Superpowers Flashcards
7.1 - What is a superpower and hegemony?
‘A superpower is a country that has the capacity to project dominating power and influence anywhere in the world, and sometimes, and in more then are region of the globe at a time and so many attain the status of global hegemony.’ Alice Lyman Miller 2006
Hegemony - dominance of one state over others.
- EG - USA’s global hegemony is ensured by its impressive military spending
Britain’s navy made it hegemonic in the nineteenth century
7.1 - How can you ‘project power’?
How can you “project power”?
- Geography
- Natural resources
- Demographic
- Cultural
- Political
- Economic
- Military
7.1 - What is hard, soft and smart power and what is their effectiveness based upon?
Hard power eg German Invasion into Poland in 1939
- Based on military intervention, coercive diplomacy and economic sanctions
- Relies on tangible power resources such as armed forces
Effectiveness: Traditional tools such as large armed forces - High national income - Essentially a good economy
Soft power eg USA global dominance via TNC’s such as Coca cola
- The capacity to persuade someone to do what one wants (Wilson) - Associated with intangible power resources such as culture, ideology etc(Nye)
Effectiveness: Persuasive skills - Attractiveness - How good a country is at distributing culture
Smart power: Draws from both hard and soft resources - Underscores the necessity of a strong military but also invests heavily in alliances, partnerships and institutions
7.6a - What is a superpower?
A nation which has the ability to project its influence around the world
7.1 - What evidence is there for uneven patterns of consumption of world resources?
China consumed around half the worlds steel in 2014
- Global steel consumption has increased since 1995 - the entire growth is made up from China
7.6a - What evidence is there that rising superpowers are increasing demand for commodities?
Demand for things such as cars has increased as wealth has risen, in the US (2007) there are 820 cars per 1000 people
7.6a - What evidence is there that rising superpowers have increased demand for food?
World grain production has doubled since 1982
- Increased since 1975 0 the enviro consequences of this include increased greenhouse gases
7.6a - What evidence is there that rising superpower have increased demand for energy?
World coal fired electricity has doubled since 1992
- increased CO2
J - renewable increasing too
7.6a - Explain how superpower resource demand can cause enviro degradation?
- With an increase in demand for food, energy and commodities, CO2 output has risen causing air pollution and the increase in factories to supply commodities has led to water pollution as waste is often dumped into bodies of water
7.6a - What environmental degradation can superpower resource demand cause?
- Commodity demand
- Urbanisation
- Food and energy production
- CO2 output
- Climate emergency
- Soil degradation
- Air and water pollution
- Loss of biodiversity
7.6c - How are global middle class numbers changing and where do they live?
Global middle class numbers are defined by living on $10 to $100 a day
- 2009 - 1.6bil
- 2030 - 5bil - almost all the growth in Asia and the Pacific
Hotspots - Japan, South Korean and Europe
7.6c - What are things the middle class demands?
- Travel (mostly by air)
- Fast food
- Heating/air conditioning
- Cars
- Housing - build cities
7.6c - What are the implications of world middle class growth?
- E-waste
- Global travel
- Rare-earth mining
- Rapid economic growth
- Population growth
- Enviro Kuznets curve
7.6c - What is e-waste and how might it effect the environment and the availability and cost of resources?
Rise in middle class = rise in electronic goods thrown away - contain toxic and valuable materials
Enviro - backyard businesses resort to hammers and burning = local pollution and health impacts - toxic materials in e-waste eg mercury and lead pollute area
A+C of resources - sharp rise in discarded electronics - generating millions of tonnes of hazardous waste putting pressure on valuable resources - risk future production of devices + high costs without recycling
7.6c - What is global travel and how might it effect the environment and the availability and cost of resources?
Higher incomes = affordability of travel - 6400 employees of a Chinese company went to France
Enviro - high carbon emission from airplanes and travelling in 146 buses - pollute local enviro
A+C of resources - more than 4700 rooms booked at 140 hotels - shortage of rooms - potential cost of other rooms rise to bring demand down
7.6c - What is rare earth mining and how might it effect the environment and the availability and cost of resources?
Illegal mining and overcapacity of rare earth = producers making a loss
Enviro - over extraction can lead to harming the earth - smelting the metals = pollution
A+C of resources - price of rare earths may continue to decrease and oversupply will continue to occur
7.6c - What is rapid economic growth and how might it effect the environment and the availability and cost of resources?
China’s industrial growth depends on coal
Enviro - large sections of ocean no longer sustain marine life - sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides spewed by China’s coal fired power plants - falls as acid rain on South Korea and Tokyo
A+C of resources - Nearly 500mil people lack access to safe drinking water - coal readily available but one of the dirtiest sources
7.6c - What is population growth and how might it effect the environment and the availability and cost of resources?
Increase in population = increase in demand for food, commodities and resources
Enviro - pollute and degrade due to demand - degraded land from food waste and reduced water tables from irrigation needed to produce animal feed grain production and coral reef destruction from sun-screens used on vacation
A+C on resources - supply of resources is scarce and may become scarcer still from the high demand of the middle class
7.6c - What is the enviro Kuznets curve?
Demonstrates that pollution and enviro degradation surpasses the level of income per capita however the trend reverses at the higher income levels leading to enviro upgrading and a decoupling of emissions and GDP
- offers a glimmer of hope as more countries reach the turning point where they will be able to afford to rescue enviro damage ‘decoupling’ their GDP growth from enviro damage
7.6c - What does the enviro Kuznets curve have implications of on the enviro and availability and cost of resources?
Enviro - initial heavy reliance on ‘dirtier fuels’ (coal) polluting enviro - after turning point tougher enviro laws put in place eg emission zones - CO2 emissions fell by 34.2% while GDP grew by 70.7% between 1985 and 2016 in the UK
A+C of resources - high demand for ‘dirtier fuels’ (coal) initially to assist rapid econ growth - China is the largest producers of fossil fuel CO2 emissions in 2017 (27.21%) - after turning point shift in demand for renewables
7.7a - How can tensions between countries arise?
- over the acquisition of physical resources (Arctic oil and gas) - who owns what
- disagreements over the exploitation of resources
7.7a - What are some examples of acts of geopolitical power in response to tensions over resources?
- Planting of the Russian flag at the north pole in 2007
- Echo’s the Apollo missions - US landing on the moon
- British commonwealth climbing Mt. Everest
7.7a - Why might countires be interested in the Arctic and what could go wrong?
- Thought to be 13% of the undiscovered oil in the world - Arctic oil reserves raise geopolitical tensions
- Greenland could stage independence if they find oil - would finance their independence
- Exclusive Economic Zones - 200miles of the coast - established globally - Cold war - Iceland vs UK
- Arctic oil very dangerous - Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico spewed 780,000m3 of crude oil from April 20 to Sept 19 2010
- Fishing industry - trawling - leaves scars on the seafloor and skills twice as much fish as is allowed onshore
- 2020 - 20,000 tonnes of diesel fuel spilled into a river inside the Arctic Circle near the city of Norilsk Russia
7.7a - How has climate change added to tensions over resources?
Sea ice coverage in the Arctic has decreased by 1/3 since 1979
- May 2020 - a Russian tanker crossed Arctic route (North East passage) without icebreaker assistance
- a new sea route needs controlling - 12 Russian military bases along the route/coast
- China describes themselves as a ‘Near Arctic state’ and wants a polar silk road
- America ordered a new fleet of icebreakers (3) to be build by 2029 in June 2020
