To what extent is the USA's dominance being threatened by the emerging power of the BRICS? (15)
The USA has a notable dominance over the rest of the world due to having strengths in four main areas: economic strength, military strength, cultural influence and political power. However, the emerging BRIC nations are threatening the USA’s dominance because their strength in these areas is also looking strong.
In terms of its economy, the USA is strongly threatened by China. China has the second highest GDP in the world behind the USA (6,807.43 USD in 2013) and this figure is growing at a much faster rate than the USA’s. China’s manufacturing industry is huge and exports many products all over the world. Although the average quality of life in China isn’t as good as the USA’s, it improving due to China’s growing economy allowing more investment in services like healthcare and education. A wealthier population in China may also lead to future political change and even more economic growth. Also, India’s economy is powerful and growing, although not on the scale of China. Overall, I think China will soon become more of a dominant nation compared to the USA. However, China’s GDP and quality of life won’t match the USA for a long time.
The military strength of countries is important in making them superpowers. Although the USA has the strongest military force in the world, China also has very strong military strength and is most likely here to threaten the USA for global dominance out of the BRIC nations. The Chinese army has over 2,000,000 personnel members compared to the USA’s 1,000,000. This gives China a huge advantage in manpower. On the other hand, China’s military is behind technologically, having only built their first aircraft carrier in 2011, whereas the USA has had carriers for decades, even since WWII. Despite this however, China also has nuclear capabilities which threatens the USA’s global dominance. Moreover, Russia and India also have nuclear weapons, however their armies aren’t as large as the USA’s and China’s. Russia in particular has a weak military force at the moment due to sanctions after recent actions in Ukraine. Brazil is not a large threat to the USA with military strength due to being a relatively peaceful nation and only having a small army. Another reason why the BRIC nations are still struggling to compete with the USA’s military strength is that the USA’s army is global, whereas the BRIC nation’s armies are fixed within their countries.
Political influence is key in being a superpower. China’s economy gives it power but its foreign involvement does too. China has heavily invested in Nigeria to extend their influence and have given a lot in aid as well as FDI. China gets resources out of this and is criticised for it. All four BRICs are on the G20 and Russia is even on the G8, showing each country has a lot of political power but in reality Russia and China are much bigger threats than India and Brazil. The USA has close interaction with the EU and in particular the UK, which gives it further power over the other BRICs.
Russia challenges the USA in terms of its natural resources. While the OPEC countries dominate the oil market, Russia dominates the gas market. This gives Russia great power as the USA has used most of its own oil and as oil runs out, gas will become more important. As the main energy source for domestic use i.e boilers in homes, this gives Russia great power primarily in the developed world and outdoes the USA’s natural reserves, therefore threatening it. China also has a large amount of natural reserves of coal and minerals .While coal is unpopular due to its low energy output and environmental uncleanliness, it is a large source of power as it is what China is growing on. When oil and gas run out, perhaps coal will be used more again. Brazil has some natural resources. It has reasonably large uranium resources that Brazil itself doesn’t use, so could sell to other countries. It also has large amounts of sugarcane, a biofuel, however this isn’t enough to challenge the US. Currently Brazil does not threaten the US but its alternate fuel sources may increase its power when fossil fuels run out. Overall, Russia is the primary threat resource-wise due to it having most of the world’s natural gas.
To conclude all the BRICs threaten the US as a superpower in some way, although it must be said China and Russia are the bigger threats. The USA will be hard to beat due to its cultural influence which completely outdoes all the other BRICs, as well as its economy, military and political influence, as well as other factors like the USA’s role in science and technology.