Superpowers of the next century!

[carmen510]

China will dominate, too many consumers for the economy to ignore, too much military for armies to ignore, too much culture/history for historians to ignore, too much pollution for environmentalists to ignore, etc.

 

[RickFGS]

The 6 superpowers:

USA, European Union (The same old 3 leading the way -France, England and Germany), Russia, China, Japan and Brazil.

Note: Lookout for Australia. As far as India goes...its a wild card, big population but...too near China...cof...cof

 

[Lockesdonkey]

Note: Lookout for Australia.

As a strong middle power that can shift alliances' relative power and influence key WTO and UN votes, maybe (especially now that it looks like Labor and Rudd are going to win and pull Australia away from the whole Bush-on-steroids policy) but not as a Great Power in itself. Too few people. Too tightly linked to other powers.

As far as India goes...its a wild card, big population but...too near China...cof...cof

If you're talking invasion, forget it. They've got the Himalayas between them, which are what, the highest, larges mountains in the world? Mmmhmm. It doesn't take much to turn that into an impenetrable barrier. Furthermore, neither country is interested in seizing territory--it's costly and takes a long time to break even on the investment. Their main point of competition will be in selling to Westerners and expanding spheres of influence in Sub-Saharan Africa (already, South Africa is aligned with India).

 

[Rossiya]

Australia Too few people.

Surely immigration will help that though?

 

[Mirc]

^ Yeah but Australia has a lot of desert... Might be harder to fit many people there.

 

[Rossiya]

Las Vegas is a desert. Doesn't stop 600,000 people living there...

 

[ParkCungHee]

Las Vegas became that large because it had the largest resevoir in the world right next to it. Before that, being a desert certainly did prevent people from living there, it had only 5,000 people.

 

[Rossiya]

Las Vegas became that large because it had the largest resevoir in the world right next to it. Before that, being a desert certainly did prevent people from living there, it had only 5,000 people.

Yes, who built the reservoir?

 

[ParkCungHee]

The U.S., but I don't theres not enough rivers in Australia to make the Outback livible.

 

[Rossiya]

Many things can be done with today's technology.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Many things can be done with today's technology.

You cannot make water out of nothing, at least not yet.

 

[Rossiya]

You cannot make water out of nothing, at least not yet.

You can put water there though; build canals perhaps.

 

[ParkCungHee]

You can put water there though; build canals perhaps.

Yes, but theres no where to bring the water from. Which again gives us our problem of creating water out of nothing.

 

[Rossiya]

Yes, but theres no where to bring the water from. Which again gives us our problem of creating water out of nothing.

Indian Ocean. As I said, canals can be built, and surely there is the technology to build a sufficiently long canal.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Indian Ocean. As I said, canals can be built, and surely there is the technology to build a sufficiently long canal.

But you can't drink from the Indian Ocean, or Grow Crops with it, or really do anything usefull for it.

 

[Rossiya]

But you can't drink from the Indian Ocean, or Grow Crops with it, or really do anything usefull for it.

Unless there is technology to purify the water.

 

[Mirc]

^ Yeah, but that's already SF. If we could do that in huge quantities, we would use Global Warming in our advantage, and will keep the growing waters under control by "manually" inserting phreatic water below the Sahara, Gobi and Rub Al-Khali. Those areas would all become useable in some decades.

But that's very, very far away, and we don't know if we'll be able to do that.

 

[ParkCungHee]

^ Yeah, but that's already SF. If we could do that in huge quantities, we would use Global Warming in our advantage, and will keep the growing waters under control by "manually" inserting phreatic water below the Sahara, Gobi and Rub Al-Khali. Those areas would all become useable in some decades.

But that's very, very far away, and we don't know if we'll be able to do that.

Besides which its useless to imagine a world in which technology will soley benefit Australia. If such a technology existed, then Australia still is behind China and America, because of their newly useful land.

 

[RickFGS]

If you're talking invasion, forget it. They've got the Himalayas between them, which are what, the highest, larges mountains in the world? Mmmhmm. It doesn't take much to turn that into an impenetrable barrier. Furthermore, neither country is interested in seizing territory--it's costly and takes a long time to break even on the investment. Their main point of competition will be in selling to Westerners and expanding spheres of influence in Sub-Saharan Africa (already, South Africa is aligned with India).

Between? Tibete anyone? They already are in the mountains lol. They could be impenatrable for a 19th/20thishyy century army, but with China´s today military by the time India said Punjab! Red Flags would be hasting in New Delhi. The only counter is India as Atomic Weapon or "Weapons of Mass Destruction" in Iraquishh....


And no, i was talking in an economic/cultural invasion of India by China, but that´s like i said a wild card....

 

[Lockesdonkey]

Between? Tibete anyone? They already are in the mountains lol. They could be impenatrable for a 19th/20thishyy century army, but with China´s today military by the time India said Punjab! Red Flags would be hasting in New Delhi. The only counter is India as Atomic Weapon or "Weapons of Mass Destruction" in Iraquishh....

Tibet is a high plain. The serious Himalayas run along the Chinese borders with Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Bhutan; Everest is on the China/Nepal border. You have to cross HUGE mountains to go from India to China by land...it's virtually impossible with a prepared force on the other side.

And no, i was talking in an economic/cultural invasion of India by China, but that´s like i said a wild card....

They're tied up at the moment. China has a small but significant lead in the economic arena, but India more than makes it up by its huge cultural influence (Indian TV, film, and music dominate not only the Indian market, but also the Pakistani, Afghan, and Southeast Asian markets, and do brisk business in the Middle East and Africa, whereas the Chinese are constantly fending off cultural "threats" from South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan).