Rate the G8 in order of importance

[-Jrabbit]

US
Germany
Japan
GB
Russia
France
Italy
Canada

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
On what basis?

An increasingly dilaphidated military?

I wonder when people are going to realise Russia has long since become a paper tiger.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Ecthy
Japan is a rich country, but htey're weak militarily and have hardly been following national interests abroad. What do you guys think makes them important as an actor?

Economy. Their investments in East Asia lifted the region out of poverty and drove the East Asian Miracle. Ironically, some economists like to call the region the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere."

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Ecthy
Kontiki, thanks.

Japan is a rich country, but htey're weak militarily and have hardly been following national interests abroad. What do you guys think makes them important as an actor? I can see how their geographical position makes them important as an ally to the US, but they hardly have any say in that regard.

Bull****. What they lack is power projection, something that has begun to be remedied in the past few years (Deployments to the Gulf, Amphibs being built, two "aviation destroyers" under construction)

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Flubber
I'm just not sure what "importance" means. You could do a straight list based on economic size-- but thats boring and could come from people just citing the GDP stats.

Is importance based on military?

I notice that most people are ranking Canada last and if this is a ranking of world influence, I can probably agree with that. But importance ? Does the fact that Canada has more natural resources than pretty much anyone else on the list ( Russia as an arguable exception) make any difference

canada may have more natural resources per capita than anybody else on the list but in overall resources russia is way ahead of Canada and even the US isn't that far behind Canada. Frankly I would even say that the US has somewhat more natural resources than canada if you look beyond mineral resources and timber as natural resources.


To the original post:

Ranking the countries on the basis of current power is probably mostly a matter military strength but the G8 has always been more about economic heft. Specifically it has been a response of the industrialized consumer nations to exporter organizations like OPEC.

I suppose we could answer the original post (rank by 'powa') by starting with the economic GDP values and tweaking the positions up or down to reflect military weakness or strength.

US (perceived as in tailspin decline but still largest economy and largest force projection capabilities for the moment)
UK (depends on how 'special relationship' is viewed by other governments. liability or asset?)
Japan (almost pure economic heft imho)
France (UN security council and force projection)
Germany (excellent land army but poor force projection)
Russia (almost pure military heft with raw materials exports atm)
Italy
Canada low priority to military and lowest GDP of the list.

This is assuming 'power' based upon perceived power. I certainly don't claim to be any expert on the perceptions of large collection of various governments of sovereign states so naturally I'll think nothing of completely rearranging the list in light of any solid indications of how a particular listed state is perceived by various major actors on the world stage.


I'm ranking the UK higher with the understanding that the 'special relationship' may work in it's favor in that it may be perceived as more easily securing the acquiesence of the US to it's plans than other states than it did back in the days of the suez crises or even the falkland islands war in which washington was hardly a staunch ally.

admitedly Russia and italy are hard to compare and decide between but I think the current GDP edge of france over Russia is large enough to justify a higher ranking than Russia.

Canada falls last mostly because it's GDP ranks lowest while it's attention to military strength is less than most other members of this list.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Ecthy
Lancer, France has more military strength. Economy is only important as a means to generate military strength. FACT

It depends on the context in which the power will be exerted and upon the possible use of the military power. Arguably Germany has more military strength than France but in a conflict far away from Germany's borders France's military would have a great deal more heft than Germanys (force projection capailities). At the same time if neither country is seen as having a snowball's chance in hell of intervening militarily in a situation then Germany's considerably larger economic heft makes it more influential. Although quite often such economic influence is limited to sanctions in other cases it can have a decisive effect such as in the relative treatment that the PRC and Taiwan receive from other countries.

[Dinner]

Russia doesn't really belong in this group. It was let in in the 90's with the belief that it would encourage Russia to strengthen democracy. The opposite has happened. Economically Russia doesn't belong since its economy is smaller then Denmark's so it is down to natural resources. Namely, oil and gas.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Lancer
Proteus, I missed the Praxis thing, what was that?

It was an explosion of the main power generation plant (or you could rather say main power generation moon ) within the Klingon empire, destroying it completely (the moon was named praxis and, after the explosion, it seemed to be smaller than before ).

It was the reason for the Klingons to initiate peace talks with the federation, after centuries of warfare.
It´s part of Star Trek VI: The undiscovered country.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Russia doesn't really belong in this group. It was let in in the 90's with the belief that it would encourage Russia to strengthen democracy. The opposite has happened. Economically Russia doesn't belong since its economy is smaller then Denmark's so it is down to natural resources. Namely, oil and gas.

But it´s strange that China doesn´t belong to the G-8.
You could assume that its economy could be equal or larger to, for example, Canada.

[Dinner]

China is economically successful but the G8 was supposed to be a club for the rich & powerful democracies of the world. Russia was a young (and rather weak) democracy when it was let in but it has turned into a much more autocratic place since then.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Canada is a member because the US wanted a like-minded member who would vote with it, and so pushed for its entry.

That was then, Canada has gained its own legitimacy for being there since, some of which have been mentioned (resources, advanced economy, size, etc...)

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Economically Russia doesn't belong since its economy is smaller then Denmark's

Um, no. Not even close on that one.

[_BuRjaCi_]

Why is everybody puting Italy before Canada?

I mean they are incompetent to the extreme. They can't keep a coalition of political parties togeter for four years, can't help constantly switching sides in a war , they think they where the victims in WW2 and have one of the lowest birth rates in Europe...

[Qilue]

From the CIA world fact book.

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html

United States...$ 12,360,000,000,000
China............$ 8,859,000,000,000
Japan............$ 4,018,000,000,000
India............$ 3,611,000,000,000
Germany..........$ 2,504,000,000,000
United Kingdom...$ 1,830,000,000,000
France...........$ 1,816,000,000,000
Italy............$ 1,698,000,000,000
Russia...........$ 1,589,000,000,000
Brazil...........$ 1,556,000,000,000
Canada...........$ 1,114,000,000,000


China, India and Brazil all have GDPs higher than Canada with Brazil and India being democracies. Thus G8 seems more like a WASP club with Japan being the token ****** (I apologise to anyone offended by my use of this term).

[Colon™]

GDP PPP is a nice tool for a welfare-economics POV but next to irrelevant in the real world. Go find yourself a list based on market exchange rates.

Another thing that next to irrelevant in the real world is the G7/G8 itself so I don't know why everybody is so bothered about who's included.