Superpower

History

Hegemons from antiquity to the 18th century

Even though superpower is a 20th-century concept, some historians retrospectively apply it to some regionally dominant historical empires, such as the Carthaginian Republic, the Roman Empire, and East Asia's Tang dynasty.

By the late 15th century, the Age of Discovery brought about an early form of globalization, connecting previously isolated parts of the world for the first time. The first colonial empires of the early modern age emerged, such as the Portuguese, Spanish (whose Spanish dollar was the main reserve currency from 1530 to 1640), Dutch and French (whose Livre tournois and French franc were the main reserve currency from 1720 to 1815) empires. In particular, the British Empire, after its Glorious Revolution in 1688 and its pioneering role in the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century would lead to its later global hegemony.

According to historical statistics and research from the OECD, until the early modern period, Western Europe, China, and India accounted for roughly two thirds of the world's GDP.

Pax Britannica: British dominance between 1815 and 1914

Following the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the British Empire enjoyed trading primacy, expanding its overseas empire and asserting maritime dominance in most of the world's trading sea lanes. At its peak, it was the most extensive empire in world history and considered the foremost power, holding sway over 25% of the world's population. Controlling 24% of the Earth's total land area, it was described as the empire on which the sun never sets. Its currency, the British Pound, was the main reserve currency from 1815 to 1920.

However, at the turn of the 20th century, Britain's economic lead was challenged by Germany and the United States, amid rising tensions with the former. When the First World War broke out, Britain relied heavily on its empire to support its war effort. The conflict placed enormous strain on its military, financial, and manpower resources. Even though victory in the war brought Britain to its largest territorial extent, it was no longer the world's preeminent power, as the United States matched or surpassed Britain in industrial and military strength.

Cold War

Emerging from World War II, the UK faced serious political, financial, and colonial issues, struggling to match the expanding Soviet and American power. It entered the postwar Age of Austerity and endured a harsh Winter of 1946–47. Facing fiscal difficulties, it took out the Anglo-American loan in 1946; the following year saw the independence of British India. The Suez Crisis of 1956 is regarded as the beginning of the end of Britain's period as a superpower. Financially weakened by the two world wars, it could no longer pursue its foreign policy objectives on an equal footing with the new superpowers without sacrificing convertibility of its reserve currency as a central goal of policy.

On the other hand, as the majority of World War II had been fought far from its shores, the United States had not suffered the industrial destruction or massive civilian casualties that marked the wartime situation of the countries in Europe or Asia. The war had reinforced the position of the United States as the world's largest long-term creditor nation and its principal supplier of goods; moreover, it had built up a strong industrial and technological infrastructure that had greatly advanced its military strength into a primary position on the global stage.

Despite attempts to create multinational coalitions or legislative bodies (such as the United Nations), it became increasingly clear that the superpowers had very different visions about what the post-war world ought to look like and after the withdrawal of British aid to Greece in 1947, the United States took the lead in containing Soviet expansion in the Cold War.

The two countries opposed each other ideologically, politically, militarily, and economically. The Soviet Union promoted the ideology of Marxism–Leninism, planned economy, and a one-party state while the United States promoted the ideologies of liberal democracy and the free market in a capitalist market economy. This was reflected in the Warsaw Pact and NATO military alliances, respectively, as most of Europe became aligned with either the United States or the Soviet Union. These alliances implied that these two nations were part of an emerging bipolar world, in contrast with a previously multipolar world.

The idea that the Cold War period revolved around only two blocs, or even only two nations, has been challenged by some scholars in the post–Cold War era, who have noted that the bipolar world only exists if one ignores all of the various movements and conflicts that occurred without influence from either of the two superpowers. For example, in the 1980s, some commentators thought Japan would become a superpower due to its large GDP and high economic growth at the time. However, Japan's economy crashed in 1991, creating a long period of economic slump in the country which has become known as the Lost Decades. Additionally, much of the conflict between the superpowers was fought in proxy wars, which more often than not involved issues more complex than the standard Cold War oppositions.

In the late 1980s, the idea of superpower disengagement, a concept where superpowers reduce their interventions in an area, began to be discussed in relation to the U.S. and U.S.S.R. in Europe. These attempts were meant to defuse tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States, largely because of the risk of any superpower conflict escalating to nuclear war. Examples of this included the Austrian State Treaty, which left Austria as neutral for the duration of the Cold War, with Austria staying out of the Warsaw Pact, NATO, and the European Economic Community and the 1952 Stalin Note, which proposed superpower disengagement from Germany.

Post–Cold War era

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 which ended the Cold War, the post–Cold War world was considered by some to be a unipolar world, with the United States as the world's sole remaining superpower. The term "hyperpower", as popularized by French foreign minister Hubert Védrine in the late 1990s, was used to describe the country.

Yet this view was controversial, and the validity of classifying the United States in this way is disputed. One notable opponent to this theory is political scientist and author Samuel P. Huntington, who rejects this theory in favor of a multipolar balance of power. In 1999, he wrote: "The United States, of course, is the sole state with preeminence in every domain of power – economic, military, diplomatic, ideological, technological, and cultural – with the reach and capabilities to promote its interests in virtually every part of the world". However, Huntington rejected the claim that the world was unipolar, arguing: "There is now only one superpower. But that does not mean that the world is unipolar", describing it instead as "a strange hybrid, a uni-multipolar system with one superpower and several major powers". He further wrote that "Washington is blind to the fact that it no longer enjoys the dominance it had at the end of the Cold War. It must relearn the game of international politics as a major power, not a superpower, and make compromises".

In After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order (2001), French sociologist Emmanuel Todd predicted the eventual decline and fall of the United States as a superpower, stating "After years of being perceived as a problem-solver, the US itself has now become a problem for the rest of the world." Other international relations theorists such as Henry Kissinger theorized that because the threat of the Soviet Union no longer existed to formerly American-dominated regions such as Western Europe and Japan, American influence had been declining since the end of the Cold War because such regions no longer needed protection or had necessarily similar foreign policies as the United States. Some held that this older single-superpower assessment of global politics was too simplified, in part because of the difficulty in classifying the European Union at its stage of development., while others argued that the notion of a superpower was outdated, considering complex global economic interdependencies, and proposed that the world was becoming multipolar.

Contemporary developments

Today, scholarly discourse and public perception regarding superpower status vary widely, and the criteria for what qualifies as a contemporary superpower varies between sources. Entities that are often discussed as possible superpowers, or having the potential to become one in the near future, include the United States, China, the European Union, India, and Russia. Some sources argue that the term is no longer useful to understanding international politics due to increased interdependence between countries resulting in a multipolar world where concentrations of traditional power are not as relevant. Where the term is still used, the entities considered superpowers vary. Karataş notes that the national origin of a scholar may impact what entities they consider superpowers.

United States

Many sources still consider the United States a superpower, primarily due to its alliances, military capacity, soft power, and economic influence, while some critics believe that due to a decline in relative power, the U.S. no longer meets the criteria to be considered a superpower. As a result of asymmetric polarization within the United States, as well as globally perceived U.S. foreign policy failures, and China's growing influence around the world, some academics and geopolitical experts have argued that the United States may already be experiencing a decay in its soft power around the world.

A 2012 report by the National Intelligence Council predicted that the United States superpower status will have eroded to merely being first among equals by 2030, but that it would remain highest among the world's most powerful countries because of its influence in many different fields and global connections that the great regional powers of the time would not match. Additionally, some experts have suggested the possibility of the United States losing its superpower status completely in the future, citing speculation of its decline in power relative to the rest of the world, economic hardships, a declining dollar, Cold War allies becoming less dependent on the United States, and the emergence of future powers around the world.

China

The subject of China as a superpower has been a matter of academic and geopolitical debate since at least the 2000s. As early as the 2010s, some academics, economists, politicians, and journalists argued that China achieved had superpower status, had the potential to be one in the future, or applied terms like economic superpower to describe China. Others maintain that China is potential superpower, or that it has not met the criteria.

In 2025, incoming Secretary of State Marco Rubio referred to China as a superpower during his congressional nomination hearing while President Donald Trump referred to China as a superpower before meeting with President Xi Jinping in 2026. Proponents of the position that China is a superpower argue that China possesses a major influence in geopolitics, technology, manufacturing, and economic power. It is the world's largest manufacturer, the largest economy by purchasing power parity, and has the second largest economy by nominal GDP. Militarily, the nation possesses the largest military in terms of active personnel and the third largest nuclear stockpile. Proponents have highlighted China's modern military, global influence, cultural export, rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, economic strength, and manufacturing volume as signs of global dominance in the 2020s. One paper's authors projected China would be a peer competitor to the United States that could not be contained and would be a far more challenging entity for the West to confront. The authors stated that China's military dominance in the Asia-Pacific was already eroding American influence rapidly, and that the costs for the US to defend its interests there would continue to rise. Some sources argue that China's economic influence had long since broken out of its regional confines and was on track to directly contest the US role as the center of economic trade and commerce.

Opponents of categorizing China as a superpower argue that domestic and international challenges persist and that China does not meet the criteria to be considered a superpower. These include an aging and shrinking population, lack of skilled immigration, alongside international concerns of its soft power status due to human rights issues, lack of hard power capabilities through a global military alliance system, low GDP per capita, and the dominance of the U.S. dollar in global trade. In an opinion article published in The Hill, professor of international relations Andrew Latham argued that, "While China is unquestionably both a regional power and a great power, when it comes to superpower status, it simply doesn’t make the cut."

Russia

Today, Russia is a nuclear-weapon state, and has been cited as inheriting the superpower status of the USSR. This nuclear arsenal allowed Russia to exert political and diplomatic influence despite the economic and military decline following the collapse of the USSR. Experts debate if Russia remains a superpower, and a Gallup survey of 39,760 people from 37 countries found that 41% percent believed Russia will be a superpower in 2030. Due to Russia's demonstrated capabilities of conventional warfare during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia was compared to a "Potemkin Superpower" by Paul Krugman. Increasing doubts have emerged since 2022 around the potential of Russia to gain superpower status given its declining economy, severe military underperformance during the invasion of Ukraine, inability to successfully defend its allies in Syria and in the Sahel, and its loss of influence in Central Asia, a region once dominated by Moscow for centuries. Despite this, Russia generally identifies as a superpower, and some sources continue to use the label of superpower when discussing it. A 2019 poll conducted by the Levada Center found that the number of Russians who believed Russia was a superpower had increased from 30 percent in 2005 to 75 percent. The status as the largest sovereign state by land area, coupled with the natural resources that it provides, serves as part of the basis for this belief.

According to a RAND Corporation paper by American diplomat James Dobbins, Professor Howard J. Shatz, and policy analyst Ali Wyne, Russia in the breakdown of a disintegrating unipolar world order, while not a peer competitor to the United States, would still remain a player and a potential rogue state that would undermine global affairs. The West could contain Russia with methods like those employed during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, though this would be tested by Russia's overt and covert efforts to destabilize Western alliances and political systems.

European Union

There have been discussions on European Union's superpower status and potential, due to their large markets, growing military strength, economic potential, and influence in international affairs. In 2020, the European Union has been called a "regulatory superpower" due to the Brussels effect.

India

Like the European Union, India, given its large markets, growing military strength, economic potential, and influence in international affairs, is often evaluated for its status and potential as a 21st-century superpower. In 2011, the International Encyclopedia of Political Science stated that "perhaps India in time, could also lay some claim to being, or over time becoming, superpowers of a sort." A 2021 paper by İbrahim Karataş included India as a candidate for "superpowerhood."