How to Spot a Rising Superpower

Every so often global power shifts to a new country, it’s the rise and fall of Rome all over again. No one country remains top dog forever. The last shift took place during the Second World War when undisputably, the USA was the most powerful country on earth. And at the same time a second shift took place giving the Soviet Union second place in the global pecking order, coming out of nowhere.

The Soviet Union collapsed and people are anxiously watching the USA, the “weary titan” as Aaron Friedberg described Britain in the late Victorian era. All sorts of names are tossed out as contender for the future superpower. In the 1980’s they thought Japan was going to fulfil the role they’d always promised since they defeated the Russians in 1905 (the first time in centuries that a non-European power had defeated a European one) and then invaded Imperial China in World War II. In recent times China has been touted as the next superpower. Some have even mentioned countries such as Brazil or made the case for Russia regaining it’s international standing.

Most of the countries touted as the next big thing tend to fizzle out. So what are the signs people should look for to indicate who is going to make it to the top?

To answer the question, we need to go back to the early part of the 16th century to the reign of Henry VIII. England was just a little backwater at the time. The main developments of the Rennaisance were taking place in Italy, and countries like Portugal had leapt ahead with their daring and innovative maritime expeditions, discovering and settling the New World. So how did Britain end up two centuries later as the world’s undisputed superpower?

The first clue something was happening was an upsurge of artistic and intellectual thought. England was suddenly gripped with religious questioning. William Tyndale, a great scholar, translated the Bible into English in 1526, and debate began to rage about the differences in what the Bible actually said and what was preached by the Catholic bishops who “interpreted” much of the material. Anne Boleyn, who would be Henry’s second wife, was caught up in this movement, and she was instrumental in persuading Henry (who had never been a questioner of the church) to declare Protestantism to be the state religion and English it’s primary language.