The changing balance of global power

Question 1

Context to consider

Answer 1

• How states are viewed and their significance as powers within the international system.
• Why and how this power is classified.

Question 2

Define great powers

Answer 2

• Has the capacity for significant regional influence, militarily and economically within their ‘near abroad’.
• Should possess a major role in international organisations (UN, G7/8 and G20)

Question 3

Define superpowers

Answer 3

• Must have significant global reach - able to exert anywhere at any time, particularly true in the case of military power.
• Must have nuclear weapons, although recent developments in cyber technology may reduce nuclear importance.
• Should exert dominant structural power within important institutions of regional and global governance.
• Possess a world view and willingness to proactively enforce that view in international relations.
• US foreign policy professor W.T.R Fox stated in 1944 that a superpower will possess ‘great power plus great mobility of power’.

Question 4

Define emerging powers

Answer 4

• Not met all the criteria to become a great power.
• Growing rapidly powerful in some areas with a level of significant regional influence but in some, other areas it may still be developing.

Question 5

Changing historical context - before World War One

Answer 5

There were several great powers, including Great Britain, France and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Question 6

Changing historical context - interwar period

Answer 6

The emergence of new powers during 1918-1939, such as Fascist Italy, Japan, Nazi Germany, the Communist Soviet Union and the USA, meant that global power was shared more equally.

Question 7

Changing historical context - post-WW2

Answer 7

• Power shifted again to the war’s successors, the dominant Allied powers (China, Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the USA).
• Reflected in the many international institutions that were formed by and contained representatives of these powers (UNSC).

Question 8

Changing historical context - Cold War

Answer 8

• Two clear superpowers: the USA and the Soviet Union - engaged in a rivalry based on ideology.
• Unrivalled by any other state, both had their own clear ideological and regional sphere: US dominated the West with capitalism and the Soviet Union dominated the East with communism.
• Virtually every other state were aligned to the USA or the USSR and their respective ideology.

Question 9

Changing historical context - post-Cold War before 2001

Answer 9

• When communism collapsed in Eastern Europe, leading to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the USA, as the sole remaining superpower, possessed global hegemonic status.
• No other power came close to matching its influence, with US political commentator Krauthammer coined the phrase ‘America’s unipolar moment’.
• However, especially since the bloody aftermath of the Iraq War 2003 and the global financial crisis (2008), emerging powers (China/Russia) have begun to challenge US hegemony.
• Lead to some predicting that global politics is entering a period of power transition - more multipolar balance of power.