Yep. When I think of multi polar world China and the US come to mind but then....the mind goes blank. If any other nation is big enough to be called a 'pole' than being a pole doesn't really count for much and it's plain silly to think of them in the same league of 'the big two'.
Does it have to be one or the other? If the US' landscape analysis says "still bipolar if you have to choose, but middle powers increasingly not ignorable," does that set the stage for strategic intent differently than merely saying "bipolar"?
Also, I don't know what's in Asia Power Index but the other stuff is almost exclusively economic. Do other factors matter, e.g., "number of countries with nuclear weapons"?
the issue with “nuclear arsenal = great power” is that countries like North Korea exist, and nuclear arsenal size comparisons don’t really relate well to actual power. Russia has the largest arsenal in the world, but I think it’s pretty evident that Russia is weaker than both the US and China, and can’t compete on basically any other front of such a comparison. China’s arsenal is also estimated to be far smaller than the American one last I checked, which doesn’t seem to really accurately capture the real distance, or proximity, between their relative strengths.
It sort of feels to me like polarity is closer in meaning to a fuzzy, qualitative term like "soft power" or "influence". In the height of the Cold War, you could properly say in some sense that the world was bipolar--East Bloc, West Bloc--but on the other hand, in any given country, there might be another state that had enormously outsized influence that wasn't a function of it being in one of those two blocs, exactly. France and Britain in their former colonies, even Portugal and Spain and the Netherlands in theirs. China for non-aligned states uncomfortable with the Soviets. Regional powers who were positioned to independently determine outcomes in the area and had to be reckoned with, negotiated with, opposed or appeased.
To put it another way, can you set a predictive threshold where data of the kind that you and the scholars you're criticizing are looking at would indicate "incipient multipolarity"? I have a sneaking suspicion that fuzzier ideas about influence over or relative autonomy from the dominant poles would be a leading indicator before it showed up in harder form in this kind of data.
The main candidate for a third pole is the EU. It's still disunified, but less so than in the post, while the opposite is true of the US. And who knows what will happen to China if Xi goes, or even he stays and his failures become ever more evident/
Well, to be a pole, the EU would have to actually be unaligned with 1 of the 2 major poles, and I don't see it. On the stuff that matters (maintaining the post-WWII world order), the EU is very aligned with the US and while China would love to see the EU less aligned with the US, their "excellent" diplomacy and statecraft is actually pushing the EU closer to the US.
LOL. As I figured, you have a closed mind. The interesting thing is, I actually enjoyed some of your economic history books, but when you venture in to areas where you clearly have little expertise, it shows yet you still feel like emulating Chomsky in that regard.
Yep. When I think of multi polar world China and the US come to mind but then....the mind goes blank. If any other nation is big enough to be called a 'pole' than being a pole doesn't really count for much and it's plain silly to think of them in the same league of 'the big two'.
Does it have to be one or the other? If the US' landscape analysis says "still bipolar if you have to choose, but middle powers increasingly not ignorable," does that set the stage for strategic intent differently than merely saying "bipolar"?
Also, I don't know what's in Asia Power Index but the other stuff is almost exclusively economic. Do other factors matter, e.g., "number of countries with nuclear weapons"?
the issue with “nuclear arsenal = great power” is that countries like North Korea exist, and nuclear arsenal size comparisons don’t really relate well to actual power. Russia has the largest arsenal in the world, but I think it’s pretty evident that Russia is weaker than both the US and China, and can’t compete on basically any other front of such a comparison. China’s arsenal is also estimated to be far smaller than the American one last I checked, which doesn’t seem to really accurately capture the real distance, or proximity, between their relative strengths.
Right now, there are 2 poles: the West (led by the US) and China.
By 2050, India will be a pole in its own right if it charts an independent course but could very well have joined the Western alliance by then.
I read this headline first as an essay about the manic-depressive aspects of the world!
It sort of feels to me like polarity is closer in meaning to a fuzzy, qualitative term like "soft power" or "influence". In the height of the Cold War, you could properly say in some sense that the world was bipolar--East Bloc, West Bloc--but on the other hand, in any given country, there might be another state that had enormously outsized influence that wasn't a function of it being in one of those two blocs, exactly. France and Britain in their former colonies, even Portugal and Spain and the Netherlands in theirs. China for non-aligned states uncomfortable with the Soviets. Regional powers who were positioned to independently determine outcomes in the area and had to be reckoned with, negotiated with, opposed or appeased.
To put it another way, can you set a predictive threshold where data of the kind that you and the scholars you're criticizing are looking at would indicate "incipient multipolarity"? I have a sneaking suspicion that fuzzier ideas about influence over or relative autonomy from the dominant poles would be a leading indicator before it showed up in harder form in this kind of data.
The main candidate for a third pole is the EU. It's still disunified, but less so than in the post, while the opposite is true of the US. And who knows what will happen to China if Xi goes, or even he stays and his failures become ever more evident/
Well, to be a pole, the EU would have to actually be unaligned with 1 of the 2 major poles, and I don't see it. On the stuff that matters (maintaining the post-WWII world order), the EU is very aligned with the US and while China would love to see the EU less aligned with the US, their "excellent" diplomacy and statecraft is actually pushing the EU closer to the US.
I think you are pushing the metaphor to breaking point here.
I mean, I'm not the one pushing wacked-out takes that aren't terribly aligned with reality. . . .
Thanks. I've blocked you.
LOL. As I figured, you have a closed mind. The interesting thing is, I actually enjoyed some of your economic history books, but when you venture in to areas where you clearly have little expertise, it shows yet you still feel like emulating Chomsky in that regard.
A logarithmic chart would be helpful here. The early data are too compressed.
mom dia galera!