The leading nations of the future

Having a big economy means being a big player on the world stage. If you are big you use your power to dominate the world. History is full of these nations: the Ottomans, the Romans, the British/Europeans and now the US. So what will the emerging big players do?

The emerging economic strength of population-big nations like China and India will surely seeĀ  changes materialize. China will soon have an economy that is bigger than the US, and a bit later India will surpass the US.

So there will be an old-fashioned fight coming up – let us hope we avoid a new world war. The US will work hard to make such a war take place outside of the US, maybe on mainland China, or between India and China. It could also mark the end of the war on terrorism, and be part of a process of finding a new big “enemy”.

This appears to be pure speculation at the moment, but the old fashioned security thinking does not make the world a safe place. New alliances will now be built, and the big question is how fast China and India will emerge and also how fast and deep the US influence is reduced. World institutions will have to change to reflect the new power balance.

The attention of the US is shifting towards Asia, China is not a mature player yet, India is testing its abilities toward foreign lands.

So would it be possible to envision some new thinking that shows humanity becoming more sensible and cooperative – a new era of modern world politics? We have many big matters that requires handling, e.g. poverty, lack of education. It is far too early to say, but so far we see no sign of innovative thinking. Let us for the time being hope we will survive. It is all rather sad really.

We will one day have world cooperation, sharing, fairness, conflicts settled through international law, but maybe another big shoot-out is required before we can manage that.

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