Is It Worth It Being A Superpower?

Wielding a lot of muscle doesn’t come cheap

While researching data on who would win a war between Canada and Australia, I came across some head turning  facts.  In 2009, the United States spent $661bn on military expenditures, the highest in the world and 43% of the world total.  That figure surpasses what the next fourteen nations (China, France, United Kingdom, Russia, Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, India, Italy, Brazil, South Korea, Canada, Australia, and Spain – in that order) spend combined.

Three of those fourteen are best friends with the United States, six are good friends, and three more are friends the U.S would have over to dinner once a month.  The two nuclear acquaintances on that list, Russia and China, can’t even be called a serious military threat.   In a non-nuclear conflict, China and Russia would be no match for the United States.  We won’t bother discussing a nuclear war.  No nation with some sort of real economy would have anything to gain using nuclear weapons.  There is no victory with mutual destruction assured on both sides.

The United States spends more, as a percentage of GDP (4.3%), than most other nations.  China outlays just 2%, Russia 3.5%.  Spending a large percentage of one’s gross domestic product does not turn one into a military superpower.  Saudi Arabia spends 8.2%, Israel 7%, and Eritrea a whopping 21%.  None of those countries are superpowers.  To have a chance at becoming a superpower, a country needs to have a sizeable GDP to begin with.  That rules out countries with tiny populations like Singapore, Israel, and Norway.

On top of a hefty GDP, a notable real world prerequisite is a GDP per capita, adjusted for purchasing power parity, in the world’s top 20.  GDP per capita is a misleading figure to determine average citizen wealth in countries which have little wealth redistribution, as I discuss comparing the standard of livings in the United States and Australia.  But it is a reliable enough gauge to classify nations as developed, developing, or third world.   Logically, a developing or third world nation cannot be a superpower.  Whether you use figures from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, or the CIA World Factbook, the United States scores in the top 10 for GDP per capita.   By these measures, we know the former Soviet Union was never a real superpower.  In 1990, the last full year the Soviet Union existed, it had a GDP per capita (adjusted for purchasing power) of $9,130.  The United States’ figure that year was $23,060.  The Soviet’s superpower status was illusory.  The country never had the second largest economy in the world the textbooks told us it did.  When the USSR collapsed, this fact was evident to all.

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