Great power: Difference between revisions

A great power (or Great Power) is a term used to refer to a nation or state that, through its great economic, political and military strength, is able to exert power over world diplomacy. Its opinions are often strongly taken into account by other nations before taking diplomatic or military action. Characteristically, they have the ability to intervene militarily almost anywhere, and they also have soft, cultural power, often in the form of economic investment in less developed portions of the world.

There is great debate as to which nations constitute the great powers of the world. Largely the question has been answered by recourse to 'common-sense'. This has led to a great deal of subjective analysis, with little agreement on a definitive list. A second approach that has been taken, has been an attempt to develop a conceptual notion of great powers — deriving criteria which can then be applied in a historical examination to identify those countries which have, or have had, this status.

Different sets of great, or significant, powers have existed throughout history; however the term "great power" has only been used as one of scholarly or diplomatic discourse since the post-Napoleonic era Congress of Vienna in 1815.^[1] 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, in a letter sent on the February 13, 1814. He stated that:

It affords me great satisfaction to acquaint you that 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.^[2]

The Congress of Vienna consisted of five main powers: the United Kingdom (or Great Britain), Austria-Hungary, Prussia, France, and Russia. Spain, Portugal, and Sweden were consulted on certain specific issues, but they were not full participants. On issues relating to Germany, Hanover, Bavaria, and Württemberg were also consulted. These five primary participants constituted the original great powers as we know the term today.^[3]

Over time, these original five were subject to the usual ebb and flow of events. Some, such as the UK and Prussia (as part of the newly-formed German state), experienced continued economic growth and political power.^[4] Others, such as Russia and Austria-Hungary, slowly ossified.^[5][6] At the same time, other states were emerging and expanding in power; the foremost of which were Japan and the United States. Clearly, at the dawn of the 20th century, the balance of world power had changed substantially from 1815 and the Congress of Vienna. The Eight-Nation Alliance formed in 1900 to invade China represented the club of the great powers at the beginning of 20th century. Since then, the memebers of the great power club have not changed much. The Group of Eight shares the same members as the Eight-Nation Alliance formed one hundred years ago except that Austria-Hungary is replaced by Canada.

Shifts of international power have most notably occurred through major conflicts. ^[7] The conclusion of World War I and the resulting Treaty of Versailles saw the United Kingdom, France, Italy and the United States (otherwise known as the Big 4) as the chief arbiters of the new world order.^[8] The end of World War II saw the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union emerge as the primary victors. The importance of China and France was acknowledged by their inclusion (along with the 'Big Three') in the group of countries aloted permanent seats in the United Nations Security Council.

Since the end of the World Wars, the term 'great power' has been joined by a number of other power classifications. Foremost among these is the concept of the superpower, used to describe those nations with overwhelming power over the rest of the world. Middle power has emerged as a term for those nations which exercise a degree of global influence, but insufficient to be decisive on international affairs. Regional powers are those whose influence is confined to their region, major power and global power have emerged as synonyms of 'great power'. ^[9]

There are no set and defined characteristics of a great power. Largely the question has been treated as 'an empirical one, and common sense can answer it'.^[10] This approach does have the obvious disadvantage of subjectivity. As a result there have been attempts to derive some common criteria and to treat these as essential elements of great power status.

Early writings on the subject tended to judge nations by the realist criterion: 'The test of a Great Power is the test of strength for war'.^[11] Later writers have expanded this test, attempting to define power in terms of overall military, economic, and political capacity.^[12] This expanded test can be divided into three heads: power capabilities, spatial aspects, and status.^[13]

As noted above, for many, power capabilities were the sole criterion. However, even under the 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 conceptualisations of the world situation, from multipolarity to overwhelming hegemony. In his essay 'French Diplomacy in the Postwar Period', the French historian Jean-Baptiste Duroselle spoke to the multipolarity conceptualisation. He wrote:

'A Great power is one which is capable of preserving its own independence against any other single power.' ^[14]

This differed from earlier writers, notably from Leopold von Ranke, who clearly had a different idea of the world situation. In his essay 'The Great Powers', written in 1833, he wrote:

'If one could establish as a definition of a great power that it must be able to maintain iteself against all others, even when they are united, then Frederick has raised Prussia to that position.' ^[15]

Illogicalities in these positions have been the subject of criticism.^[16] Duroselle's definition supposes a situation in which the major world powers are equal in power - each able to resist one another. This is quite unlike the usual state of international relations where, even amongst great powers, there are nations which are stronger than others. Ranke's definition implies that one state has overwhelming power. If this is the definition, that it should be able to defeat all, or a combination of, other states, then it is unclear what qualified these other states to be considered as great powers.

Some of this difficulty is remedied by the post-war emergence of the term Superpower.

All nations 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.

'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' beacause Western society had recently become 'world-wide'.' ^[17]

Other suggestions that have been made are 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 propositions which are often closely connected.^[18]

Formal or informal acknowledgement of a nation's status as a great power.

'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 institutionalises the position of the powerful state in a web of rights and obligations.' ^[19]

This approach restricts analysis to the post-Congress of Vienna epoch; it being there that great powers were first formally recognised.^[20] 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.^[21]

A further option is to examine a state's willingness to act as a great power.^[22] As a nation will rarely 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.

It should be noted that some of the past great powers regained or retained their influential position on the global stage and thus can be found in the "Present" table in the following section.

It is now generally accepted that the term "great power" also applies to the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, China, Japan, and Russia. The European powers of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy lost much of their political influence after the World Wars. However, all four of these nations managed to rebuild their economy and increase their power projection. There is debate on whether Italy, and India (as an emerging superpower) should be included as 'great powers' as they meet some of the common characteristics of the other powers. Italy is a member of the G-8, and can be described as a major power in economic contexts;^[30] in military terms, she is sometimes categorized as a middle power instead of a great power.^[31].

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