Russia and Ukraine flashpoint

[Dulfite]

Ka-pi96 said:

Dulfite said:

That's how humans have always been. The Babylonians made everyone around them look like a joke, the Persian/Medes did the same, then the Greeks under Alexander, then the Romans. While no country since the Romans has been quite as heavily dominant over the rest of the world, the world has always had a super power or two at any time.

The only reason China can compete with the USA is because they have like 3-4 times our population. If you evened the populations then their GDP would be a joke compared to America right now. USA is the current super power, there is always a super power, just how it is.

It's not quite the same. Past examples are typically only regional powers rather than world powers. Even Rome at their height had basically no influence in Asia beyond the middle east and people in sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas probably didn't even know they existed.

Also, population is a massive factor, you can't really ignore it. If you use GDP per capita then yeah, China is way below the US, but Norway is above the US. Population definitely helps the US out too.

Power as in the collective strength of influence, technology, religious uniformity, total population, riches, and more. Collectively, putting all those things together, nothing in China or South America ever had as much power as Rome, and Rome was weaker, collectively, than the Hellenistic world it replaced, which was weaker than the Persian/Medes, which was weaker than the Babylonians. In proportion to their time, and looking at power collectively, no empire on Earth has been as powerful as the ancient Babylonians.

I say this as someone who has done quite a bit of reading books on the Statue of Nebuchadnezzar empires, love that particular sub topic of human history!