Talk:Polarity (international relations)

Needs Fixing
"Allies" in WWI should be changed to "Triple Entente." Especially since the page it links to is a generic description of the term allies and not at all referring to the specific bloc mentioned in the article. Someone please fix this, I can't because edits seem to be disabled or something.

fixes in multipolarity
I made several changes in this article. It had heavy grammatical mistakes as well as some awkward wording. I've also tweaked the examples, as well as adding a few.

The

problems
Yeah, uh, who came up with the percentages? As in:

"Bipolarity in international politics describes a distribution of power in which two states taken together control 50 % or more of strategic resources, each of the two leading states both control at least 25 % of strategic resources, and no other state controls 25 % or more."

Those numbers seem to be arbitrary. Also, a lot of the examples given in the article aren't necessarily grounded in reality. Example:

"{bullet point} The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (later the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) and the German Empire from the late 1800s until World War I"

In the 19th century, the world was not bipolar with the UK and the German Empire constituting the two poles, it was multipolar, i.e. there were several great powers (France, Austria, etc.), all having more or less comparable influence over international politics.

And the 'Regional Examples' in the article don't make much sense at all, either. Bipolarity refers to the division of power over the entire globe, not a localized condition in a particular region of the world.

And saying that during World War II the world was bipolar between the Axis and Allies is kind of stretching it. Generally when one talks about the polarity of the world, one is referring to a stable balance of power, not a constantly-shifting unstable tug-of-war between two groups of nations immersed in total war.

And why is there a link to bipolar disorder in the article?

And why does that pie chart towards the bottom of the article have the US, EU (not a country, has no common strategic policy and no military wing), and China on it, but then skips Japan and includes India? There is no reason to be found anywhere on the page.

And then there's a "linguistic complaint" on the bottom of the page. That seems pretty out of place.

And that complicated mathematical formula near the bottom belongs in the correlates of war article.

This whole article needs to be cleaned up or rewritten.

Also, it needs to address the current balance of power system. Our world, today, is not multipolar, it's unipolar, with the US as the sole pole. Europe could be a second pole, but its too fractured, and any differences in foreign policy between that continent and the US are minimal in the grand scheme of things. China is poised to become a global power and soon after the second pole of a bipolar system of power, but its not there yet and won't be for at least a decade. India is the only other candidate, given its population and economic growth, but it's way behind China, and won't become really important on the world stage for several decades.

This paper by Goldman Sachs has their projections of future nominal GDPs for several nations.

The current power heirarchy, I would suppose, is as follows:

Superpower: US Great powers: Japan*, Russia, China, Germany, UK*, France


 * =aligned with US

(what kind of stupid program doesn't let me start a line with an asterisk? wiki's got to have an escape character key somewhere)

And China and Russia are more-or-less aligned with each other when it comes to international issues. This isn't strictly based on economic size- it has to do with military power, alliances, and other factors as well, which is why I didn't include Italy. It has the same size population and economy as UK and France within a couple percent, but doesn't have a seat on the UN Security Council, for one thing.

Of course, I should probably have written that in the article and not in the discussion page. Hm.


 * 1. You cannot really speak of a German Empire in the 19th century as the dukedoms were only united in 1871, by Bismarck. I.e. for most of the 19th century, there was no German Empire, an Austrian-Hungarian, yes.


 * Funny they have the pic with Nixon and Mao. They had an agreement that the US would be the hegemon everywhere except in China, so that was a unipolar world until it no longer functioned that well. Whoever gave Mao the right to guarantee hegemony to the US over all the world outside China? 58.174.193.2 (talk) 04:55, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

yes it has problems
Any definition of a word is arbitrary, the pursentages, i gess come from the reference, but i didn't read it.The definition of a unipolar system can't be tautologic, saying that USA is a superpower is not enought

'Regional Examples' it's just for an example,so that the reader can exstrapolate ,since ther are no many historical examples of bipolarity

pie chart ,i pick ,it from the superpower article, to ilustrate that USA are something like 20% of worlds gdp, and that cauling that unipolar world is a litel bit streched.

current balance of power system.Whell ther are two ideologies,one sayes that USA is a superpower ,the second, that the even greatest power of the world(usa) is not powerfull enoughf to act with out considering the authers, i think that this view is well explained and referened.You probably want to add stuf in the unipolar section. --87.65.186.9 19:29, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

The concentration equation
Could someone from the international relations field take a look at the equation please. the summation is over k but k is neither explained nor is k one of the indices. I presume the summation should be over i?!


 * Good catch. I looked up one of the original articles on this using JSTOR and found the correct formula there:

$$Concentration_{t} = \sqrt{\frac{\sum_{i=1}^{N_{t}} (S_{it})^2 - \frac{1}{N_{t}}}{1 - \frac{1}{N_{t}}}}$$
 * I'll update the article with the equation and the ref.&mdash;Perceval 04:21, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Just because the USA relies on imports doesn't mean it's not self sufficient. Also the conclusion that the USA might not be a super power is farse. The USA could smash and grab anything they wanted. Just certain things could cause a world war though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.7.52.18 (talk) 13:30, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Serious Issue
Most of the empires overlap in this article, given the dates. By definition, a unipolar state has no competition, so there can be no overlap in the dates of unipolarity. The only true unipolarity the whole world ever saw is the US; even Rome had little impact on the other side of Eurasia or Africa, let alone the Americas. It is also foolish to suppose the Egyptians, Chinese, or Aztecs were ever unipolar, as what they did had little or no effect on the rest of the world far from their borders, especially the Aztecs. 65.51.202.21 (talk) 20:45, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Those are intended to be examples of regional unipolarity. In a premodern world with poor communication there's no need for polarity to be global; just as we consider the US unipolar when it has no contact with or influence over alien civilisations. Restricting the concept to the modern United States makes it fairly useless. However, there are serious problems in that section. It seems to assume that any particular instance of failure to project power disproves unipolarity, which I think is wrong; the US failure in Somalia in 1993, for example, simply meant that the US was unwilling to devote more resources to a distant region it cared little about. I think a similar case could be made for the Persian Empire after the Peace of Callias; in both cases, it's not that unipolarity had come to an end, it was just that the region was entirely peripheral. 58.84.237.195 (talk) 04:46, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

The British Empire
I'm removing the British Empire from the list of examples of hegemons, here's why;


 * The Great Game
 * Russian Empire
 * Ottoman Empire
 * Qing Dynasty
 * Qajar Dynasty
 * Kingdom of Italy
 * German Empire
 * Ottoman Empire


 * World War I
 * German Empire
 * Austro-Hungarian Monarchy
 * Russian Empire
 * Ottoman Empire
 * French Third Republic
 * Kingdom of Italy
 * The United States of America


 * World War II
 * Third Reich
 * The United States of America
 * Imperial Japan
 * French Third Republic
 * Kingdom of Italy
 * Republic of China
 * Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
 * ——67.180.86.254 (talk) 23:42, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

The British Empire enjoyed almost unchallenged dominance for 100 years during her Imperial Century. All of the powers listed as Unpolarity powers have been challenged at one time or another during their period of regional control. Britain controlled much of the world including its GDP, Economy, Oceans, Land, Military (Largest Navy and an Army second to none). It was more powerful than the USA today and has experienced the least challenge out of any Unpolarity power or Hyperpower. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sam2295 (talk • contribs) 19:44, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Global Military Spending
Text under the NATO graphic claimed that NATO spending was 70% of the global total. SFAICT, this is false, but it maybe over half. Based on the SIPIRI and others and the Economist graphic however, about 1.2 trillion out of the 1.6 trillion total is the U.S. and its Allies (not just NATO). 72.228.177.92 (talk) 16:12, 20 January 2012 (UTC)


 * "NATO, the NATO 'Partners in Peace', and their close trading partners" though are probably more than 80%. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 16:29, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

The British Empire?
Someone has a very clear bias regarding the British Empire. A hyperpower, unchallenged for one hundred years? Much of Britain's "Empire" (put within quotes solely because it was ruled by a queen or king, and not an empress. Technically speaking, it is there a kingdom and not a true empire. Even with the title "Empress of India", Victoria was still regarded as "Queen Victoria") was regulated to the dominance over less advanced societies on islands and repressed African nations. Being a colonial power is far short of being a hyperpower. By the simple criteria of being very large, the French colonial holdings and Russia's current size make them contenders for the designation of hyperpower. After all, Russia's military is by far the largest in the world, and is significantly advanced enough to challenge any other nation's military. But is Russia a hyperpower? Of course it is not. Even the status of the U.S. as a hyperpower is argueable in some political circles. A hyperpower is simply a superpower that has no other superpower to contend with.

Britain during her "Imperial period" was hardly an unchallengeable entity. The inability of Britain to secure a swift and decisive victory over the United States in the War of 1812 is indicative of her inability to settle international disputes without prejudice. The Napoleonic Empire was only dethroned due to the combined efforts of the most powerful European nations of the time. The resurgence of France under Napoleon III allowed it to challenge British colonies in Africa (especially during the 1880s). Britain's inability to effectively remove Russian influence from Afghanistan during the "Great Game" also illustrates its inability to dominate other great powers of Europe in foreign affairs. Not to mention, the evidence provided is extremely faulty in other areas. France's African colonies were quite comparable to British colonies. The British could not drive the Germans out, nor could they do so with the French. To say that they dominated the struggle unilaterally is ridiculous. The Crimean War was not won solely by Britain. The Ottoman Empire and France contributed HEAVILY to the effort, and Russia's military was so outdated at the time that its status as a competitive great power paled in comparison to Britain or France.

To be frank, the assessment of Britain as a "Hyperpower" is nothing short of ludicrous. The "Imperial Period" referred to above is merely a time when Britain did not engage any other Great Powers in warfare, and nothing else. It was a great power of the time surely, but most certainly not a hyperpower. The unipolar section is already rife with questionable material, but this is certainly the most outlandish of all the notions there. As a result, I am editting it out of the list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lebanese Carolinian (talk • contribs) 21:08, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress which affects this page. Please participate at Talk:Realism in international relations - Requested move and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 19:02, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Repeated sentence in summary and first section.
The following sentence is repeated in the summary at the top of the page, and in the section labeled "Unipolarity".


 * The United States’ defense spending is “close to half of global military expenditures; a blue-water navy superior to all others combined; a chance at a splendid nuclear first strike over its erstwhile foe, Russia; a defense research and development budget that is 80 percent of the total defense expenditures of its most obvious future competitor, China; and unmatched global power-projection capabilities.”

We should remove one of these, yeah? JollyGreenJesus (talk) 18:13, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Unipolarity Opinion as Fact
The last two sentences of the second unipolarity paragraph as of this writing contain facts and speculation presented without clarifying them as such and who made the argument. Although it does include a citation, this is insufficient given how it is presented. 2601:40F:600:6F20:55A0:6E30:4A15:41BA (talk) 16:13, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

American primacy addition proposal
In 2005, economist Michael Hudson argued that making countries dependent on the U.S. dollar was a form of financial imperialism, instead of traditional military colonialism. Reflecting on the 1971 removal of the U.S. dollar from the gold standard, he wrote: "without gold [countries] were obliged to balance their international payments by succumbing to the IMF-World Bank philosophy of laissez-faire/stagnation, which included an insistence that they balance their international payments by selling their resources to foreigners." (https://archive.org/details/globalfracturene0000huds/mode/2up) In 2013, Radhika Desai argued that the world was heading toward multipolarity. She added that this trajectory had been underway since the 1870s. The United States, she said, had never dominated the world unipolarly, as she believed the British Empire had in the early twentieth century. Desai explained that after World War II the U.S. ran deficits, which continuously devalued the dollar. After the dollar was removed from the gold standard, she wrote: "financializations" were done in an attempt to "preserve the dollar's world role". (https://www.academia.edu/2644853/Geopolitical_Economy_After_US_Hegemony_Globalization_and_Empire)

Note: it has been argued that my position as a student Student assignments constitutes a conflict of interest. This has been discussed here: User talk:MrOllie. Yaboijoshy (talk) 20:08, 17 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Specifically because unlike the expected practices for such an assignment, you get credit only if your edit remains in the article. MrOllie (talk) 20:37, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Extra credit * my regular credit does not depend on my proposed addition staying up Yaboijoshy (talk) 22:48, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Adding China and U.S. in Bipolarity
A lot of sources nowadays (don't have sources on hand but can find some) consider China to be one of two poles in the world. May I get consensus on this? 121.45.107.215 (talk) 05:40, 10 July 2024 (UTC)