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What enables a nation to truly be a global player?
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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I'm just curious about asking this after a prior thread on here.
But what enables a country, generally speaking, to be an overall global player.
I have a theory but it might piss a lot of people off.
In my opinion it is predominately about geography and geology - nothing to do with the spirit of the people or nation or any of that crap.
Britain became a world superpower as we had vast reserves of coal and iron in the 18th and 19th centuries which were the nation builders of the day. America, France and Japan followed suit.
It appears to me that world influence moves from country to country dependant on the market influence of a nations geography and natural resources.
Obviously individuals have an effect upon how the resources and knowledge of a nations are used, but these generally lead to a rapid rise and fall of a Nation. See Sweden in the Great Northern War.
So does anyone contest this?
If yes or no, how to we use this idea or any alternatives to ensure that Brexit leaves Brain preserved as a first objective, then improved asa second. |
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By *LCCCouple
over a year ago
Cambridge |
I would say that there are a variety of things that make a country a global player, but they can vary depending on the situation. Mineral wealth is very low down on my list
Firstly I would say a permanent seat on the UN security council gives a tremendous amount of clout in world affairs. As does the ability to influence other countries in other international organisations, be that NATO, ASEAN, EU etc. It's one thing to be able to use a single countries clout, but if you can also use other countries clout, that will always be a force multiplier.
Secondly the ability to project military might across the globe. If you can back up your words with a big stick, people take notice. After all, as Clauswitz told us, war is politics by any means.
Soft power projection is third. A lot less tangible than military might, however if you can get other countries to adopt some or your ideas, and culture, that places you amongst the global players. This is of course multifaceted, and covers culture, fashion, music, TV/movies, computer games etc., to countries adopting another's legal system or constitutional arrangements, educational influence either through setting up joint institutions or satellite instituions, or having a lot of students studying in your country.
Economic might is also a very important one, but is often more in the hands of companies rather than governments these days.
Like I said at the top though, it is dependent on the situation though, so NZ has more influence on international rugby than the US would have for example. |
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So the "legacy" of our old empire (commonwealth) foes seem to still give us some of that leverage.
Being the home of the biggest international language? Having had our legal system copied globally? Having a permanent seat on UN.... all helps us to "punch above" our current weight.
As an aside...we do still have massive reserves of coal... but cheap imports/Thatcher-Scargill/diminishing reliability on fossil fuel tends to make that rather irrelevant. |
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"As an aside...we do still have massive reserves of coal... but cheap imports/Thatcher-Scargill/diminishing reliability on fossil fuel tends to make that rather irrelevant."
As a point of fact much of those coal reserves are no longer available to us because of how Thatcher had the coalfields closed down. Much of what was easily available to deep shaft mining is now permanently unavailable because opening up the seams would result in explosions and underground fires.
When Thatcher destroyed the NCB she did it terminally, there is no going back. Rather like what May is now trying to do with the EU.
Tory dogma always takes precedence over national national interest. And in typical fashion the Tories project their attitudes on to their opposition. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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It's a little bit of everything but predominantly about education and invention.
Everybody had coal! We just invented something to extract it cheaper!.
Everybody had skills but we invented the concept of putting alot of skills together in a building to make things cheaper.
Resources are necessary, geographical location helps but resources go more expensive the more you extract as everything that's finite has a bell curve where you extract the easiest first (which is the cheapest) and as they get harder and harder to extract they get more expensive.
The UK still has shit loads of coal but it's deep and expensive to extract unlike Russia and Poland and Ukraine, eventually they hit the same problem.
Were an island of 60 million people, we don't really need to be major players on the world stage to be "successful" |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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For me its inovation and being at the cutting edge of technolgy that brings greatest wealth not resources.
The industrial revolution happened here because we invented our way to success .The technology pushed us to the top.You can have all the coal in the world but it wont give you a steam engine. |
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"For me its inovation and being at the cutting edge of technolgy that brings greatest wealth not resources.
The industrial revolution happened here because we invented our way to success .The technology pushed us to the top.You can have all the coal in the world but it wont give you a steam engine."
With due respect you are wrong. I wish you were right but the truth is regardless of how clever you are or how initiative your ideas are if a world power chooses to either take it or suppress it you will be the looser. That is the way of life. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"It's a little bit of everything but predominantly about education and invention.
Everybody had coal! We just invented something to extract it cheaper!.
Everybody had skills but we invented the concept of putting alot of skills together in a building to make things cheaper.
Resources are necessary, geographical location helps but resources go more expensive the more you extract as everything that's finite has a bell curve where you extract the easiest first (which is the cheapest) and as they get harder and harder to extract they get more expensive.
The UK still has shit loads of coal but it's deep and expensive to extract unlike Russia and Poland and Ukraine, eventually they hit the same problem.
Were an island of 60 million people, we don't really need to be major players on the world stage to be "successful" "
I like this. To me, nations should be like respected people... Their act together, quietly confident and minding their own business.
If you have your house in order and look after your family well should you go beating down the door of a rough family on the other side of town to try run that household too?
I admire Norway and Switzerland for these reasons. Norway with 1 trillion in the green, quietly confident and not running around trying to police the world (as a front for resources grabbing).
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By *asyukMan
over a year ago
West London |
Having a pretty reliable judicial system and general freedom from crime for most people most of the time.
It means that both domestic and international business knows where it stands and the most talented individuals from all over the world are happy to work and bring their families.
Wealth or adequate historic wealth to create the necessary infrastructure and institutions. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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Putin knows whats required when he said. "Artificial intelligence is the future, not only of Russia, but of all of mankind," Putin said. "Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world."
He is right of course.He'll weaponise this technology and end the American Empire if he gets the oppurtunity.
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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"Putin knows whats required when he said. "Artificial intelligence is the future, not only of Russia, but of all of mankind," Putin said. "Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world."
He is right of course.He'll weaponise this technology and end the American Empire if he gets the oppurtunity.
"
I actually agree with him.
The current winning combination for sitting at world leading conference seems to be a mix of:
A strong army, air force and navy, and preferably the oil and natural gas to run it, and help justify the need to defend it and the export/import routes.
Individual freedom and societal freedom help elevate a nations appeal, but lets face it, Saudi and Quatar regularly sit at world summits yet are oppressive.
As the days of fossil fuels become numbered, as are the days of traditional power play. I have no doubt that soon russia will start 'warning nations' by hacking any infastructure reliant on coding.
As for non-weaponised A.I, if there ever becomes a clear world leader, I immagine if they wanted to cause global chaos they could; flood other countries with exported coding software, or attract as much business to them. Either way they could cause chaos in global employment rates. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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The ability to project military might across the world would seem to me to be the single most important factor. It's not just the big things like nuclear, It's the small things like being able to bump off an individual from 1000s of miles away without risking your own personel which will become more and more important. |
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