Great power

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A great power is a state that is recognized as having the ability to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power influence, which may cause small powers to consider the great powers' opinions before taking actions of their own. International relations theorists have posited that great power status can be characterized into power capabilities, spatial aspects, and status dimensions. Sometimes the status of great powers is formally recognized in conferences such as the Congress of Vienna[1][4][5][dead link] or an international structure such as the United Nations Security Council.[1][2][6]

The term "great power" was first used to represent the most important powers in Europe during the post-Napoleonic era. The "Great Powers" constituted the "Concert of Europe" and claimed the right to joint enforcement of the postwar treaties.[7] The formalization of the division between small powers[8] and great powers came about with the signing of the Treaty of Chaumont in 1814. Since then, the international balance of power has shifted numerous times, most dramatically during World War I and World War II. While some nations are widely considered to be great powers, there is no definitive list of them. In literature, alternative terms for great power are often world power[9] or major power,[10] but these terms can also be interchangeable with superpower.[11]


There are no set or defined characteristics of a great power. These characteristics have often been treated as empirical, self-evident to the assessor.[12] However, this approach has the disadvantage of subjectivity. As a result, there have been attempts to derive some common criteria and to treat these as essential elements of great power status.

Early writings on the subject tended to judge states by the realist criterion, as expressed by the historian A. J. P. Taylor when he noted that "The test of a great power is the test of strength for war."[13] Later writers have expanded this test, attempting to define power in terms of overall military, economic, and political capacity.[14] Kenneth Waltz, the founder of the neorealist theory of international relations, uses a set of five criteria to determine great power: population and territory; resource endowment; economic capability; political stability and competence; and military strength. These expanded criteria can be divided into three heads: power capabilities, spatial aspects, and status.[5]

Power dimensions[edit]

Leopold von Ranke was one of the first to attempt to scientifically document the great powers.




Spatial dimension[edit]



Status dimension[edit]



A further option is to examine a state's willingness to act as a great power.[20] As a nation will seldom declare that it is acting as such, this usually entails a retrospective examination of state conduct. As a result this is of limited use in establishing the nature of contemporary powers, at least not without the exercise of subjective observation.






The Congress of Vienna consisted of five main powers: the Austrian Empire, France, Prussia, Russia, and the United Kingdom. These five primary participants constituted the original great powers as we know the term today.[5] Other powers, such as Spain, Portugal, and Sweden were consulted on certain specific issues, but they were not full participants. Hanover, Bavaria, and Württemberg were also consulted on issues relating to Germany.



Great powers at war[edit]

Shifts of international power have most notably occurred through major conflicts.[28] The conclusion of the Great War and the resulting treaties of Versailles, St-Germain, and Trianon witnessed the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Japan and the United States as the chief arbiters of the new world order.[29] In the aftermath of World War I the German Empire was defeated, the Austria-Hungarian empire was divided into new, less powerful states and the Russian Empire fell to a revolution. During the Treaty of Versailles the "Big Three"—France, United Kingdom and the United States—held noticeably more power and influence on the proceedings and outcome of the treaty than Italy or Japan.[30][31][32]

The victorious great powers also gained an acknowledgement of their status through permanent seats at the League of Nations Council, where they acted as a type of executive body directing the Assembly of the League. However, the Council began with only four permanent members—Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan—because the United States, meant to be the fifth permanent member, left because the US Senate voted on 19 March 1920 against the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, thus preventing American participation in the League.

When World War II started in 1939, it divided the world into two alliances—the Allies (the United Kingdom and France at first in Europe, China in Asia since 1937, followed in 1941 by the Soviet Union, the United States); and the Axis powers consisting of Germany, Italy and Japan.[33][nb 1] The end of World War II saw the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union emerge as the primary victors. The importance of the Republic of China and France was acknowledged by their inclusion, along with the other three, in the group of countries allotted permanent seats in the United Nations Security Council.



Aftermath of the Cold War[edit]

  Contemporary great powers: UN P5 and recognized nuclear weapons states: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
  Great powers without Security Council vetoes: Germany and Japan.

China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States are referred to as great powers.[36] These five nations are the only states to have permanent seats with veto power on the UN Security Council. They are also the recognized "Nuclear Weapons States" under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and had the five largest military expenditures in the world until very recently (2012) when Japan overtook France.[37]


However, there is no unanimous agreement among authorities as to the current status of these powers or what precisely defines a "great" power. Sources have at times referred to China,[38] France, the United Kingdom,[39] Russia,[40][41][42] Japan and Germany as middle powers.[43][44][45][46][47][48][49] However, Japan and Germany are also included among the great powers,[50][51][52][53][54] due to their economic status (having the third and fourth largest economies respectively), despite their lack of permanent seats and veto power on the UN Security Council or strategic military reach. Additionally, sources in recent times have referred to India as a great power.[55]

Emerging powers[edit]

With continuing European integration, the European Union is increasingly being seen as a great power in its own right,[56] with representation at the WTO and at G8 and G-20 summits. This is most notable in areas where the European Union has exclusive competence (i.e. economic affairs). It also reflects a non-traditional conception of Europe's world role as a global "civilian power", exercising collective influence in the functional spheres of trade and diplomacy, as an alternative to military dominance.[57] The European Union is a supranational union and not a sovereign state, and has limited scope in the areas of foreign affairs and defense policy. These remain largely with the member states of the European Union, which include the three great powers of France, Germany and the United Kingdom (referred to as the "EU three") and the six major European regional powers (referred to as the "G6": France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom ).[55][58]

Brazil and India are widely regarded as countries with the potential to be great powers.[1] Academics such as Zbigniew Brzezinski, Stephen P. Cohen and others regard India as a major or great power.[55][59][60][61]

Permanent membership of the UN Security Council is widely regarded as being a central tenet of great power status in the modern world; Brazil, Germany, India and Japan form the G4 nations which support one another (and have varying degrees of support from the existing permanent members) in becoming permanent members. There are however few signs that reform of the Security Council will happen in the near future.

Hierarchy of great powers[edit]

Acclaimed political scientist, geo-strategist, and former United States National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, appraised the current standing of the great powers in his book Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power. In relation to great powers, he makes the following points:

"The United States is still preeminent but the legitimacy, effectiveness, and durability of its leadership is increasingly questioned worldwide because of the complexity of its internal and external challenges. ... The European Union could compete to be the world's number two power, but this would require a more robust political union, with a common foreign policy and a shared defense capability. ... In contrast, China's remarkable economic momentum, its capacity for decisive political decisions motivated by clearheaded and self centered national interest, its relative freedom from debilitating external commitments, and its steadily increasing military potential coupled with the worldwide expectation that soon it will challenge America's premier global status justify ranking China just below the United States in the current international hierarchy. ... A sequential ranking of other major powers beyond the top two would be imprecise at best. Any list, however, has to include Russia, Japan, and India, as well as the EU's informal leaders: Great Britain, Germany, and France."[55]

List of great powers by date

1815 c. 1880 c. 1900 1919 c. 1939 1946 c. 2000
 Austria[1][4][5]  Austria-Hungary[62]  Austria-Hungary[27]
 British Empire[1][4][5]  British Empire[62]  British Empire[27]  British Empire[30]  United Kingdom[nb 4][33]  United Kingdom[1][2][34]  United Kingdom[1][2][6]
 China[1][2]  China[1][2][6][63][64][65]
France France[1][4][5] France France[62] France France[27] France France[30] France France[33] France France[1][2]  France[1][2][6]
 Prussia[1][4][5]  Germany[62]  Germany[27]  Germany[33]  Germany[1][6]
 Italy[66][67][68][69]  Italy[27]  Italy[30]  Italy[33]
 Japan[27]  Japan[30][nb 5]  Japan[33]  Japan[1][6][63][70]
 Russia[1][4][5]  Russia[62]  Russia[27]  Soviet Union[33]  Soviet Union[1][2][34]  Russia[1][2][6][63]
 United States[27]  United States[30]  United States[33]  United States[1][2][34]  United States[1][2][6][71]

See also[edit]


  1. ^ Even though the book The Economics of World War II lists seven great powers at the start of 1939 (the British Empire, the Empire of Japan, France, the Kingdom of Italy, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and the United States), it focuses only on six of them, because France surrendered shortly after the war began.[citation needed]
  2. ^ The 1956 Suez Crisis suggested that the United Kingdom, financially weakened by two world wars, could not then pursue its foreign policy objectives on an equal footing with the new superpowers without sacrificing convertibility of its reserve currency as a central goal of policy. – from superpower cited by Klug, Adam; Smith, Gregor W. (1999). "Suez and Sterling, 1956". Explorations in Economic History 36 (3): 181–203. doi:10.1006/exeh.1999.0720. 
  3. ^ The fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet Union left the United States as the only remaining superpower in the 1990s.
  4. ^ After the Statute of Westminster came into effect in 1931, the United Kingdom no longer represented the British Empire in world affairs.
  5. ^ "the prime minister of Canada (during the Treaty of Versailles) said that there were 'only three major powers left in the world the United States, Britain and Japan' ... (but) The Great Powers could not be consistent. At the instance of Britain, Japan's ally, they gave Japan five delegates to the Peace Conference, just like themselves, but in the Supreme Council the Japanese were generally ignored or treated as something of a joke." from MacMillan, Margaret (2003). Paris 1919. United States of America: Random House Trade. p. 306. ISBN 0-375-76052-0. 


  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Peter Howard, B.A., B.S., M.A., Ph.D. Assistant Professor, School of International Service, American University. (2008). "Great Powers". Encarta. MSN. Archived from the original on 2009-10-31. Retrieved 2008-12-20. 
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Louden, Robert (2007). The world we want. United States of America: Oxford University Press US. p. 187. ISBN 0195321375. 
  3. ^ Kelsen, Hans (2000). The Law of the United Nations: A Critical Analysis of Its Fundamental Problems. United States of America: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. pp. 272–281, 911. ISBN 1-58477-077-5. 
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Fueter, Eduard (1922). World history, 1815–1930. United States of America: Harcourt, Brace and Company. pp. 25–28, 36–44. ISBN 1-58477-077-5. 
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Danilovic, Vesna. "When the Stakes Are High—Deterrence and Conflict among Major Powers", University of Michigan Press (2002), pp 27, 225–228 (PDF chapter downloads) (PDF copy).
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h T. V. Paul, James J. Wirtz, Michel Fortmann (2005). Balance of Power. United States of America: State University of New York Press, 2005. pp. 59, 282. ISBN 0791464016.  Accordingly, the great powers after the Cold War are Britain, China, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, and the United States p.59
  7. ^ a b Charles Webster, (ed), British Diplomacy, 1813–1815: Selected Documents Dealing with the Reconciliation of Europe, (1931), p307.
  8. ^ Toje, A. (2010). The European Union as a Small Power: After the post-Cold War. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
  9. ^ Dictionary - World power
  10. ^ Dictionary - Major power
  11. ^ Thesaurus - World Power
  12. ^ Waltz, Kenneth N (1979). Theory of International Politics. McGraw-Hill. p. 131. ISBN 0-201-08349-3. 
  13. ^ Taylor, Alan JP (1954). The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848–1918. Oxford: Clarendon. p. xxiv. ISBN 0-19-881270-1. 
  14. ^ Organski, AFK – World Politics, Knopf (1958)
  19. ^ Modelski, George (1972). Principles of World Politics. Free Press. p. 141. ISBN 978-0-02-921440-4. 
  21. ^ Bartlett, C. J. (1996-10-15). Peace, War and the European Powers, 1814–1914. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 106. ISBN 9780312161385. Retrieved 26 December 2013. 
  22. ^ Cassels, Alan (1996). Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. Psychology Press. p. 86. ISBN 9780415119269. Retrieved 26 December 2013. 
  24. ^ Britain And Germany: from Ally to Enemy[dead link]
  27. ^ a b c d e f g h i Dallin, David (2006-11-30). The Rise of Russia in Asia. Read Books. ISBN 978-1-4067-2919-1. 
  28. ^ Power Transitions as the cause of war.
  29. ^ Globalization and Autonomy by Julie Sunday, McMaster University.
  37. ^ "The 15 countries with the highest military expenditure in 2012 (table)" (PDF). Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Retrieved 15 April 2013. 
  40. ^ Neumann, Iver B. (2008). "Russia as a great power, 1815–2007". Journal of International Relations and Development 11: 128–151 [p. 128]. doi:10.1057/jird.2008.7. "As long as Russia's rationality of government deviates from present-day hegemonic neo-liberal models by favouring direct state rule rather than indirect governance, the West will not recognize Russia as a fully fledged great power." 
  41. ^ Garnett, Sherman (6 November 1995). "Russia ponders its nuclear options". Washington Times. p. 2. "Russia must deal with the rise of other middle powers in Eurasia at a time when it is more of a middle power itself." 
  42. ^ Kitney, Geoff (25 March 2000). "Putin It To The People". Sydney Morning Herald. p. 41. "The Council for Foreign and Defence Policy, which includes senior figures believed to be close to Putin, will soon publish a report saying Russia's superpower days are finished and that the country should settle for being a middle power with a matching defence structure." 
  43. ^ Sperling, James (2001). "Neither Hegemony nor Dominance: Reconsidering German Power in Post Cold-War Europe". British Journal of Political Science 31 (2). doi:10.1017/S0007123401000151. 
  44. ^ Max Otte, Jürgen Greve (2000). A Rising Middle Power?: German Foreign Policy in Transformation, 1989–1999. Germany. p. 324. ISBN 0-312-22653-5. 
  45. ^ Er LP (2006) Japan's Human Security Rolein Southeast Asia
  46. ^ "Merkel as a world star - Germany's place in the world", The Economist (November 18, 2006), p. 27: "Germany, says Volker Perthes, director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, is now pretty much where it belongs: squarely at the centre. Whether it wants to be or not, the country is a Mittelmacht, or middle power."
  47. ^ Susanna Vogt, "Germany and the G20", in Wilhelm Hofmeister, Susanna Vogt, G20: Perceptions and Perspectives for Global Governance (Singapore: Oct. 19, 2011), p. 76, citing Thomas Fues and Julia Leininger (2008): "Germany and the Heiligendamm Process", in Andrew Cooper and Agata Antkiewicz (eds.): Emerging Powers in Global Governance: Lessons from the Heiligendamm Process, Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, p. 246: "Germany’s motivation for the initiative had been '... driven by a combination of leadership qualities and national interests of a middle power with civilian characteristics'."
  48. ^ "Change of Great Powers", in Global Encyclopaedia of Political Geography, by M.A. Chaudhary and Guatam Chaudhary (New Delhi, 2009.), p. 101: "Germany is considered by experts to be an economic power. It is considered as a middle power in Europe by Chancellor Angela Merkel, former President Johannes Rau and leading media of the country."
  49. ^ Susanne Gratius, Is Germany still a EU-ropean power?, FRIDE Policy Brief, No. 115 (February 2012), pp. 1, 2: "Being the world's fourth largest economic power and the second largest in terms of exports has not led to any greater effort to correct Germany's low profile in foreign policy ... For historic reasons and because of its size, Germany has played a middle-power role in Europe for over 50 years."
  50. ^ T.V. Paul; James Wirtz; Michel Fortmann (8 September 2004). Balance of Power: Theory and Practice in the 21st Century. Stanford University Press. pp. 59–. ISBN 978-0-8047-5017-2. Retrieved 14 October 2012. 
  51. ^ Great Powers
  52. ^ Asia’s Overlooked Great Power, APR 18, 2007
  53. ^ (2011-11-28). "Europe's Superpower: Germany Is The New Indispensable (And Resented) Nation - All News Is Global". Retrieved 2013-11-17. 
  54. ^ Winder, Simon (2011-11-19). "Germany: The reluctant superpower". The Daily Telegraph. 
  55. ^ a b c d Strategic Vision: America & the Crisis of Global Power by Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, pp 43–45. Published 2012.
  56. ^ Buzan, Barry (2004). The United States and the Great Powers. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Polity Press. p. 70. ISBN 0-7456-3375-7. 
  58. ^ Governo Italiano: Dossier G6 dei ministri dell'Interno UE, II sem. 2007
  59. ^ "India: Emerging Power", by Stephen P. Cohen, p. 60
  60. ^ "India’s Rise as a Great Power, Part One: Regional and Global Implications". 7 July 2011. Retrieved 2013-11-17. 
  61. ^ Lalit K Jha / PTI (2010-11-03). "I support India’s rise as global power: Obama". Livemint. Retrieved 2013-11-17. 
  63. ^ a b c UW Press: Korea's Future and the Great Powers

Further reading[edit]