don't stop running around trying to play Big Brother.

It's very sad that a country with such a appalling
human rights record (China) is now a member of the world trade organiztion, and will soon become our second biggest export market.

But hey what can we do???
Jack-shit!

nrg, are you suggesting we keep sanctioning China (a tried and failed process) instead of actively getting China closer to the rest of the economic communities in an attempt to modernise and potentially change China's approach to human rights?

Or have you no hope?

As for the rest of you, where's your imagination (altho I must admit the Samoan suggestion did require a lot of imagination).

Australia has in less than 200 years become one of the most modern civilizations, with plenty of scope for development still. They have social systems in place that encourage entreprenuerial expansion, generally promote success and condemn failure, and have a flourishing exchange market that could conceivably become home to some of the biggest economies (read: companies) in the world.

Do pardon my choice of topic: I was merely reflecting on the fall of the US civilization from the starting premise that all great civilizations have historically fallen. What then begs the question is: who will replace the fallen?

yes china are already a super power as such, but they aren't number one - are they

"the fall of US civilisation"....a little dramatic perhaps?

Dont under estimate the Samoans.
They have "cells" all over the world collecting funds and sending them back to Samoa.
In Samoa they live with out luxury and get by on the bare essentials so this money they are collecting just piles up until they have enough to buy an arsenal that will help them take over the world.

Is that too immaginative?
Perhaps this should be in the conspiracy thread.

vinyl, the fall of the egyptians: dramatic. Fall of the Greeks: dramatic. Fall of the Romans: dramatic. Fall of the Prussians. Fall of the Russians: dramatic. Fall of the Germans: dramatic (arguable that German civilisation now is same one as previous, so they're still around) Civilisations fall, and when it's the big ones, it always seems dramatic for the time, but in an historical context has something of an inevitability about it.

China isn't politically considered a superpower - after the Cold War, the US is considered the only remaining superpower based on economic power, military might, size and political stability. China can't be a superpower if they remain communist - I don't think the system of communism will scale large enough to ever allow them to economically become a superpower. The US's trade is double the nearest rival (China I think) and whilst the Chinese military is the biggest (I think), most of it is deployed on the border keeping track of rebels and places like Tibet.

I too agree that by no means should China be a member of the WTO - it undermines most of the concepts of capitalism and certainly the notion of "free" trade as in freedom for people to trade, get decent wages, conditions etc. I can't see their human rights record changing anytime soon either.

Yeah, the 'idea' behind getting them into the WTO is that one in the WTO the WTO has leverage over China to force them to fix their human rights policy. i.e. they can threaten to kick them out etc.

Similarly, other countries can bring disputes against China within the WTO for the conditions of the workers.

Well, that's the other side's theory (read some of the economist.com discussion papers and artciles).

Perosnally, I agree with ya - they should have kept them out, and only let them in when things are fixed up.

Funny you mentioned the "scalibility" of communism - I've been thinking about that lately. Have you noticed that China has been gradually taking up capitalist policies? They're certainly more open towards them now than they wee. Unfortunately it hasn't extended towards putting an end to the repression of their people (falun Gong etc), or their annoyance at renegade Taiwan.

What they do to Falung Gong is scary, last year I worked at e-solutions where we were hosting the nz falungong site (www.falungong.co.nz, since been closed). Anyway, the site was hacked by a party that looked suspiciously like the Chinese Government (or one of its many arms), it was all in Chinese and had pics of Mao and the flag all over it plus links to what looked like pro-china propaganda stuff. Their reach amazed me, it was weird that they went to all that effort simply to shut down an nz based site. Strange thing was that they continued to do it after the site was reinstated and eventually the guy maintaining it just gave up.

Bloody stupid. You reckon the government is hacking? Trace those IPs ah? *grin*

Although China vs. Taiwan worries me, what worries me more is India vs. Pakistan in the current tensions. Or US vs. Iraq if the US decides to go in head first....

But that isn't really about superpowers as such.

VIU - we did trace them and they originated in China (although that doesn't say much). It wasn't my job to go any further and I doubt we would have got much further if we had to involve some Chinese ISP...

How about the new world order, there going to be running the show soon

Haha, entirely possible.

And just to cliarify, by "bloody stupid", I was meaning the Chinese crackdown on Falun Gong in NZ. Not the ISP peeps.

China.... oh dear... china.... Not the best country. I hope they improve. China has so much power and future power that even the US don't want to offend it.... cause they don't want China to bite back in the future....

United States of Europe will be the next superpower. They already have acommon currency, used by more citizens than the US dollar they are self sufficient and they already have a big arsenal of nukes.

I can't blame the Chinese crackdown on Falun Gong. Dispite that's it's qi gong, that practices non violence it's still a highly political vehicle. When you out number the communist party and decide to stage a 'peaceful' 'non-polical' protest by forming a human barrier around the entire chinese parlianment, it's a big show of strength. Falun Gong scares the communist party big time. They are just trying to hang onto power any way they can.

Also I rate India a country of kicking serious arse in the future. One billion people, pretty high tech as well, nuclear weapons, breeeding like rabbits. Smells like good combination if you are building a nation to lay the smack down on someone.