Great power

. Shown here is the Security Council Chamber.]] A great power is a nation or state that has the ability to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess economic, military, diplomatic, and cultural strength, which may cause small powers and small states to consider the opinions of great powers before taking actions of their own. International relations theorists have posited that great power status can be characterized into power capabilities, spatial aspects, and status dimensions. Sometimes the status of great powers is formally recognized in conferences such as the Congress of Vienna or an international structure such as the United Nations Security Council. The formalization of the division between small powers and great powers came about with the signing of the Treaty of Chaumont in 1814. Since then, the international balance of power has shifted numerous times, most dramatically during World War I and World War II. While some nations are widely considered to be great powers, there is no definitive list of them.

Characteristics

There are no set or defined characteristics of a great power. These characteristics have often been treated as empirical, self-evident to the assessor. However, this approach has the disadvantage of subjectivity. As a result, there have been attempts to derive some common criteria and to treat these as essential elements of great power status.

Early writings on the subject tended to judge states by the realist criterion, as expressed by the historian A. J. P. Taylor when he noted that "The test of a great power is the test of strength for war." Later writers have expanded this test, attempting to define power in terms of overall military, economic, and political capacity. Kenneth Waltz, the founder of the neorealist theory of international relations, uses a set of five criteria to determine great power: population and territory; resource endowment; economic capability; political stability and competence; and military strength. These expanded criteria can be divided into three heads: power capabilities, spatial aspects, and status.

This differed from earlier writers, notably from Leopold von Ranke, who clearly had a different idea of the world situation. In his essay 'The Great Powers', written in 1833, von Ranke wrote: "If one could establish as a definition of a Great power that it must be able to maintain itself against all others, even when they are united, then Frederick has raised Prussia to that position." These positions have been the subject of criticism.

Other suggestions have been made that a great power should have the capacity to engage in extra-regional affairs and that a great power ought to be possessed of extra-regional interests, two propositions which are often closely connected.

Status dimension

Formal or informal acknowledgment of a nation's great-power status has also been a criterion for being a great power. As political scientist George Modelski notes, "The status of Great power is sometimes confused with the condition of being powerful, The office, as it is known, did in fact evolve from the role played by the great military states in earlier periods ... But the Great power system institutionalizes the position of the powerful state in a web of rights and obligations."

This approach restricts analysis to the post-Congress of Vienna epoch; it being there that great powers were first formally recognized.

A further option is to examine a state's willingness to act as a great power.

Over time, the relative power of these five nations fluctuated, which by the dawn of the 20th century had served to create an entirely different balance of power. Some, such as the United Kingdom and Prussia (as part of the newly-formed German state), experienced continued economic growth and political power. Others, such as Russia and Austria-Hungary, stagnated. At the same time, other states were emerging and expanding in power, largely through the process of industrialization. The foremost of these emerging powers were Japan after the Meiji Restoration and the United States after its civil war, both of which had been minor powers in 1815. By the dawn of the 20th century the balance of world power had changed substantially since the Congress of Vienna. The Eight-Nation Alliance was a belligerent alliance of eight nations against the Boxer Rebellion in China. It formed in 1900 and consisted of the five Congress powers plus Italy, Japan, and the United States, representing the great powers at the beginning of 20th century.

Great powers at war

: Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill meeting at the Cairo Conference in 1943.]] at the Treaty of Versailles: David Lloyd George, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, Georges Clemenceau and Woodrow Wilson.]]Shifts of international power have most notably occurred through major conflicts. The conclusion of the Great War and the resulting treaties of Versailles, St-Germain, and Trianon witnessed Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan and the United States as the chief arbiters of the new world order. In the aftermath of World War I the German Empire was defeated, the Austria-Hungarian empire was divided into new, less powerful states and the Russian Empire fell to a revolution. During the Treaty of Versailles the "Big Three" — France, Great Britain and the United States — held noticeably more power and influence on the proceedings and outcome of the treaty than Italy or Japan. The victorious great powers also gained an acknowledgement of their status through permanent seats at the League of Nations Council, where they acted as a type of executive body directing the Assembly of the League. But the Council began with only four permanent members — Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan – because the United States, meant to be the fifth permanent member, left because the US Senate voted on 19 March 1920 against the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, thus preventing American participation in the League.

When World War II started in 1939, it divided the world into two alliances – the Allies (the United Kingdom and France at first, followed in 1941 by the Soviet Union, the United States, and China); and the Axis powers consisting of Germany, Italy and Japan. The end of World War II saw the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union emerge as the primary victors. The importance of the Republic of China and France was acknowledged by their inclusion, along with the other three, in the group of countries allotted permanent seats in the United Nations Security Council.

at the Yalta Conference: Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin.]]Since the end of the World Wars, the term "great power" has been joined by a number of other power classifications. Foremost among these is the concept of the superpower, used to describe those nations with overwhelming power and influence in the rest of the world. It was first coined in 1944 by William T.R. Fox The term middle power has emerged for those nations which exercise a degree of global influence, but are insufficient to be decisive on international affairs. Regional powers are those whose influence is generally confined to their region of the world.

During the Cold War, the Asian power of Japan and the European powers of the United Kingdom, France, and West Germany rebuilt their economies. France and the United Kingdom maintained technologically advanced armed forces with power projection capabilities and maintain large defence budgets to this day. Yet, as the Cold War continued, authorities began to question if France and the United Kingdom could retain their long-held statuses as great powers. China, with the world's largest population, has slowly risen to great power status, with large growth in economic and military power in the post-war period. By the 1970s, the Republic of China began to lose its recognition as the sole legitimate government of China by the other great powers, in favour of the People's Republic of China. Subsequently, in 1971, it lost its permanent seat at the UN Security Council to the People's Republic of China.

Aftermath of the Cold War

[[Image:Great Powers Map.png|349px|thumb|right|The present day governments thought of as great powers ---- ]]

At present China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States are sometimes referred to as great powers, although there is no unanimous agreement among authorities as to the current status of these powers or what precisely defines a "great" power. These five nations are the only states to have permanent seats on the UN Security Council. They are also the recognized "Nuclear Weapons States" under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Sources have at times referred to China, France, and the UK as "middle powers". In addition, despite the lack of a permanent seat at the UN Security Council, Germany and Japan are occasionally considered to be great powers, although Germany and Japan are referred to by others as middle powers or economic great powers.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, its UN Security Council permanent seat was transferred to the Russian Federation in 1991, as its successor state. The newly-formed Russian Federation emerged on the level of a great power, leaving the United States as the only remaining global superpower (although some support a multipolar world view).

With continuing European integration, the European Union is increasingly being seen as a great power in its own right, most notably in areas where it has exclusive competence (i.e. economic affairs), and with representation at the WTO and at G8 and G-20 summits. The European Union, however, is not a sovereign state and has limited scope in the areas of foreign affairs and defence policy, which remain with the union's member states, including France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

See also

Superpower (and Hyperpower)

Potential superpowers

Historical powers

Middle power

Regional power

Energy superpower

G7 and G8 respectively

Notes

Further reading

The Tragedy of Great Power Politics by John J. Mearsheimer

Theory of International Politics by Kenneth N Waltz

World Politics: Trend and Transformation by Eugene R. Witkopf

The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy

France and the Nazi Threat: The Collapse of French Diplomacy 1932–1939 by Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, Introduction by Anthony Adamthwaite (Enigma Books, ISBN 1-929631-15-4)

Power