Superpowers Debate Guide
From PhiloWiki
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Overview
- A superpower is a state with the first rank in the international system and the ability to influence events and project power on a worldwide scale; it is considered a higher level of power than a Great power. It was a term first applied in 1943 to the Soviet Union, the United States, and the British Empire. Following World War II, the British Empire was dismantled and the Soviet Union and the United States were regarded as the only two superpowers; engaged in the Cold War.
- Currently, the most common belief among mainstream journalists and in the world of academia holds that only the United States fulfills the criteria to be considered a superpower; sometimes, given the unipolar nature of the world, it is described as a hyperpower.
- China and India appear to have the greatest potential amongst all the other nations of achieving superpower or near-superpower status within the 21st century and are often termed as emerging superpowers.
- The European Union has economic power about the same as the United States; as a result some consider that despite not being politically unified, it may be either an emerging or existing superpower, depending on one's viewpoint. However, as mentioned above, mainstream journalists and most of academia holds that only the United States fills this position as superpower (or hyperpower).
- However, others doubt the existence of superpowers altogether, stating that today's complex global marketplace and the rising interdependency between the world's nations has made the concept of a superpower an idea of the past and that the world is now multipolar.
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Superpower from Wikipedia |
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Reading Assignment
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Second Superpowers
- The Second Superpower is a term used to conceptualize a global civil society as a world force comparable to or counterbalancing the United States of America. The term derives originally from a 2003 New York Times article which described "world public opinion" as one of two "superpowers."
- UN Secretary General Kofi Annan began to use the phrase "two superpowers" in speeches. In March, "The Nation" magazine cover story was titled "The Other Superpower". In it, Jonathan Schell wrote: "The new superpower possesses immense power, but it is a different kind of power: not the will of one man wielding the 21,000-pound MOAB but the hearts and wills of the majority of the world's people."
- Though worldwide popular opposition failed to prevent the invasion of Iraq, leading some to reject the notion, the phrase is still popular among people in the anti-war and anti-globalization movements.
- On March 31, 2003 Dr. James F. Moore of Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, posted an essay entitled The Second Superpower Rears Its Beautiful Head. In it, he advocated four ideas: embrace the concept explicitly within the peace movement as an inspirational goal and a counter to the "first superpower" idea promoted by the Bush administration, continue to develop blogging and other means of linking the community globally, find ways to influence first superpower institutions including international institutions and international law, and continue to develop reflective personal consciousness so as to be able to lead from love rather than fear.
- This paper received 50,000 downloads in five days. The substance of the piece was debated by a number of authors, including Jonathan Rauch writing in National Journal. Many bloggers linked the paper with Joi Ito's Emergent Democracy concept and paper.
- Some attacked Moore's use of the term to describe primarily the effect of the Internet. Brian Fitzgerald argued in the Greenpeace Weblog: "Moore's essay hijacks a powerful, apt description of the anti-war movement, this particular anti-war movement, and boils every bit of life out of it, turning the phrase into a highly saccharin, American, depoliticized vision of a zippy web community. There's no edge, no conflict, and the essay seems to occupy that dreamy space which considers itself radical-left but has no real argument with anybody, and no real agenda other than to pat itself on the back. It sits effortlessly in the status quo, claiming the mantle of opposition not by action or hard personal choice, but by right of enlightenment and membership in a club."
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Discussion questions
- What is the definition of a superpower?
- What are the responsibilities of a superpower?
- What have been some superpowers in history?
- What caused their decline?
- What nations are superpowers today?
- What nations will be superpowers in the next 20 years?
- What is the relationship of a superpower to other nations? To bodies such as the United Nations?
