2040: US is #3 Economically, #1 Militarily. What happens?

[Zulu Elephant]

Originally posted by DanS


I think that you're getting into semantics and are losing sight of the fact that we have no way of knowing if that chance is 10% or 50%. But the chance certainly isn't zero or negligible.

Nothing is inevitable in this world.

Youre right but I do think that factors away from the basic economic statistics and trends such as the ones i mentioned above (many of which are only now becoming apparent and gaining serious attention) are making it more and more likely that China will overtake America

As for population growth, the US isn't expected to give up the number three spot for at least 70 years, so I wouldn't give that too much consideration at this point. Even then, the countries that might pass it aren't likely contenders for economic superpower status.

Absolutely. China, India and the EU are the only contenders overtake the US in the next century at least. Although there are other nations that could 'join the big league' (such as Brazil) or rejoin the big league (such as Russia).

[Capt Dizle]

It is possible that the US will complete fusion power effectively doubling our research and economy and giving our military units double the hit points. Hah!

[el freako]

Originally posted by DanS
Current trends do not suggest that the EU will overtake the US

You're a bit behind the times DanS as it has already happened

According to the IMF and OECD we passed the US when we added the 10 new members last year, the combined GDP of the EU25 is around 5% larger than the US.

I reckon that based on expected new members and factoring in the discrepancy in reported growth rates (using the same discrepancy that applied between 1970 and 2002) then the EU's economy will peak at around 120% of the US's in the late 2020's/early 2030's before falling back to 110% by 2050 (that said the GDP of the EU15 will only be 80% of the US's then) - in 2050 China's economy will be 115% the size of the US's (rising fast to 2025 and then showing only a small rise afterwards), India's around 85% with Japan a long way behind in 5th place with 25%.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

I'm not so sure USA comparisons with the UK, France or Germany are really justified. It implies a kind of isomorphism, but in reality all countries and empires are not created equally.

The great colonial powers of Europe were just that - colonial powers. They got huge wealth from far flung empires, and huge populations to draw on for their colonial armies. Thats not the case for the US. The US is not an empire in the traditional sense. The US is a huge, relatively contiguous country of about 9.3M square kilometres and with 300M people, along with millions of new immigrants coming in every year. It also has just about every natural resource you can imagine in relative abundance. And unlike the European powers, there's no realistic chance of, say, California or Texas or New York breaking off, or being lost to some other power. Sort of like how the UK lost India or how France lost Quebec and its African colonies.

The point I'm making is, the US is just naturally a huge, powerful, rich country.. and one which isn't being propped up by the wealth of its colonies (yes I know the US borrows billions a day, thats not the point I'm making). Of course other countries will start catching up, and it wouldn't surprise me if some day the US is neither number 1 militarily or economically. But the US will never, ever become a bit player in the world - like some imagine when they hear "OMG TEH STATES IS DECLINING!!". Short of some political catastrophe like a civil war, or an asteroid hitting, of course.

I don't see the US being anything but a major player, if not THE player, for a long, long time...

[DanS]

According to the IMF and OECD we passed the US when we added the 10 new members last year, the combined GDP of the EU25 is around 5% larger than the US.

Could you point me to those figures? Do they include Greece, et al.'s inflated numbers.

In any event, like I said, they're so close that it wouldn't surprise me if the EU passed the US on a temporary basis.

[Kidlicious]

Anyway, GDP isn't a perfect measure of a nation's economic power. I don't think it matters if you are 1st or 3rd. Either way you will have a lot of economic power.

[el freako]

Originally posted by DanS

Could you point me to those figures? Do they include Greece, et al.'s inflated numbers.

Certainly - the IMF's data is in it's World Economic Outlook Database, you will find the EU listed under WEO Aggregates.
This showed the EU25's GDP at $10,024bn in 2000 (the year for which the PPP was calculated) compared to the US's $9,599bn

The OECD's estimates are slightly different using 2002 as a base year, they show EKS PPP GDP at $11,133bn for the EU25 and $10,429bn for the US - the GDDC series is a good place to find these figures, but feel free to check out the OECD's site itself (however you will have to dig around to get the estimates for Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and Slovenia as they are not OECD members)

Originally posted by DanS
In any event, like I said, they're so close that it wouldn't surprise me if the EU passed the US on a temporary basis.

With the accession of the rest of the balkans and turkey likely in the next quarter century that 'temporary basis' will last for at least a generation

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Zulu Elephant
Paul Kennedy's "The Rise and Fall of Great Powers' deals with this exact topic - once economic power begins to seep away, countries start to waste their dwindling resources on ill advised military adventures, only hastening their decline.

I told them to stay out of Iraq!

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Kidicious
But how many conservatives are really proimmigration? Not very many I imagine. Neocons are really few and far between.

Bush and his cronies are big time open borders, and many Republicans are willing to blindly follow him. If he's for open borders, they're for open borders.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Zulu Elephant
Ah. I thought "Americas" was a typo and you'd meant to write "Americans"

i.e ... "They have, or will have all of the Americans to draw on in the coming years." - I was like "yeah? Europe and China have all the Europeans and Chinese to draw on in the coming years"


I reply to the post though, I dont think your right about American control of the Americas. Brazil made moves earlier this year with regards to being part of some unaligned nations network (maybe someone can remember the name, we discussed it here on poly) and, as America declines, they will not have the pull over Southern America that they once did. Didn't I read somewhere about some kind of trade agreement between Chile and China?...that's gonna become much more the norm as the rot sets in.

I think you are a bit uninformed about events and trends over here. Brazil may be making noises that they would hope to form a trade bloc, but a bloc that rivals the EU in size is already in place, and talk of expanding it is common. In fact...

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1111583825468_66/?hub=TopStories

Closer trade ties will help sovereignty: Martin
CTV.ca News Staff

Strengthening economic and security ties with the U.S. and Mexico will also strengthen Canadian sovereignty, Prime Minister Paul Martin says.

"If you're competitive, if your standard of living is rising, then in fact what you're doing is strengthening your sovereignty," he told reporters Wednesday in Waco, Tex. after his summit with presidents of the United States and Mexico.

The deal Martin, U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox signed, also provides for sweeping coordination with the U.S. and Mexico on trade and public health issues.

The leaders held a 90-minute meeting at Baylor University in Waco as part of the trilateral summit. They then retired to Bush's ranch near Crawford for the afternoon.

In a joint news conference after the Baylor meeting, Bush said the three countries will work together to improve on the prosperity and security of North America.

"It's important the two go hand in hand," he said. "We've done a lot of trade with each other. And we're going to keep it that way."

The prime minister called the agreement a "road map" focused on "finding practical ways to help our citizenship live healthier, safer and more prosperous lives."

Fox said the three countries face "new threats that carry a risk for our societies, but we also want to work toward the good performance of our economies."

"We want to make North America the most competitive region in the world, and we can do it with actions in the fields of energy, education, technology, security and through protecting our natural resources," Fox said in Spanish.

Robert Fife, CTV's Ottawa bureau chief, said part of the logic driving the move is the ascension of China and India as economic powerhouses and the creation of the European Union, which has made that continent a giant free trade zone.

"If we want to maintain our high standard of living, then we have to form a competitive economic bloc," he said.

Fife discounted any threat to Canadian sovereignty, noting Britain and France had polar-opposite views on the Iraq war even though they are both EU members.

Sensitive issues

Martin and Bush pushed aside questions from reporters about the relationship between their countries, which soured last month when Canada opted out of the U.S. ballistic missile defence program.

Martin said Canada won't re-consider its decision to pull out of the program, adding that the two countries have had their share of differences in the past but that the relationship remains strong.

Bush dismissed any differences that exist as natural. "I'm amazed we don't have more sharp, whatever you called it, differences," he said.

The president said he knows firsthand that softwood lumber is clearly a sensitive issue.

"But think about all the trade we've got between our countries. We've resolved a lot of issues in a positive manner and will continue to resolve them," he said.

Martin talked about the need to get rid of "nuisance regulations" that would make sure North America stays competitive with rising economies such as Asia.

"What we really want to do is to make very, very substantial progress, and to make sure that we continue to do it so that the forces of protectionism never take over in North America," Martin said.

Fife told Newsnet that Bush is "looking beyond just North American integration" and is setting his sights further to South America.

Fife also warned not to expect any major movement on Canada-U.S. trade issues at this summit. "The key thing here is they're going to try to establish a good working relationship," he said.

Martin seemed to concur.

"What we're really talking about here is not a big bang. We're talking about big progress," the prime minister said.

"What kind of union might there be?" Bush said rhetorically in response to a question. "I see one based on free trade. It entails a commitment to markets and democracy, transparency and rule of law."

But later, Martin denied 'union' meant handing powers to Washington.

"All three sovereign countries, and we were very clear about this, are very jealous of their sovereignty. But we also recognize sovereignty is stronger if North America is competitive."

A joint statement issued by the leaders outlines the establishment of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America -- a "trilateral effort to increase the security, prosperity, and quality of life of our citizens."

As part of their efforts to improve security, the countries promise to:

implement common border security strategies,
including a continent-wide screening process of people and cargo;
enhance protection of infrastructure;
co-ordinate emergency response efforts in case of a natural or terrorist disaster at the borders; and
improve aviation and maritime security.
To improve trade, the leaders said they will:

improve productivity through regulatory cooperation;
promote collaboration in areas of energy, transportation, financial service and technology;
reduce the costs of trade through the efficient movement of goods and people; and
enhance the "stewardship of environment" and create a safer and more reliable food supply.
The three leaders gave their officials 90 days to draw up a plan to bring this vision to life.

With reports from CTV's Tom Clark and Robert Fife, plus files from the Canadian Press

The touchy part over here, is that neither Canada nor Mexico desire to join any sort of political union with the US. So nix the NU as an answer to the EU. This is sensible since our situation is completely unlike that of Europe. We are three nations who have managed to live in peace for over a hundred years. We are not 25 or more countries, some of whom have been at each others' throats in the very recent past.

However, that does not mean that we cannot harmonise our economies. And that does not mean that there isn't a long line to get aboard the train.

[Zulu Elephant]

I think you are a bit uninformed about events and trends over here. Brazil may be making noises that they would hope to form a trade bloc, but a bloc that rivals the EU in size is already in place, and talk of expanding it is common. In fact...

I had heard that there was talk about expanding NAFTA. But a North & South American Free trade agreement is surely a long way off?

The question is would a N&SA FTA do enough to keep the US in the top world economic spot?

AND since some form of political integration naturally flows from these sorts of agreements...would the US be able to go along with the rest. US citizens are hostile to participating in a world court to deal with genocide and are hostile to Kyoto. I can't see them being able to stomach the kind of sovereignty pooling that would come about in the long term.

If the N&SA FTA didn't involve any kind of political integration, it would certainly be more inefficient that the EU - possibly balancing out the EUs smaller population

Just speculating

[notyoueither]

Well, considering the US and Mexico are near a half billion people, then you throw in Canada's paultry 30 million... and massive mineral wealth...

And that bloc is looking pretty impressive pretty quick.

THEN you start to consider adding other states from the Americas.

If we all got together, which is something of a possibility, China would look like a dwarf.

[notyoueither]

Uhhh, yeah, Comrade. Do some checking, the line to join, and get access to the markets, is a long one.

Are you saying Guatamala would say, 'no thanks, we don't need it' if offered unrestricted access to the United States for trade?

[notyoueither]

And that's exactly why there will never be a political union.

A, we don't need it, and more importantly...

B, nobody wants it, including the Yanks.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
The US military power is based on technology. The Irak war has demonstrated that after the first month, all this technology was useless to win on the political ground. It demonstrated also that the US Army has lost its capacity to bring many soldiers on the ground.

Therefore, the US are in a situation where nobody wants to fight with them, and where they are not able to fight big wars at low technology level.

They will discover that the mondialisation was not a good strategical idea.

U.S. military power is certainly rooted in technology, but it also rests on the qualitative superiority of its professionals. Add to this the fact that technology still adds a lot of capability to the force even in a low tech counterinsurgency war and you'll see that the U.S. is not exactly toothless.

We are short of the infantry necessary to impose our will on a state the size of Iraq when our will is far removed from the will of the people. Whether that describes the current situation in Iraq remains to be seen, but imo it looks like we will succeed in forming a replacement government in Iraq to replace the regime we overthrew.

The current conflict has changed the Army. Our capabilities for COIN / occupation duty have increased tremendously, largely at the expense of our capabilities for large scale mechanized warfare. Whether this will be a relatively permanent change remains to be seen, but without a doubt the U.S. Army will be a different creature after this war than it was before.

It's true that the current capability of the U.S. for producing a lot of line infantry units is a lot smaller than it was in the time from WW2 through the Vietnam war. However it should be noted that we lost the Vietnam war, and the performance of the larger conscripted force was never all that great at any time. I'm not sure that what we have lost in numbers hasn't been made up for in discipline, experience and morale since that time. Of course we'd like to be fighting the current war with twice the numbers of professional troops than we currently have available. Not all would be constantly deployed, but it would be nice to have a bigger reserve and a kinder rotation schedule than we do currently.