I’m going to start this post by describing two almost identical powers that existed one century apart. One of these powers had reached its relative position in 1900 and the other in 2000. These powers were both continent-spanning, with large populations, access to natural resources, excellent universities, and were scientifically and technologically advanced, They both had great deal of hope for their future developments and it was widely believed that they would both grow strongly in the coming decades.
In statistical and military terms they were also eerily similar. The 1900 power possessed around 18% of world GDP and the 2000 power either 20.2% (according to PPP) or 21.2% (at current prices). Moreover, one had the fourth largest population groupings in the world in 1900 and the other had the third largest global population.
The 1900 power actually had, relatively speaking, a less effective military, with one of the numerically smallest armies in the western world, certainly if measured by population, and either the 4th or 5th largest navy. The 2000 power would have had the second strongest military in the world in comparison—though with major weaknesses. Both of these militaries were technologically advanced for the time, with professional personnel well trained for their different eras, though with serious limitations on where and how they could deploy.
I’m sure many of you guessed right away who I am talking about—the 1900 power is the United States of America and the 2000 power is the European Union. Sometimes its forgotten how strong the European Union was seen to be in 2000, not just a secondary power to the USA, but potentially even a rival. Richard Haas, writing for the Brookings Institute, in late 1999 summarized the uneven state of the US-European relationship as:
No comments:
Post a Comment