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Date Posted: 17:14:49 01/06/03 Mon
Author: h2ok9
Subject:

Am I missing something here? ~~~~~~~ You tell me!

Political scientists often refer to nations as �states� that is, territories controlled by a single government and inhabited by a distinct population. At any given time, about half a dozen states possess the majority of the world�s power resources. Generally, a great power can be defeated militarily only by another great power. Great powers also tend to share a global outlook, based on a need to protect national economic, political, and security interests that may extend throughout the world.

Sometimes the status of great powers is formally recognized in an international structure. For instance, in the Concert of Europe that prevailed throughout much of the 19th century, the great powers of Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia agreed to meet regularly to promote and preserve peace in Europe.

After World War II ended in 1945, the United Nations Security Council provided a forum for coordinated action by the great powers in the second half of the 20th century-the United States, Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and China.

Again political scientists define power in the international political system as the potential to influence other states.

Such potential derives from a mix of elements, both tangible and intangible.

These elements include natural resources, industrial capacity, military forces, population size, and popular support for the government and wether or not the leader is a sane person.

Economic capability determines the military potential of individual states.

For this reason, the best single indicator of a state�s great-power potential may be its total Gross Domestic Product (GDP), (which means of coures OIL for some.) which measures the total value of goods and services produced in a given time period. The GDP provides a rule of thumb or rough indicator of an economy�s size, technological level, and wealth.

Because power derives from enduring characteristics of states, the status of great powers usually change very slowly. Britain and France for example have been great powers for 500 years, Russia and Germany for over 250 years, the United States and Japan for about 100 years, and China for 50 years.

Rarely does a great power-even one defeated in a massive war-lose its status as a great power.

History will back me up on this I believe, that since the 16th century, only six other states have possessed great-power status: Italy, Austria (Austria-Hungary), Spain, the Ottoman Empire, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

The network of relations between powerful states that constitute a great-power system first emerged in Europe during the 16th century and solidified during the Thirty Years� War (1618-1648). At the conclusion of this war, the Peace of Westphalia established the principles that have shaped modern international relations. These principles include respect for the political independence and territorial integrity of other world states. But as I have so far seen, Iraq's Saddam dosen't care to play with these rules any more. Since the Peace of Westphalia, the great powers have been able muddle through with a balance of power that seemed to be preserved through an occasional shifting of alliances ( A euphemism for trading one "Son-of-a-Bitch" for another ) and a series of small recurrent wars that generally prevented one state from conquering the others. But not this time. Iraq will see to this. This nut knows the Muslims want to kill off anyone who isn't a Muslim, and he is willing to help them anyway he can. The Muslims today are not Clintons Son-of-a-bitches, of Bosnia yesteryear, they are Saddams. See how politics works boys and girls?

The great powers of 16th-century Europe were England, France, Spain, Austria, and the Ottoman Empire.

The Habsburg family ruled Austria and Spain.

Habsburg power peaked in the late 16th century when Spain conquered Portugal. But the Thirty Years� War resulted in the defeat of the Habsburgs by a coalition of nations, including France, Sweden, and the German principalities. At the end of the war, the Netherlands assumed dominance of international trading routes and joined the ranks of the great powers, displacing Spain.

So Spain�s decline as a great power dated from the beginning of the 16th century, when it experienced a string of costly wars against France and a failed attempt to invade England. The collapse of Spanish power offers an example of imperial overstretch, the fate that befalls great powers when they extend their influence beyond what their size and capabilities can sustain. The Netherlands declined in power in the 18th century when its commercial and maritime rivalry with Britain led it into a series of debilitating wars. In the 20th century, Britain and France declined as great powers when they held onto their far-flung colonial empires for too long.

Now we get to US today the United States and the Soviet Union!

World War II allies against Germany, became opposing �superpowers� after 1945.

These two nations dominated great-power relations for 40 years of running around in letigious circles during the Cold War. During this period, Europe split into rival power blocs, comprised of nations with membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and those affiliated through the Warsaw Pact. Regional tensions in Europe mirrored the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. The superpowers also sought to acquire influence throughout the rest of the world, often by supporting local factions and armies in regional or civil wars. (CIA Vs. KGGB. Spy Vs. Spy!) The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 returned the great-power system to a more cooperative arrangement as far as we here in the Americas are concerned, somewhat like the Concert of Europe.

Today�s great powers-the United States, Britain, France, Russia, and China-all have large military forces and substantial nuclear weapons capabilities.

Japan and Germany-with huge economies and relatively large military forces but no nuclear weapons-also qualify as great powers. These seven states control roughly half of the world�s economy, 70 percent of world military spending, 35 percent of its soldiers, 95 percent of arms exports, and 99 percent of nuclear weapons.

The only other states of comparable economic size are Italy and perhaps India, neither of which has the global outlook or military strength to qualify as a great power. India and Brazil are regional giants that have the potential to become great powers in the 21st century.

The United States dominates great-power relations as the world�s only superpower according to all the reports I have been looking at. Our economy equals that of the next three largest states combined-Japan, China, and Germany.
Our military spending equals that of the other six great powers combined.
Our influence in the international political system is commensurate with our supposedly dominant status in this world.
For instance, international involvement in post-Cold War conflicts, such as the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and the civil war in Bosnia, largely depended on U.S. leadership that it never it got, due to a traitorous president, backed by a comic vice president and a vacillating congress that let the whole mess in that region go to hell in a hand basket.
And now the UN in Iraq can't search anything due to the constraints and deterring obstacles they have to acquiesce to in order to escape with their lives and limbs entact.

To really search a guys property and home, especially if he's a known belligerent person, one has to be able to shove the barrel of a gun halfway down the owners throat and say "Please let us search your property and house according to the rules we have been provided with here sir! We will not except a negative answer either sir!" "Now sir, is that OK with you, if we do our job?" How does one spell"WOOess? Anyway something like that sound would come out of that bad boys mouth... However, it's beginning to seem to me that the United States is now less willing to perform the leadership tasks we assumed during the Cold War days. I know we are trying to work closely with other great powers in "STRAINED" efforts to resolve certain international conflicts pressing us at hand, and rightly so we must, but if we don't do something, and very soon to get the threat of that bug maker out of the loop, a whole lot of people will die, but that's OK, just so we are behaving politically correct. Is that correct? or am I just missing something here?

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