Superpower
A superpower is a state that can influence and determine global developments due to its outstanding capabilities and potential, or does so. Influence exists worldwide on states and the relations between states.
Global political assertiveness and opportunities to influence arise from the economic, industrial, technological, financial and military potential of this state. It is particularly characterized by the ability to project military power worldwide, including the possession of strategic nuclear weapons . A superpower usually has the status of a sea power .
The impetus for political action is a developed state philosophy or ideology, the goals of which are borne by society, internalized culturally and act as a potential influence on a world scale ( world power ).
USA and USSR
After the Second World War, the representatives were the United States (USA) and the Soviet Union (USSR). With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, only the USA remained as a superpower.
In 1917, the United States abandoned the isolationism it had previously practiced (see United States Foreign Policy ). From 1917 it was her endeavor to spread her own liberal political values internationally ("bourgeois internationalism "). On April 6, 1917 , the USA declared war on the German Reich.
President Woodrow Wilson was the first to make the spread of democracy based on a liberal-capitalist system a political goal in 1918 through the 14-point program . This foreign policy approach then continued with the formation of the state of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1945, the American Middle East policy and in many other places.
The term “superpower” is mostly used in terms of military power, and is sometimes associated with economic significance. Military power does not necessarily have to match economic potency. This discrepancy between the economy and the military usually causes the state to decline in importance after a relatively short period of strength. An example of this is the Soviet Union; it was less and less able to keep up with the arms race during the Cold War and, after an agony in the 1990s, disintegrated just like the Eastern Bloc shortly before .
Other
The European Union , the People's Republic of China and Russia , along with the USA, are considered potential superpowers of the 21st century, even if the former is not an actual state.
In antiquity there were two dominant empires, which were initially represented by the Persian Empire , stretching from southeast Europe via Egypt to India. And the Roman Empire , whose exercise of power in the Mediterranean was known as ecumenism . This term meant "the entire inhabited world" under the rule of the Roman emperors , who guaranteed peace ( Pax Romana ), economic well-being and a unified culture. In the Middle Ages the Franconian Empire had a similar self-image and a comparable meaning in Europe. The search for the sea route to India and the discovery of America in 1492 brought about a new understanding of the geographical term "world". In the course of European colonization , the British Empire and the French Empire achieved a leading position. According to the definition commonly used today, the states listed were rather great powers in their time .
Definition of terms
The outstanding role, importance and potential of the great powers USA and the USSR in the course of the Second World War, during the conflict between NATO and the Warsaw contracting states after the war and the possession of strategic nuclear forces led to the introduction of the term superpower for these great powers.
As long as only the US and the USSR had atomic bombs, the terms superpower and nuclear power were synonymous.
After 1990 and the collapse of the USSR as the leading power of the Warsaw Pact and Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance), the term hyperpower (meaning “sole superpower”) was occasionally used for the USA ; however, the term did not establish itself.
Use of words
"' To demonstrate the fragility of the superpower is to demonstrate the fragility of the world order.'"
See also
literature
- Christian Hacke: Condemned to be a world power. American foreign policy from JF Kennedy to GW Bush . 2nd edition, Federal Agency for Civic Education , Bonn 2003.
- Paul M. Kennedy: The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. New York 1987.
- Paul M. Kennedy: The Rise and Fall of British Maritime Power. Bonn 1978.
- Halford Mackinder : Democratic Ideals and Reality. New York 1962.
- Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Influence of Sea Power on History. Herford 1967.
- Friedrich Ruge: Politics and Strategy. Frankfurt am Main 1967.
- Immanuel Wallerstein: Crash or Descent of the Eagle? The decline of American power. VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-89965-057-3 .
- Zbigniew Brzeziński : The only world power: America's strategy of domination . Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 978-3-596-14358-0 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ www.globalpowereurope.eu
- ^ Mark Leonard: Europe: the new superpower , 2005.
- ↑ Ode to Joy ?; Europavisionen, issue 1/2004
- ↑ The EU and China as future superpowers?
- ↑ manager magazine
- ↑ Focus-Online: The yellow superpower
- ^ Giovanna Borradori : Philosophy in Times of Terror. Philo, Berlin / Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-86572-358-6 , p. 194.