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The Great Powers are usually taken to be those nations or political entities that, through their great economic and military strength, are the arbiters of world diplomacy, and whose opinions must be taken into account by other nations before effecting initiatives. Characteristically, they have the ability to intervene militarily almost anywhere, and they also have soft, cultural power, often in the form of economic investment in less developed portions of the world.

Different sets of Great Powers have existed in history, but after 1815, the Concert of Europe formalized France, the United Kingdom, Russia, Austria, and Prussia as the five powers. Of these, the first three had colonial empires outside Europe. Austria was called an empire in a former sense, that of a monarch ruling over kings. Prussia was a newcomer, rising through Frederick the Great's militaristic grand strategy. After the First World War, at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 four Great Powers were readily recognised: the British Empire (including its Dominions), the United States, France and Italy. The status of Japan requires qualification. They were not part of the Big Four, but were accorded two votes like the Big Four. Their position was highlighted by their race equality proposal, which touched on a number of issues including their status as a Great Power. Although this proposal was defeated as first the British and then the Americans caved into the Australian defence of the White Australia Policy, their successful retention of Shandong and the German islands in the Pacific north of the equator indicated that they had attained the position of a non-white Great Power. Again, after the Second World War in 1945, the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France and the Republic of China were formalised as the five powers with permanent seats and veto power in the UN Security Council. Clearly, shifts in great power status tend to follow wars.

Great powers are also often associated with the projection of military power through a particular technology, such as Dreadnoughts or nuclear weapons. A mere large, defensive infantry army, such as the Chinese would have been able to raise during the age of European dominance is not able to project power overseas. Even the U.S. Army and its blockading navy during the Civil War was insufficient at a time when the United States did not have armored ocean-going battleships. Wealth could be a military factor. Britain could not raise a large army quickly, but was able to fund allies to raise them for it during the Napoleonic Wars.

The Congress of Berlin, a peace treaty to a comparatively minor war, included Turkey and Italy at the status of those mentioned in the Concert of Europe. International meetings, which developed during the second half of the nineteenth century, also serve to indicate Great Power status in the absence of peace treaties after wars, such as the different Berlin Conference.

By the end of the Cold War and the era of globalization other nations began to attain international recognition as great power or future great powers. Brazil and India are examples of such nations.

Since the end of the World Wars, the term Great Power has been split up into a number of definite categories. The term Superpower was used to define a nation with overwhelming power over the rest of the world, this term was initially used to describe the United States and Soviet Union. The term Major power (or sometimes Global Power) has also been used to describe nations with great power, yet not as overwhelming as that of a superpower. This system forms a type of hierarchy for powerful nations.

Great Powers throughout Modern History

Current Powers

These dates are approximate figures based on the years in which the respective countries showed the distinguishing characteristics of each of these categories.

Hyperpower

• United States 1990 - present

Superpower

• United States 1945 - present
• Soviet Union 1945-1991

Potential Superpowers

• People's Republic of China 1990 - present
• India 2000 - present
• European Union 2000 - present

Major powers

• France 1956 - present
• United Kingdom 1956 - present
• Germany 1990 - present
• Russian Federation 1991 - present
• Japan 1945 - present
• Republic of India 1990 - present

See also

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