"Ultrapower"

In the past century, we have see the fall of "Great Powers" from world status, and had a arms race between the two "Superpowers" of our time. Following that the United States is the current "Hyperpower" so what would be nessesary to go up to the next step a "Ultrapower"?
 
In the mid-90s, have China and India wipe each other out in a nuclear war, then have the European Union break apart due to petty nationalism.

Boom, headshot. :cool:
 
The United States is'nt a Hyperpower, it was only one from roughly 1992-1996, and that was only because it was the only Superpower,
not because it was truly powerful enough to be one.



An Ultrapower would I think by definition have to be an entity spanning a large chunk of the world with no real rivals.

In other words, by the time an Ultrapower could develop, the entire idea would be meaningless since their would only be one polity.
 
That depends on what defines "Ultrapower" as. The Soviet Union in the last 25 years of existence was an economic basketcase and only held together by force, but the United States of America was not perfect, with its own problems in the social fields (most other 1st world countries have better health and education systems, and America still suffers from problems with social cohesion). If Ultrapower is combining social cohesion as well as economic, military and political power, then America COULD accomplish that, but it wouldn't be an easy road to do.
 
Just let present demographic trends extent for 50 years.
With most of the World having a falling population, the US will [Slowly] out populate the rest of the World.
 
Just let present demographic trends extent for 50 years.
With most of the World having a falling population, the US will [Slowly] out populate the rest of the World.

That's not even true. Alot of countries have declining population growth, but growth nontheless, and China will always have a larger population than the USA, India will aswell and their population is growing at 1% a year, it's really only Europe that will fall behind and even then the EU will have a larger population than the USA for centuries
 
Ultrapower doesn't make much sense as we already have a far better word - Hegemon. Since the 20th century only had the time and space for 2-4 super powers at most (and more than they're just 'Great Powers'), going one stage up from Hyperpower would imply complete world dominance.
 
I agree with Nugax.

Since we're talking about AH here, you would have to make the US more powerful then it was inn the '90s. Since it was basically the only Superpower, there isn't much you can do to make it more powerful short of makinng other nations actually subservient to America, by possession or vassalage. That would require a largely different US, with a deeply ingrained "Manifest Destiny 2.0" and an insane amount of luck. Such a nation would would truly be a Hegemon, which may not be that good for the States-in addition to the moral dimension, I personally doubt the ability of such a state to survive indefinately. Then again, as is happening OTL, this will allow other states like China and India to emerge as powers-but still, OTL is probably the best-case scenario for the US.
 

Thande

Donor
Two possible definitions might be 'total world domination' (but that's rather unlikely, and besides, there wouldn't be anything else to measure it against) and 'has territory on multiple planets and can deploy military forces to defend them'.
 
War between the US and USSR in 1945 leads to the USSR dying in nuclear hellfire, the US takes a leading role in shaping the world through the UN, pressuring decolonization, etc.
 
Two possible definitions might be 'total world domination' (but that's rather unlikely, and besides, there wouldn't be anything else to measure it against) and 'has territory on multiple planets and can deploy military forces to defend them'.
How about "other countries only exist at its pleasure." In other words there is no country (possibly add "or combination of countries") that it could not win an offensive war against (discounting nuclear annihilation).

The word "offensive" is important. The US could IMO possibly ward off an invasion attempt by the rest of the world combined, but it couldn't successfully invade China, to say nothing of China + Russia + EU...
 
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