AHC: More Nations have Global Power Projection Capabilities

From what I gather, there aren't many nations on earth that have global power projection capabilities. As far as I know, the USA of course has them, France has such capabilities as well, the U.K. but to a much lesser extent, the USSR used to have them but, well, that ended, and the PRC today can only project military power in some countries in Asia, plus a base in Djibouti. How can we change that? Can we make it so that more than 10, maybe even 20 countries have global power projection capabilities in the 21st century?

I think a useful tactic could be to handle colonialism differently, with more puppet governments and, especially, more overseas bases; so,,for example, maybe the Netherlands negotiate a withdrawal from the East Indies earlier, thus ensuring they get basing rights? Perhaps they even keep Suriname. Belgium could be able to be more powerful vis a vis the Congo, by giving it independence earlier or just having the Katangan secession succeed, thus ensuring they have a proxy in Central Africa: that could lead them to be more active in world affairs, and have more bases abroad, perhaps carriers etc.

An interesting idea would be to have more alliances like NATO, and have more military integration between those allied countries: effectively, more interested powers with more bases abroad.

These are some examples, off the top of my head, about how more nations could have somehow been able to project power, militarily but not only, abroad, in as many places as possible. How would you go about doing that?
 
The other way to get power projection without base access rights is with aircraft carriers, amphibious ships and strategic transportation aircraft. While these can be hard to come by they were well and truly available in the 60s and can be expected to have 30 year service lives.
 
The other way to get power projection without base access rights is with aircraft carriers, amphibious ships and strategic transportation aircraft. While these can be hard to come by they were well and truly available in the 60s and can be expected to have 30 year service lives.

True but as we move toward the modern day these things get increasingly expensive and so are further limited to a smaller number of countries. Many countries can't afford to spend the billions of dollars required to purchase, maintain, and staff these systems to have global power projection. I don't think you can come up with 20 countries who could a) afford it and b) convince voters that it is even worth it in the 21st century.
 
I have a four words answer: Who pays the bill?
I suppose that it could be an alliance thing, or you could have more countries be more paranoid as well as more jingoistic for long periods of time, then electorates would pressure their political leaderships to arm regardless of the coffers, though, naturally, that would end badly. Maybe more countries have a Norway-style arrangement, with a vast reserve-fund but treat it more liberally?
 
True but as we move toward the modern day these things get increasingly expensive and so are further limited to a smaller number of countries. Many countries can't afford to spend the billions of dollars required to purchase, maintain, and staff these systems to have global power projection. I don't think you can come up with 20 countries who could a) afford it and b) convince voters that it is even worth it in the 21st century.

Just looking at helicopter carriers there are currently 11 countries operating them, then there are another 7 operating aircraft carriers, and I'm pretty sure I've missed one or two. Further there are 9 C17 operators and another 7 A400M operators and some 32 countries have inflight refuelling capability in their air forces.

Historically there have been plenty of other opportunities that might pad this list out considerably. For example plenty of countries had ex British light carriers but of the light fleet carriers only the Hermes saw service after Britain and only Australia seemed to use an ex light carrier as a troopship. Perhaps the Hawker P1150 gets developed instead of the P1154 nightmare and P1127 consolation prize, or perhaps the P1127 get developed sooner so ex British light carriers get a new lease on life as STOVL carriers with Canada, Netherlands, Brazil etc.

Perhaps the Shorts Belfast sells sells quite widely, particularly to large countries like Canada, Australia, India, South Africa and Brazil, in place of other aircraft like the C130, C160, Il 12, giving these operators operators the option of strategic airlift. Perhaps more transport aircraft are fitted with an inflight refuelling hose setup in the landing gear blister like the C160NGs, giving tactical airforces strategic reach on occasion.

The list of what small things can be done to increase power projection is very long, and if a country picks up a few of them it become capable of power projection over oceanic distances.
 
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