What will be the next global "empire" after America?

Question

America has major influence in today's world. Whether it is in the media, or trade or politics, America has a major role in it. But once America has its taste of the spotlight, what would be the next global influence. Maybe China or India or maybe even Brazil. Tell me the reason why you think the country you chose will be influential and the reason why.

Get answering :D

Answer 1

Some place that is a backwater today--Nigeria, or Indonesia, or Venezuela. Great Empires always start out on the edges of the previous one: Rome was just beyond the Greek colonies in southern Italy, Britain and Germany were on the Roman borders, and America was a string of small settlements across an ocean. Great powers are never where you expect them to be.

Answer 2

Actually large sections of what is now North America were covered with shallow seas over 100 times in the last several millions of years, so the answer to your question is it's probable that it will happen again...more than once. On the plus side it usually takes several hundred thousands of years for this to happen and then several hundreds of thousands or even millions of years for the water in these seas to get locked up as polar ice. Human civilization started about 10,000 years ago when a significant portion of Ice Age ice had moved north and human beings began to plant crops. Since that lucky day we now have humans all over the planet burning stuff and altering the atmosphere. So far, pretty good...'warming' has been incremental though measurable and the effects small, but significant. Significant in the sense that where for millions of years there were no people, there are now literally billions of human beings still dependent on post ice age agriculture. Even a small change up or down means big troubles for everyone and everything. Even a slight change in 'climate' will change 'weather' patterns...if the rain doesn't fall people won't eat. And that, bro, is the significances of this situation...it's not the 'heat', or the cold, it's dependence that we all have on the rain and on water sources. Only a few decades or less of longer and dryer summers, as is happening NOW, will make the difference in whether a few billion people will eat or not. So don't just check the temperature, check the rain gauge. The truth is out there!

Answer 3

The famous guess for your Q is China

1.4000 years of written history and civilization

2.The most populated country(4 x US). And it is told that Chinese is one of the most eager race for education and personal succeed as Jews are. More than 14,000,000 students are graduating from 4 - year college every year

3.3rd biggest country(it's larger than US)

4.Chinese GDP is 4th biggest today, and rising fast. If China keep this up, it won take more than 20 years to surpass US

5.China has been great influence over Asia for 2000 years since the birth of one, huge Chinese empire. Trade, politics, academics, technology, philosophy, arts, and moral value of whole Asia has been lead by China along quite much.

* And we all know Asia is the biggest continent with 60% of world population...Being the leader of Asia would eventually mean being the leader of the earth

6.They WERE the global empire in the past. It has been the dominating power for two thousand years, which no other country has accomplished yet. Even the beginning of 19th century(when Britain was processing industrial revolution) China was still richer than whole Europe including Britain

7.China has been trying to make allies among countries that are dissapointed in US, and it seems quite a success for now.

Answer 4

I'd start by saying NOT China. Every reason given by others why China will be hugely important in the world is valid, but the lesson of history is that China has always sought to 'influence', but always with a view to creating a stable environment for itself. So it works to create reasonably friendly States around itself, and to protect it's trade interests. But it has generally worked on the basis that military domination of foreign countries has a far worse 'return on investment' than developing 'fruitful (fruitful for China) partnerships'.

So what's to stop China developing 'fruitful partnerships with everybody and 'calling' that the next global empire? Well India primarily, and a resurgent Russia, the European Union and a very (still) powerful US economy. All of those players will compete with China in working for 'commercial and trade influence'. And because commercial influence is such a 'changing thing' and works by playing one country (producers and consumers) off against another, it will be worked much more efficiently by players who sit 'outside' traditional national boundaries and loyalties.

The world dominated by Corporations has been talked about for a long while of course. What might be different from our 'old' ideas about that globalized Corporate World though is that they won't all (as much as we used to imagine) speak 'American' or eat at McDonalds. Globalized commercial empires, based around big corporate players will have footprints in all of those economies (China, India, Brazil, Europe, US and the Middle East and Africa). Within that you might see much more Chinese (and possibly Spanish) language and cultural influence, but very little political influence. You might in fact see these Governments much more swayed by these Corporations in fact, than the other way around.

Answer 5

I say China as well. The reason is the government is really pushing to be viewed differently. They are putting lots of effort into making sure China is perceived well.

Islam will always be warring with someone. If the Muslim states ever unite then they would be very powerful. It seems there are many interpretations of the Quran and how best to implement an Islamic government. However the extreme forms of the Islamic government become oppressive. Meanwhile the government leaders do as they please and do not obey the laws they force others to live by. This inherently produces revolt.

Answer 6

China - - - with a Billion people within its borders and nearly half a Billion Worldwide I'd be boning up on language culture and food in order to manage the shift with ease and grace.

Pax----

a bit more // // Chinese imitate but they also originate & asimilate - - - they have been largely autonomous for three thousand years and clearly have outlasted the Greeks the Romans the Byzantiums Etc - - - and they genuinely love life and like to have fun which is why they have proliferated.....

Answer 7

With America, we are DOOMED! First point, America does NOT have an Empire and never will. The US only have influence through corruption, bribery, murder and threats. However, the world's people are starting to rebel and make clear their feelings towards the US and what it stands for. Through giving more weapons to Israel, it's obvious that Israel WILL use those weapons against more innocent Palestinian women and children. The Muslim world (the Middle East) will say enough's enough and all Arab nations will attack Israel. Israel, out of desperation will do what the US are good at, they will Nuke the muslim countries. China, Japan and Russia will send Nukes towards the US and the US will launch it's Nukes against the UK and Germany. That's it, nobody will know what happens next as mankind will be extinct and all because the US used Israel to fight it's own war against countries that refuse to accept an American world ( or allow the US to have as much oil it wants).

Answer 8

It will be Islam. There was a report that came out a couple of weeks ago that predicted that all of Europe will be Islamic in about 20 years. They are not cohesive force now but they will become one as more and more enter Europeans countries and eventually take over positions of authority just due to their population counts. Think about it Islam was not able to
enter Europe 500 years ago but have found a way. It is a much more peaceful way of overtaking Europe but still control is control.

Answer 9

Global hegemony is not a game where all states participate and each get a turn. There have only been a few such states in history, and right now there are no obvious choices as "next". It's hard to argue that any of today's states would take over the role the US plays - even at a weakened state with overstretched resources, economic competition stiffening and pretty bad PR, the US is still the one entity whose influence really matters.

I'm very dumbfounded after reading some of the responses, it seems people pick "Islam" (which was never an empire, the Turkish Ottomans were) or China based on size alone. For the better course of more than 200 years, Russia and the Soviet Union was the largest country with the greatest natural resources (firs, timber, coal, oil, etc.) yet it never managed to exert more than a regional influence - pan-Slavism didn't take off in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, Turkmen and Cossacks, Georgians, Poles and Finns buckled under a Russian and then Soviet "empire". Throughout the history of the Soviet Union, it's dream of one worldwide soviet didn't cement itself, China and Yugoslavia were quick to break away from Soviet influence, Albania and Romania, Vietnam and North Korea too. Only where it held large numbers of troops and propped up governments in the police-states of Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Hungary did it exert any real will. So, size alone will not predict the next great power, as the Russians and then Soviets were at best a Regional power playing on a world power field, and it was very short lived.

China has not been an autonomous unit for thousands of years as some have posted. The Chinese were a number of feudal states up until present history with few exceptions. The Chinese we know today culturally came to fruit during the Han dynasty at about the same time that Rome was conquering the Western world, circa 200 BC to 200 AD. Before then were the Shang, the Zhou, and the Qin dynasties, all limited in influence. Even the Han dynasty controlled only a little more than half of present day China, and the Central Asians in Western China would NOT be called Chinese until recent times (1800s, with the Chinese imperial push westward during colonization by Europeans along the southeast coast). Periods of disunity would lead to seperate kingdoms (the Three Kingdoms following the collapse of the Han, for instance), followed by briefly resurgent China under various dynasties - Song, Tang, Ming, Qing. And it is the 4th largest country, not the 3rd. The post using figures that place it at 3rd include the Chinese claim that Taiwan is part of "one" China. Taiwan is NOT part of China and has not been since 1949, even if the UN refuses to acknowledge the 23 million Taiwanese. (given, with Taiwan, China would surpass the US as the 3rd largest nation, but Taiwan has maintained its independence for 60 years. That's like saying the colonists who fled the US to Canada were still part of the United States by 1850.. culturally, linguistically they are the same but it's two seperate states). China was the first great conquest of the Mongols. It was effectively disunited Tibet in southwestern China was only recently brought into the Sinosphere of influence, very unwillingly I should add.

China today is poised to become a world player and regional power, but not the next global hegemon. For one, the networks of globalization are too heavily dominated by English. Not since Latin has one language held such a position in the world. While Chinese language schools do pop up, they're nothing compared to the English language schools in China and elsewhere. English may very well be the last lingua franca for centuries to come, so long as our world remains integrated through networks and trade. China has what is quite possibly the worlds worst rural-urban gap and faces a pending population and economic crisis should the markets shift elsewhere. The labor done in China today, that is building the Chinese economy at such a rate, was done in Malaysia, South Korea and Japan just a few decades ago, and in the US and Europe before then. As China grows, so too will costs, and the markets will move elsewhere. Will China transition to an consumer state as Japan and South Korea did, or will it continue to struggle as a developing country?

India, I feel, is a poor answer. The subcontinent is large and impoverished in many states, while pockets of wealth do emerge, India is in a poor position to unify itself, let alone influence any of its neighbors or the world.

Brazil is thrown out as a possible power among the developing world but it has historically underperformed and is even today. Of Latin American countries, Argentina, Chile and Mexico are often as successful if not more successful than Brazil with economic reforms and growth. Brazil will remain an integral part of any South American issue, but outside of the Latin continent, Brazil exerts very little influence and probably will continue to do so.

"Islam" as an empire is a fear of the West, not a reality. Moroccans want no part of Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, no more than there is a united Christian empire today with the citizens of Russia, the US and Uruguay clamoring for a united empire. Aside from the religious zealots, there is no dream of a future Islamic state spanning from the Pyrennes of Spain to the islands of Indonesia - it's such an irrational fear based on how little Westerners know past caliphates and our experience with the Ottoman "empire". We forget that the people of the Ottoman empire - the Egyptians, the Syrians, the Persians and Serbs, all of them, lived under an authoritarian state where brother-killing was a method of keeping power and humiliating shows of obediance to the Sultan were kept enforced by gross taxation and mistreatment of citizens, only achieved by keeping the masses in a backward state. Very, very few in Lebanon or Libya today want to revert to such a state, and few realistically dream that muslims in Indonesia and Iran can meaningfully unite with muslims in Albania and Oman. It is in the end a pipe dream.

Assuming the US continues to falter for the next 50-100 years, which is a silly assumption considering the relative position it holds as leader or within the top ten in most meaningful positions we look to in leadership and ability to lead, then we'd have to assume the Europeans under the direction of the EU, as chief partners to the US hegemony and Western-inspired world order that has taken shape over the last half millenia, would step up to the plate as world "leader", though I think realistically some sort of Western-oriented leadership under such a basis as the EU or NATO, encompassing Europe and the United States/Canada, would be the more likely successor. Belief in the EU grew as European nationstates individual influences waned. What is not to say the US and Canada, and Australia, South Africa, New Zealand or Russia would not put their cards forth toward a more collective state if the conditions were favorable for it?

Finally, before a China or Brazil could hope to build its own empire, the current world order would have to be dismantled, and I think everyone is too comfortable to see it happen anytime soon. Also, I doubt China or Brazil would manage to survive as states should the US/EU leadership dissolve to such a point as to overturn the current world order.

Answer 10

china, because as of now, they are trying to expand their horizons and even planning to create the best in terms of manpower, supplies, armaments and other vital things that are concomitant with the demands of globalization.