Great power
A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power influence, which may cause middle or small powers to consider the great powers' opinions 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.
While some nations are widely considered to be great powers, there is considerable debate on the exact criteria for great power status. Historically, great powers have been formally recognized as members of organizations such as the Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815 or the United Nations Security Council, of which the permanent members are China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The United Nations Security Council, NATO Quint, the G7, BRICS, and the Contact Group have all been described as great power concerts.
The term "great power" was first used to describe the most important powers in Europe during the post-Napoleonic era. The "Great Powers" constituted the "Concert of Europe" and claimed the right to joint enforcement of the postwar treaties. 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. In literature, world power and major power are often used as synonyms for "great power".
Characteristics
There are no set or defined characteristics of a great power. Analysts have often regarded any such characteristics as empirical, self-evident to the assessor. However, this approach has the disadvantage of subjectivity. As a result, theorists have made attempts to derive some common criteria and to treat these as essential elements of great-power status. Danilovichighlights three central characteristics: "power, spatial, and status dimensions", that distinguish major powers from other states.
The following discussion on characteristics is extracted from her discussion of these three dimensions, including all of the citations.
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 six criteria to determine great-power status: population and territory, resource endowment, military strength, economic capability, political stability and competence.
John Mearsheimer defined great powers as those that "have sufficient military assets to put up a serious fight in an all-out conventional war against the most powerful state in the world".
Power dimensions
As noted above, for many, power capabilities are the sole criterion. Even under more expansive tests, power retains a vital place.This aspect has received mixed treatment, with some confusion as to the degree of power required. Writers have approached the concept of "great power" with differing conceptualizations of the world situation, from multi-polarity to overwhelming hegemony. In his essay, "French Diplomacy in the Postwar Period", the French historian Jean-Baptiste Duroselle spoke of the concept of multi-polarity: "A Great power is one which is capable of preserving its own independence against any other single power."
This attitude differed from that of earlier writers, notably Leopold von Ranke, who clearly had a different idea of the world situation in his day. 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 attracted criticism.
In 2011, the United States of America had 10 major strengths according to Chinese scholar Peng Yuan, the director of the Institute of American Studies of the China Institutes for Contemporary International Studies.
However he also noted where the US had recently slipped:
Spatial dimension
All states have a geographic scope of interests, actions, or projected power. This is a crucial factor in distinguishing a great power from a regional power; by definition, the scope of a regional power is restricted to its region. It has been suggested that a great power should be possessed of actual influence throughout the scope of the prevailing international system. Arnold J. Toynbee, for example, observes that "Great power may be defined as a political force exerting an effect co-extensive with the widest range of the society in which it operates. The Great powers of 1914 were 'world-powers' because Western society had recently become 'world-wide'."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 often closely-connected propositions.
Status dimension
Formal or informal acknowledgment of a nation's great-power status has also been a criterion for identifying 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."Modelski's approach restricts analysis to the epoch following the 1814-1815 Congress of Vienna at which great powers were first formally recognized. In the absence of such a formal act of recognition it has been suggested that great-power status can arise by implication by judging the nature of a state's relations with other great powers.
A further option is to examine a state's willingness to act as a great power. As a country will seldom declare that it is acting as such, this usually entails a retrospective examination of state conduct. As a result, this is of limited use in establishing the nature of contemporary powers, at least not without the exercise of subjective observation.
Other important criteria throughout history are that great powers should have enough influence to be included in discussions of contemporary political and diplomatic questions, and exercise influence on the outcome and resolution. Historically, when major political questions were addressed, several powers met to discuss them. Before the era of groups like the United Nations, participants of such meetings were not officially named but rather were decided based on their implied great-power status. These were conferences that settled important questions based on major historical events.
"Full-spectrum" dimension
Historian Phillips P. O'Brien, Head of the School of International Relations and Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of St. Andrews, criticizes the concept of a great power, arguing that it is dated, vaguely defined, and inconsistently applied. He states that the term is used to "describe everything from true superpowers such as the United States and China, which wield the full spectrum of economic, technological, and military might, to better-than-average military powers such as Russia, which have nuclear weapons but little else that would be considered indicators of great power. " O'Brien advocates for the concept of a "full-spectrum power", which takes into account "all the fundamentals on which superior military power is built", including economic resources, domestic politics and political systems, technological capabilities, and social and cultural factors.History
Various sets of great, or significant, powers have existed throughout history. An early reference to great powers is from the third century, when the Persian prophet Mani described Rome, China, Aksum, and Persia as the four greatest kingdoms of his time. During the Napoleonic wars in Europe, American diplomat James Monroe observed that, "The respect which one power has for another is in exact proportion of the means which they respectively have of injuring each other." The term "great power" first appears at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The Congress established the Concert of Europe as an attempt to preserve peace after the years of Napoleonic Wars.Lord Castlereagh, the British foreign secretary, first used the term in its diplomatic context, writing on 13 February 1814: "there is every prospect of the Congress terminating with a general accord and Guarantee between the Great powers of Europe, with a determination to support the arrangement agreed upon, and to turn the general influence and if necessary the general arms against the Power that shall first attempt to disturb the Continental peace."
The Congress of Vienna consisted of five main powers: Austria, France, Prussia, Russia, and Great Britain. These five primary participants constituted the original great powers as we know the term today. Other powers, such as Spain, Portugal, and Sweden, which were great powers during the 17th century and the earlier 18th century, were consulted on certain specific issues, but they were not full participants.
After the Congress of Vienna, Great Britain emerged as the pre-eminent global hegemon, due to it being the first nation to industrialize, possessing the largest navy, and the extent of its overseas empire, which ushered in a century of Pax Britannica. The balance of power between the Great Powers became a major influence in European politics, prompting Otto von Bismarck to say "All politics reduces itself to this formula: try to be one of three, as long as the world is governed by the unstable equilibrium of five great powers."
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. Great Britain and the new German Empire, 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. These countries seeking to attain great power status were: Italy after the Risorgimento era, Japan during the Meiji era, and the United States after its civil war. By 1900, the balance of world power had changed substantially since the Congress of Vienna. The Eight-Nation Alliance was an alliance of eight nations created in response to 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 the 20th century.