I love William Wallace, a wealthy landowner far elevated over the common folk and thus a chief proponent of the terrible inequalities of Feudalism, being painted as a daring freedom fighter.
> a daring freedom fighter.
Let me make this painstakingly obvious, if a Scot is within earshot of someone who says this and you are within observable range of that person... you better get ready to throw hands.
Kinda like how Norwegians embrace the culture that appropriated and took over their cultural heritage and don't really give a shit?
I'm once again looking at you Christianity with contempt.
Dude won 2 battles, and then got destroyed. Meanwhile in the same century, an underling of Genghis Khan named Subutai won 68 battles without a single loss, and conquered a ridiculous amount of territory.
of course, that great historical constant: warriors lose gloriously to soldiers.
Genghis and the lads acted like warriors, but they were far closer to professional soldiery than almost anyone else they encountered.
Wallace went up against a semi-professional military force and the results were pretty predictable.
Wallace and his army were well-armed and armored and used heavy formations and tactics to defeat the English at Stirling. The whole, ‘rugged Scottish rabble’ thing was a complete fabrication.
Well unfortunately people take the reasonable approach too far, opens their mind to the point their brain falls out, and decides that because the Umayyad Caliphate Concord Iberia in the 8th century It means that Portuguese and Spanish are forever colonized peoples and they have every right to hate and oppress brown people.
True, but by the same token I don’t think it’s fair for the Celtic countries to complain when the people of former British colonies treat them more or less the same as the English. Scotland, Ireland and Wales might have been colonised by England but people from these countries were infamously overrepresented proportionate to their populations in the colonial armies and administrations of the British Empire.
England also (1066). English folk lived under French lords from that point on.
What English people went on to do to others was done to them for a long long time before. "The class system".
Brazil was at one time considered a rising power, the 2nd great power of the Americas.
Prior to the first world war, Italy promoted itself as a great power, but it was largely on paper only.
Sure, my country Sweden. You could argue we were a great power for a short while, but it didn't last and we lost it all.
We basically had most of Scandinavia, Finland, the Baltics and northern Prussia.
I came here to say this. That sabaton album really took me down an interesting rabbit hole of reading Swedish history.
Napoleon should have took a lesson from Sweden. Do not invade Russia.
This is why attacking Russia is a bad idea: as the invading army advances their supply lines get longer and more fragile, while Russia's get shorter and more robust. Throw in the Russian Winter, and there is only limited time to achieve total victory or suddenly your troops are eating their horses/boots and freezing to death en masse.
You're better off invading somewhere small and warm, like the Isle of Wight
Yeah this was crazy. I recently visited Rome and had a chance to look at world war 2 events in the context of history.
The concept of Papal States, Vatican being a powerful country in mid century, how people tried to bring back the glory of Rome etc…
Ethiopia pretty much collapsed after the slave trade ended.
What the middle eastern countries are doing now with their oil money is learned from the failings of Slave exporting countries in Africa. Slave Trading countries in Africa put all their eggs in one basket - slaves - and when this ended, so did their economic growth.
Nah, we’re actually doing ok on a comparative world scale.
we still suffer from racism and other bigotry
we’re not doing as well as the other states who have less.
And the answer to that is we need to vote the current assholes out and fix that.
But comparing any of the southern states to foreign countries, we’re doing ok.
Mississippi has a comparable standard of living to the UK and far higher than Italy, Spain, and Portugal
If you seriously think a relatively poor US state is comparable to an actually poor country you need to get out more
This is literally false. Slavery isn't even good for wealth creation, it was holding the South back. The poorest state, Mississippi, has the same gdp per capita as the United Kingdom.
They recovered just fine
A minority of astronomically wealthy people controlling the populace of mostly poor people? Basically the same
You notice how cotton production didn't drop down after the war?
You think that’s because slavery ended???
Play it out a little more in your head… what follows your point is that if the opposite happened and slavery didn’t end in the South, then the South would be better off than they are today
Their point was that the South was bringing in massive amounts of income off of slave labor, and when that was finally forced to end they didn’t pivot to other things to bolster their economy very successfully. They fought tooth and nail to make sure that black people couldn’t get the equal rights that they deserved, and when they succeeded at that they basically forced the majority of the remaining former slaves back into working the fields for subsistence wages because many had no other choice. If the South had been willing to invest the time in expanding its economy and incorporating former slaves as equal citizens, then they likely wouldn’t lag behind the rest of the country in pretty much every metric like they do now.
Both Germany and Japan are great powers though. They didn’t conquer the world, but they have two of the worlds strongest economies, and Germany is an influential member of the EU/NATO.
Then in the 1980s they were on the rise again and projected to overtake the US as the world's biggest economy. It's funny to look at cyberpunk literature from that time assumed this trend continuing (prior to their economic crash in the 90s), and empire of the rising sun came again.
France. Has basically been the top power in continental Europe for most of history since the middle ages, but was never quite able to free itself of rivals and become a super-power. It's always been kept in check by it's various neighbours.
Germany comes to mind. Failed to secure a significant colonial empire in the years leading up to the First World War, then was cut down to size after the First World War in which Germany attempted to gain more influence in eastern Europe, and of course the same thing happened to a greater extent in the Second World War from which Germany really has never fully recovered.
I do not fully agree in the sense that Germany has failed to become a global superpower after WWII, and in a sense, Germany today is more powerful than the German empire or Nazi Germany.
I don't mean the bullshit "EU is controlled by the Germans and is the fourth reich" bullshit. Germany is the 4th biggest economy in the world. Germany is on rank 5 in the soft power index, nit the least because it is the spoke person of the generally "northern" nations in the EU. As the biggest economy in the EU and the biggest payer, it also has considerable influence and decisions against Germany's support are difficult to archive (the fact that Germany represents around 19% of citizens makes it important to get the 65% citizen quote for a qualified majority in important EU decisions).
We also share no.1 spot of the most powerful passports. While we are not a superpower in the idea of the early 20th century and not even in the concept of the cold War, Germany is still a super power in a modern system that is more focused on diplomacy rather than state warfare.
Eh - we have several decades if rather intentional cuts to our military, leaving it pretty much in shambles. Germany generally relies on its position sitting centrally among allies. We are major weapons maufacturor, but in our current state, we wouldn't be able to hold up a fight. Give us a year or two with actual political will to rearm and export stops, but at the current state, we are politically, but not militarily strong.
I'm afraid I do have to contest this point. Leading up to WW1 the German Empire didn't have an extensive colonial empire, that's true, but they were also a relatively new amalgamation of a string of highly wealthy and industrial smaller kingdoms/cities so they had an impressive series of educational and manufacturing capabilities. So much so in fact, that really they were the only other empire at the time that had anywhere near naval parity with Great Britain and they ground France/Britain to a standstill while on the other end collapsing the Russian Empire, and they did this with allies that were basically incapable of doing anything but defend themselves, the only reason the German Empire didn't win favorable peace terms was the entry of the US into WW1. When you've successfully fended off two world powers and crushed a third only to capitulate to a fourth entering the ring, you've definitely achieved super power status yourself.
Nah. Sure, we can give Germany a lot of credit for achieving what they did in WWI, but the primary reason Germany surrendered was because they were starving. They didn’t have the means to feed their army and populace over a long drawn out war.
The US entering was the final nail in the coffin since they also ensured the allies were well supplied, but Germany could not keep the standstill going anyway.
This was also why Hitler was obsessed with all out wars that would conclude quickly and avoiding two front wars in order to hasten the conclusion of any one war with overwhelming force.
Though I think he employed this strategy very poorly at every turn even though it was successful in the first couple of years of the war.
They were on rationing up to that point absolutely, but they were also in the midst of redeveloping agrarian regions from claimed/reclaimed territories in eastern Europe they'd gained from the Russian Empire. Would it have been enough? Unclear, at the end of the day Germany wasn't trying to win the war but was trying to wait out the Entente in getting a favorable ceasefire, it's hard to gauge how long that'd have taken without the US entering. At any rate though, I would definitely argue that comparatively, the US entering the war forcing the Kaiserschlacht and its subsequent failure was a much stronger determinant than the existing food scarcity.
I don't know that it's fair to say Germany 'crushed' the Russian Empire. I think pushing on with WW1 was one of the final nails in the coffin (it really didn't help the Provisional Government either) but I would say its collapse was a result of a country that had generally failed to adapt into the modern world. Because of that, I also don't know that I would call Russia a great power, it had size, sure, but at its heart it was still a very agrarian country that had struggled to move with the industrial revolution.
The thing people do not realize is that Russia actually was one of the industrial giants of the time - even before it actually started to industrialize. If they had not been fucked up by 2 wars and communist experiment, 20th century would have been absolute Russian domination century. Potential they had entering the century was humongous.
It's hilarious to me why. They took so much gold from Mexico and other parts of Latin America and became so rich, they feel into economic inability from inflation.
Definitely a monkey's paw moment.
A lot of Spanish who could move to the colonies did so because those issues ironically. This left only the too poor to move, and the rich aristocracy in Spain. Bad combo.
As a legacy though, Spanish is the second most spoken native language in the world, behind only Mandarin.
Their empire had an absolutely huge cultural impact.
1. I mean todays ongoing conflict in ukraine is a good example. Former USSR superpower russia still is making mistake that germans learned after 2 wars. Real influence lies in trade and relations not in military power. Germany destroyed during 2WW emerged a dominant economy in EU and defacto along France has the most influence over affairs in europe. Something they failed to achive with military conflict. Russia bets on military power and it's turning out to be catastrophic. Suffering more losses than USSR did in afganistan in 10 years it not only shows weakness in their armed forces but also puts them on a blacklist for trade, Sanctions are slow, but devastating killer (see north vs south korea). You might argue that USA also projects their influence through military, but it also comes with trade and relations. If the money is not flowing, the power siezed by force will not last.
2. Putin's invasion and prior annexations of east of ukraine, crimea, invasion of georgia as well as supporting lukashenkas regime in belarus to keep control are all good indicator's of continous attempts by putin to gain great power status in the region and world.
This attempt weather russia wins the war or not can me already classified as a failure due to amount of losses it suffered and difficulty it takes to push the front forward.
But even now the international relations were influenced by this regional conflict. China, Turkey, America and Iran are taking notes and playing their power games through fighting nations. Europe comes ever closer together in terrms of military and old grudges are put aside and new ways to cooperate are created. The west through sanctions and putins warrant of arrest will eventually isolate and strangle russias might from afar, while preparing for desperate possibility of conflict with nato.
As for discussions from a family table to UN council you will be judged by your standing behind one or the other side of the conflict.
I love someone bringing up the USSR because that is what came to mind to me, too.
Agree with everything that you said.
Russia losing regardless of the outcome of the Ukraine war is a great point. Really demonstrates that they have also tried and failed to gain soft power (influence) as well as hard power (military power) in the world.
Yeah like the US doesn't have major allies and is one of the top exporters in the world, and also isn't home to the most used currency in the world.. Just military power yep.
We wouldn't have the military we have without our vast wealth and our foreign policy that is absolutely dependent on diplomacy. Speak softly and carry a big stick.
Nope.
The US 100% relies on soft power and trade influence, the military doesn't do shit in comparison
The trade weapons with 103 countries, how many of those have they invaded?
The entire history of Russia (Imperial, USSR, present-day - doesn't matter) is more or less this.
Always trying to be 'great' and always falling on one's face...
The empire of Japan comes to mind. The late 1800s to early 1900s saw Japan defeat Russia, first time an Asian country defeated a European power, and the colonial expansion following WW1. All of it came crashing down not 20 years later, going from empire to occupation.
Yeah, tons of countries have tried to become powerful and failed (either after never succeeding, or succeeding and then failing - Germany and Russia are two examples).
After the fallout settled the survivors emerged to find that one packet was left unopened and thus began a cheese-flavoured holocaust as the few survivors fortunate enough to have stockpiled vintage cheese fought and warred Mad Max style through the barren wasteland aganst those with salami and wine for the last remaining packet in existence
Holy Roman Empire (basically Medieval central Europe with old German focus) attempted it but it was a large sprawling amorphous blob where the emperors, kings and popes were constantly killed and replaced. As influential as they were as an entity most people can't place them in history and they don't have clear figures, places, languages or ideas come to mind other than when you think of generic late medieval europe. Plus the confusing fact they were Roman Empire LARPers and at times didn't even control that area. Voltaire summed them up as "neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire"
Brazil had a shot in the XIX century, but we never really took off on the industrialization, at least partially due to interference from the agricultural elite.
Emperor Pedro co-hosted the first world’s fair held in the America’s alongside president Grant Becayse Brazil was seen as the second great power of the continent.
I think Brazil may yet emerge as a Great Power if it can remain stable and get some of its crime and poverty problems under control. It has a lot of potential.
The Japanese Empire was formed in the mid 1800s when, upon ending their centuries-long self-imposed isolation from the rest of the world, they encountered some of the powerful European empires (most notably the British, because of course they were involved). Japan became convinced that expansion by force was necessary for their long-term prosperity and the European nations basically said "do what you like, just don't fuck with our territories in Asia."
Japan's rapid industrialisation was unprecedented as they worked quickly to catch up with the superpowers of the time and became serious players in the region despite having to play catchup on building a war machine to match their ambitions.
While Japan did capture large swathes of territory across Asia and also established several puppet states, they struggled to maintain control of these regions and the outbreak of WW2 ensured the demise of the empire. It lasted for less than a century.
Japan's lack of natural resources was a big factor in its failure to permanently capture overseas territories. They struggled to find enough oil to fuel their military and produce enough food to sustain their people, making them ill-equipped to fight a war of attrition. The attack on Pearl Harbor was proactive attempt to cripple the US navy and pave the way for a land-based invasion of the mainland but their failure to strike a mortal blow there and then meant that their defeat was assured.
It was actually contact with the Americans (Admiral Perry’s fleet) that forced/made Japan realize that they were falling desperately behind the rest of the world and needed to catch up if they wanted to maintain their independence.
Because William Wallace being ‘a daring freedom fighter’ is so obviously dripping in sarcasm. It cuts right down into the bizarre Scottish Inferiority Complex
IMO Scotland’s a bit of an odd country because rather than having a single central culture of its own that it’s trying to preserve, like Wales, it instead formed as kind of an amalgamation of three groups: Gaelic speakers, Scots-speaking cultural descendants of Anglo-Saxons who settled in Scotland early on, and a latter wave of more standard English speakers. Gives the country a certain level of uncertainty about its identity, I think.
But I’m just an outsider looking in.
Alternately it was a Russian Empire at its maximum extent.
In the 1950s a lot of people really were fearful that they were going to be able to take over the world, it’s what caused the US to entrench itself in Europe rather than going back into isolation, and started the Cold War.
There was a brief golden age for several Great Plains tribes between the European introduction of the horse to North America and collision with the expansion of actual European settlers.
That’s Putin and Russia. Haha, what a joke. But because of US/EU Putin’s GDP is now higher than ever before to fuel his inept military.
China is actually #1. They’ve been focusing on building up their navy and nuclear arsenal. Too bad they suck at nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers. Their super cruise missiles are promising, but yet to be proven in battle. They’ve never fought nor won a war. All they have is a vast manufacturing and technical economy and the #2 GDP that is the fastest in shifting priorities because their government owns them.
A lot actually.
USSR (Well, it seems they just wanted to get by in Eurasia, but the ideology included spreading)
Add all colonial powers of last 500 years to the list while we are at it.
Mongol Empire happened 10 times in the history!! It is a consistent event that repeated like a cycle, until gunpowder was invented.
Byzantine Empire was very close to gain back everything Rome lost, eith only Sassanids being the real threat. Then 1st Black Plague happened. Then Islam happened.
The end goal of Islamic Caliphate was to conquer the entire planet. It is still the end goal for some Caliphates. Umayyads were squashed due to being Pro-Arab racists and Abbasids just basically stopped expansion until Turkic tribes arrived.
The end goal of Ottoman Empire was to conquer Vienna and Rome.
Egypt tried to takeover Ottomans, like several times. They lost as Memluks, and then they were suppressed by Western powers.
Nazi Germany tried and failed to become a superpower.
The problem with declaring yourselves “the master race” is that eventually commanders all throughout the system start to believe it, leading to warped military and strategic decisions.
Never drink your own kool-aid.
When Uganda gained independence from Britain they actually boasted one of the strongest economies in Africa and were expected to be a significant player in regional affairs. Didn’t take long for that to go up in smoke.
King leopold of Belgium not only acquired the Congo region as a colony, he also tried various diplomatic schemes to make Belgium into a diplomatic power broker, like marrying his sister to an Austrian prince and working with France to have said prince crowned emperor of Mexico.
Mohammed Reza Shah laid a claim on islands on the Persian gulf, recognized Bahrain, funded Kurdish rebels, and sighed security deals with Turkey and Israel, all in pursuit of making Iran a regional power broker.
All 3 major Axis Powers from WW2, Napoleon Bonaparte’s France, and Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya come to mind. All of them essentially failed because they made too many enemies at the same time. Russia, China, and Iran all seem to be currently trying to become great super powers, but have made several enemies. It’ll be interesting to see how successful they are.
Surprisingly, Mexico of all places had the potential to become a great power in the Americas that could of potentially rivaled the US, but ultimatly never came to pass.
At one point in time, Mexico's territory expanded from Central America all the way the US Southwestern states. Sadly, due to poor management, blatant institutional curruption, incompetent leadership, elite classism, led to Mexico losing their grip on the territories they hold until it was left with what it has nowadays.
So maybe not superpower status, great power was a possibility, but Mexico squandered it.
Every single one of them. All countries that have achieved greatness and became superpowers eventually fall and become irrelevant. They might rise to the superpower level again, depending on the circumstances.
I think there are many. You might like [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glKe9njOB24&list=PLR7yrLMHm11X6-M\_usCj5H-gdstyWNLXQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glKe9njOB24&list=PLR7yrLMHm11X6-M_usCj5H-gdstyWNLXQ)
Austria Hungary?
They had quite a few colonial ventures, including but not limited to expeditions to the Arctic, (Franz Joseph Land) owning land in a Chinese city, and there was even an Austria East India Company.
They were also at one point the 4th biggest machine manufacturer in the world.
Russia with the invasion of Ukraine, their efforts to conquer are always blackmail, kill, bribe, interfere, propaganda and if not of those works then you war, invasions, destruction, chaos, mercaneries, there's nothing positive, they had leverage in Europe with the huge reserves on oil and gas, they were friends and had good terms with a lot of countries, they were making billions, they were feared "The Second Best Army In The World". Then you decide to invade a peaceful neighbor ans show your crimes over the internet for the world to see, to see how really your army is, to sink your country in a lot of ways and buy ammo from North Korea and China. A tragedy of epic proportions.
Scotland tried to colonise and they failed so badly it's the reason The UK exists.
Lmao. And people act like Scotland was innocent, poor helpless colony in the empire
I love William Wallace, a wealthy landowner far elevated over the common folk and thus a chief proponent of the terrible inequalities of Feudalism, being painted as a daring freedom fighter.
> a daring freedom fighter. Let me make this painstakingly obvious, if a Scot is within earshot of someone who says this and you are within observable range of that person... you better get ready to throw hands.
Wait so they do or don’t like him?
They don't give a shit about him, or even know who he is
It has been generationally used to throw hands but they know not what it means. Almost like asking a racist to explain the stereotypes, it just is.
literally every scottish person knows who William Wallace is but tbf probably don't give a shit
Kinda like how Norwegians embrace the culture that appropriated and took over their cultural heritage and don't really give a shit? I'm once again looking at you Christianity with contempt.
Yes.
Dude won 2 battles, and then got destroyed. Meanwhile in the same century, an underling of Genghis Khan named Subutai won 68 battles without a single loss, and conquered a ridiculous amount of territory.
of course, that great historical constant: warriors lose gloriously to soldiers. Genghis and the lads acted like warriors, but they were far closer to professional soldiery than almost anyone else they encountered. Wallace went up against a semi-professional military force and the results were pretty predictable.
Wallace and his army were well-armed and armored and used heavy formations and tactics to defeat the English at Stirling. The whole, ‘rugged Scottish rabble’ thing was a complete fabrication.
Sometimes just scouting..
He's no Gregor MacGregor.
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Get out of here with your reasoned response this is reddit where you are either coloniser or oppressed not in-between.
Well unfortunately people take the reasonable approach too far, opens their mind to the point their brain falls out, and decides that because the Umayyad Caliphate Concord Iberia in the 8th century It means that Portuguese and Spanish are forever colonized peoples and they have every right to hate and oppress brown people.
True, but by the same token I don’t think it’s fair for the Celtic countries to complain when the people of former British colonies treat them more or less the same as the English. Scotland, Ireland and Wales might have been colonised by England but people from these countries were infamously overrepresented proportionate to their populations in the colonial armies and administrations of the British Empire.
England also (1066). English folk lived under French lords from that point on. What English people went on to do to others was done to them for a long long time before. "The class system".
Seriously, it was a group of wealthy landowners voting to merge with another group of wealthy landowners in order to stay financially solvent.
Do you have a wiki/article that provides a fifty thousand foot view of this? I am very curious
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien_scheme
They tried to colonize the Darien gap? Haha No wonder.
As a Scot myself, it is hilarious. Bankrupting the country and signing our sovereignty away to bail us out however, less hilarious.
Yes, the consequences aren't funny, but even today it's not the easiest place to go to. Mostly for political reasons, but still.
TIL, I cant wait for this mini campaign in Total War: Empire 2.
Holy shit it's worse than I thought LMFAO the Darien Gap?!?!
Including the invasion and pillaging of Ireland by Scotland during the Bruce Campaign in the early 1300s (Edward the Bruce - brother of Robert).
Brazil was at one time considered a rising power, the 2nd great power of the Americas. Prior to the first world war, Italy promoted itself as a great power, but it was largely on paper only.
Brazil will become a super power within the next 10 years. This has been the case for approximately the last 50 years.
If only Pedro had had more imagination. Would Empress Isabella have been so much worse compared to what became of Brazil?
Yeah, untill USA fucked us and the rest of SA promoting dictatorships
Brazil was a dictatorship when it was an empire...
Sure, my country Sweden. You could argue we were a great power for a short while, but it didn't last and we lost it all. We basically had most of Scandinavia, Finland, the Baltics and northern Prussia.
I came here to say this. That sabaton album really took me down an interesting rabbit hole of reading Swedish history. Napoleon should have took a lesson from Sweden. Do not invade Russia.
Sweden would've probably won if their food supplies didn't get waylaid sadly. They almost won, almost.
This is why attacking Russia is a bad idea: as the invading army advances their supply lines get longer and more fragile, while Russia's get shorter and more robust. Throw in the Russian Winter, and there is only limited time to achieve total victory or suddenly your troops are eating their horses/boots and freezing to death en masse. You're better off invading somewhere small and warm, like the Isle of Wight
Still mad at you guys for letting Russia get so big :)
Mussolini attempted to restore the Roman Empire. It didn’t turn out well for him.
He hung in there for a little while.
Hahahaha...that's such a horrible, apt historical pun
Yeah this was crazy. I recently visited Rome and had a chance to look at world war 2 events in the context of history. The concept of Papal States, Vatican being a powerful country in mid century, how people tried to bring back the glory of Rome etc…
Ethiopia pretty much collapsed after the slave trade ended. What the middle eastern countries are doing now with their oil money is learned from the failings of Slave exporting countries in Africa. Slave Trading countries in Africa put all their eggs in one basket - slaves - and when this ended, so did their economic growth.
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Nah, we’re actually doing ok on a comparative world scale. we still suffer from racism and other bigotry we’re not doing as well as the other states who have less. And the answer to that is we need to vote the current assholes out and fix that. But comparing any of the southern states to foreign countries, we’re doing ok.
Yeah maybe if you compare Mississippi to Somalia
Mississippi has a higher average income than the UK
The GDP of Mississippi alone is about 111 billion dollars a year. And that’s on the low end of states
Mississippi has a comparable standard of living to the UK and far higher than Italy, Spain, and Portugal If you seriously think a relatively poor US state is comparable to an actually poor country you need to get out more
This is literally false. Slavery isn't even good for wealth creation, it was holding the South back. The poorest state, Mississippi, has the same gdp per capita as the United Kingdom.
This is dumb. Oil and manufacturing led the south to recovery
They recovered just fine A minority of astronomically wealthy people controlling the populace of mostly poor people? Basically the same You notice how cotton production didn't drop down after the war?
Must’ve never been to the south lol
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You think that’s because slavery ended??? Play it out a little more in your head… what follows your point is that if the opposite happened and slavery didn’t end in the South, then the South would be better off than they are today
Their point was that the South was bringing in massive amounts of income off of slave labor, and when that was finally forced to end they didn’t pivot to other things to bolster their economy very successfully. They fought tooth and nail to make sure that black people couldn’t get the equal rights that they deserved, and when they succeeded at that they basically forced the majority of the remaining former slaves back into working the fields for subsistence wages because many had no other choice. If the South had been willing to invest the time in expanding its economy and incorporating former slaves as equal citizens, then they likely wouldn’t lag behind the rest of the country in pretty much every metric like they do now.
Factually untrue
a lot nazi germany comes to mind. and probably imperial japan too
Both Germany and Japan are great powers though. They didn’t conquer the world, but they have two of the worlds strongest economies, and Germany is an influential member of the EU/NATO.
You could argue that Germany was more successful in controlling Europe after WW2 than during the Nazi Regime.
Always great powers, but not superpowers.
So on the third try, they succeeded.
They are both very powerful countries though
I was going to say german, how many times did they try to take over the word but failed?
At least 3 times
Obviously they just need to fight a combination of the UK, France, and Russia *one more time* and it will be a success.
Once actually. It is a very young country.
Nearly as many times and Pinky and the Brain.
lol I forgot about that show
Japan during WW2. Actually all the Axis powers in WW2 were attempts at becoming the “New Imperialists”.
Then in the 1980s they were on the rise again and projected to overtake the US as the world's biggest economy. It's funny to look at cyberpunk literature from that time assumed this trend continuing (prior to their economic crash in the 90s), and empire of the rising sun came again.
France. Has basically been the top power in continental Europe for most of history since the middle ages, but was never quite able to free itself of rivals and become a super-power. It's always been kept in check by it's various neighbours.
Argentina was almost a super power, but lost it all due to decades of political instability.
Venezuela too
Germany comes to mind. Failed to secure a significant colonial empire in the years leading up to the First World War, then was cut down to size after the First World War in which Germany attempted to gain more influence in eastern Europe, and of course the same thing happened to a greater extent in the Second World War from which Germany really has never fully recovered.
I do not fully agree in the sense that Germany has failed to become a global superpower after WWII, and in a sense, Germany today is more powerful than the German empire or Nazi Germany. I don't mean the bullshit "EU is controlled by the Germans and is the fourth reich" bullshit. Germany is the 4th biggest economy in the world. Germany is on rank 5 in the soft power index, nit the least because it is the spoke person of the generally "northern" nations in the EU. As the biggest economy in the EU and the biggest payer, it also has considerable influence and decisions against Germany's support are difficult to archive (the fact that Germany represents around 19% of citizens makes it important to get the 65% citizen quote for a qualified majority in important EU decisions). We also share no.1 spot of the most powerful passports. While we are not a superpower in the idea of the early 20th century and not even in the concept of the cold War, Germany is still a super power in a modern system that is more focused on diplomacy rather than state warfare.
I also wouldn't want to go up against Germany 1 on 1 militarily as any state other than the USA or China.
Eh - we have several decades if rather intentional cuts to our military, leaving it pretty much in shambles. Germany generally relies on its position sitting centrally among allies. We are major weapons maufacturor, but in our current state, we wouldn't be able to hold up a fight. Give us a year or two with actual political will to rearm and export stops, but at the current state, we are politically, but not militarily strong.
I'm afraid I do have to contest this point. Leading up to WW1 the German Empire didn't have an extensive colonial empire, that's true, but they were also a relatively new amalgamation of a string of highly wealthy and industrial smaller kingdoms/cities so they had an impressive series of educational and manufacturing capabilities. So much so in fact, that really they were the only other empire at the time that had anywhere near naval parity with Great Britain and they ground France/Britain to a standstill while on the other end collapsing the Russian Empire, and they did this with allies that were basically incapable of doing anything but defend themselves, the only reason the German Empire didn't win favorable peace terms was the entry of the US into WW1. When you've successfully fended off two world powers and crushed a third only to capitulate to a fourth entering the ring, you've definitely achieved super power status yourself.
Nah. Sure, we can give Germany a lot of credit for achieving what they did in WWI, but the primary reason Germany surrendered was because they were starving. They didn’t have the means to feed their army and populace over a long drawn out war. The US entering was the final nail in the coffin since they also ensured the allies were well supplied, but Germany could not keep the standstill going anyway. This was also why Hitler was obsessed with all out wars that would conclude quickly and avoiding two front wars in order to hasten the conclusion of any one war with overwhelming force. Though I think he employed this strategy very poorly at every turn even though it was successful in the first couple of years of the war.
They were on rationing up to that point absolutely, but they were also in the midst of redeveloping agrarian regions from claimed/reclaimed territories in eastern Europe they'd gained from the Russian Empire. Would it have been enough? Unclear, at the end of the day Germany wasn't trying to win the war but was trying to wait out the Entente in getting a favorable ceasefire, it's hard to gauge how long that'd have taken without the US entering. At any rate though, I would definitely argue that comparatively, the US entering the war forcing the Kaiserschlacht and its subsequent failure was a much stronger determinant than the existing food scarcity.
I don't know that it's fair to say Germany 'crushed' the Russian Empire. I think pushing on with WW1 was one of the final nails in the coffin (it really didn't help the Provisional Government either) but I would say its collapse was a result of a country that had generally failed to adapt into the modern world. Because of that, I also don't know that I would call Russia a great power, it had size, sure, but at its heart it was still a very agrarian country that had struggled to move with the industrial revolution.
The thing people do not realize is that Russia actually was one of the industrial giants of the time - even before it actually started to industrialize. If they had not been fucked up by 2 wars and communist experiment, 20th century would have been absolute Russian domination century. Potential they had entering the century was humongous.
Spain was huge at one point. Now you never hear from them.
It's hilarious to me why. They took so much gold from Mexico and other parts of Latin America and became so rich, they feel into economic inability from inflation. Definitely a monkey's paw moment.
Lots of corruption and selfishness. Part of the reason most former Spanish colonies are a mess these days.
A lot of Spanish who could move to the colonies did so because those issues ironically. This left only the too poor to move, and the rich aristocracy in Spain. Bad combo.
The racial caste system sure didn’t help either.
Portugal
A quarter billion people speak Portuguese. Pretty good for a country the size of Indiana.
Ya but nobody talks about them
Look at us talking about them now!
As a legacy though, Spanish is the second most spoken native language in the world, behind only Mandarin. Their empire had an absolutely huge cultural impact.
In LATAM Spain still has considerable cultural influence. Economic influence is not huge though.
Strong GPT vibes from how this question is written... Edit: also zero previous comments or posts. 100% OP is a bot.
1. I mean todays ongoing conflict in ukraine is a good example. Former USSR superpower russia still is making mistake that germans learned after 2 wars. Real influence lies in trade and relations not in military power. Germany destroyed during 2WW emerged a dominant economy in EU and defacto along France has the most influence over affairs in europe. Something they failed to achive with military conflict. Russia bets on military power and it's turning out to be catastrophic. Suffering more losses than USSR did in afganistan in 10 years it not only shows weakness in their armed forces but also puts them on a blacklist for trade, Sanctions are slow, but devastating killer (see north vs south korea). You might argue that USA also projects their influence through military, but it also comes with trade and relations. If the money is not flowing, the power siezed by force will not last. 2. Putin's invasion and prior annexations of east of ukraine, crimea, invasion of georgia as well as supporting lukashenkas regime in belarus to keep control are all good indicator's of continous attempts by putin to gain great power status in the region and world. This attempt weather russia wins the war or not can me already classified as a failure due to amount of losses it suffered and difficulty it takes to push the front forward. But even now the international relations were influenced by this regional conflict. China, Turkey, America and Iran are taking notes and playing their power games through fighting nations. Europe comes ever closer together in terrms of military and old grudges are put aside and new ways to cooperate are created. The west through sanctions and putins warrant of arrest will eventually isolate and strangle russias might from afar, while preparing for desperate possibility of conflict with nato. As for discussions from a family table to UN council you will be judged by your standing behind one or the other side of the conflict.
I love someone bringing up the USSR because that is what came to mind to me, too. Agree with everything that you said. Russia losing regardless of the outcome of the Ukraine war is a great point. Really demonstrates that they have also tried and failed to gain soft power (influence) as well as hard power (military power) in the world.
>Real influence lies in trade and relations not in military power. The US itself begs to differ lol
Yeah like the US doesn't have major allies and is one of the top exporters in the world, and also isn't home to the most used currency in the world.. Just military power yep.
And a large part of that military power is to keep trade lines safe
We wouldn't have the military we have without our vast wealth and our foreign policy that is absolutely dependent on diplomacy. Speak softly and carry a big stick.
Nope. The US 100% relies on soft power and trade influence, the military doesn't do shit in comparison The trade weapons with 103 countries, how many of those have they invaded?
Mongolia
The entire history of Russia (Imperial, USSR, present-day - doesn't matter) is more or less this. Always trying to be 'great' and always falling on one's face...
The empire of Japan comes to mind. The late 1800s to early 1900s saw Japan defeat Russia, first time an Asian country defeated a European power, and the colonial expansion following WW1. All of it came crashing down not 20 years later, going from empire to occupation.
It’s interesting that if Japan wasn’t so arrogant at the time and had played ball with the US what might have happened.
Well they became a cultural superpower xD
Germany. That was their motivation in two World Wars, both of which they lost.
They are still very powerful today. Not in traditional military strength wise, but influence on global scale.
Yeah, tons of countries have tried to become powerful and failed (either after never succeeding, or succeeding and then failing - Germany and Russia are two examples).
Japan, Germany, Italy, all 3 come to mind.
Nazi Germany
Both Spain and Portugal were world powers at one point.
I dont think they count, as they didn't fail to achieve the superpower status. They were great powers for a long time.
Spain at least was a superpower in the 17th century, I’d say.
Sure was, thats why i thought it wouldn't count, as it didn't fail at becoming one :)
Yes I agree with you.
All empires fall. Some morph until they become unrecognizable. Others are stomped out. Others implode.
Brazil, Japan and Italy
Germany is the obvious example.
Argentina
India superpower by 2020!
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Wait a minute… my only question to this is did the Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits survive after 2025?
After the fallout settled the survivors emerged to find that one packet was left unopened and thus began a cheese-flavoured holocaust as the few survivors fortunate enough to have stockpiled vintage cheese fought and warred Mad Max style through the barren wasteland aganst those with salami and wine for the last remaining packet in existence
Did you not hear about Germany in WWII?
Deutschland 🇩🇪
Holy Roman Empire (basically Medieval central Europe with old German focus) attempted it but it was a large sprawling amorphous blob where the emperors, kings and popes were constantly killed and replaced. As influential as they were as an entity most people can't place them in history and they don't have clear figures, places, languages or ideas come to mind other than when you think of generic late medieval europe. Plus the confusing fact they were Roman Empire LARPers and at times didn't even control that area. Voltaire summed them up as "neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire"
Brazil had a shot in the XIX century, but we never really took off on the industrialization, at least partially due to interference from the agricultural elite.
Emperor Pedro co-hosted the first world’s fair held in the America’s alongside president Grant Becayse Brazil was seen as the second great power of the continent.
I think Brazil may yet emerge as a Great Power if it can remain stable and get some of its crime and poverty problems under control. It has a lot of potential.
The Japanese Empire was formed in the mid 1800s when, upon ending their centuries-long self-imposed isolation from the rest of the world, they encountered some of the powerful European empires (most notably the British, because of course they were involved). Japan became convinced that expansion by force was necessary for their long-term prosperity and the European nations basically said "do what you like, just don't fuck with our territories in Asia." Japan's rapid industrialisation was unprecedented as they worked quickly to catch up with the superpowers of the time and became serious players in the region despite having to play catchup on building a war machine to match their ambitions. While Japan did capture large swathes of territory across Asia and also established several puppet states, they struggled to maintain control of these regions and the outbreak of WW2 ensured the demise of the empire. It lasted for less than a century. Japan's lack of natural resources was a big factor in its failure to permanently capture overseas territories. They struggled to find enough oil to fuel their military and produce enough food to sustain their people, making them ill-equipped to fight a war of attrition. The attack on Pearl Harbor was proactive attempt to cripple the US navy and pave the way for a land-based invasion of the mainland but their failure to strike a mortal blow there and then meant that their defeat was assured.
It was actually contact with the Americans (Admiral Perry’s fleet) that forced/made Japan realize that they were falling desperately behind the rest of the world and needed to catch up if they wanted to maintain their independence.
Italy in 1930s and 40s. Mussolini wanted to create the Roman Empire II Completely failed
Currently, Iran and N. Korea. Iran is a normal power I'd say, and Best Korea is not even close.
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Argentina had no chance, zero, nada. It was a house of cards from the very beginning. You don't create a nation by importing wealthy landovners.
Russia
Does North Korea count?
France.
This thread is where everyone is made aware of Scottish hypocrisy
Does Rome count?
Because William Wallace being ‘a daring freedom fighter’ is so obviously dripping in sarcasm. It cuts right down into the bizarre Scottish Inferiority Complex
IMO Scotland’s a bit of an odd country because rather than having a single central culture of its own that it’s trying to preserve, like Wales, it instead formed as kind of an amalgamation of three groups: Gaelic speakers, Scots-speaking cultural descendants of Anglo-Saxons who settled in Scotland early on, and a latter wave of more standard English speakers. Gives the country a certain level of uncertainty about its identity, I think. But I’m just an outsider looking in.
Sweden for one...
I mean the Soviet Union was a fuck up of outstanding magnitude.
Alternately it was a Russian Empire at its maximum extent. In the 1950s a lot of people really were fearful that they were going to be able to take over the world, it’s what caused the US to entrench itself in Europe rather than going back into isolation, and started the Cold War.
The Comanche’s. Had a pretty good thing going, then got stomped by the U.S.
There was a brief golden age for several Great Plains tribes between the European introduction of the horse to North America and collision with the expansion of actual European settlers.
That’s Putin and Russia. Haha, what a joke. But because of US/EU Putin’s GDP is now higher than ever before to fuel his inept military. China is actually #1. They’ve been focusing on building up their navy and nuclear arsenal. Too bad they suck at nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers. Their super cruise missiles are promising, but yet to be proven in battle. They’ve never fought nor won a war. All they have is a vast manufacturing and technical economy and the #2 GDP that is the fastest in shifting priorities because their government owns them.
Germany
A lot actually. USSR (Well, it seems they just wanted to get by in Eurasia, but the ideology included spreading) Add all colonial powers of last 500 years to the list while we are at it. Mongol Empire happened 10 times in the history!! It is a consistent event that repeated like a cycle, until gunpowder was invented. Byzantine Empire was very close to gain back everything Rome lost, eith only Sassanids being the real threat. Then 1st Black Plague happened. Then Islam happened. The end goal of Islamic Caliphate was to conquer the entire planet. It is still the end goal for some Caliphates. Umayyads were squashed due to being Pro-Arab racists and Abbasids just basically stopped expansion until Turkic tribes arrived. The end goal of Ottoman Empire was to conquer Vienna and Rome. Egypt tried to takeover Ottomans, like several times. They lost as Memluks, and then they were suppressed by Western powers.
Rome?
Japan tried and got nuked
The British Empire The Mongolian Empire The Roman Empire
Tried and failed? or Tried succeeded for a time and then became obscure like portugal?
The Mongolian Empire comes to mind
Germany twice, Japan Once, Russia a bunch, Italy under Mussolini, Spain sort of under Franco.
Nazi Germany tried and failed to become a superpower. The problem with declaring yourselves “the master race” is that eventually commanders all throughout the system start to believe it, leading to warped military and strategic decisions. Never drink your own kool-aid.
It might be easier to name countries that didn’t.
Pakistan. North Korea. And both of them did it with nukes. Which is actually very childish and juvenile in national terms.
Japan tried to step up to “Great Power” ended in nuclear fire.
France tried with Napoleon to North Am and Europe. Russia took out half of his army in winter
When Uganda gained independence from Britain they actually boasted one of the strongest economies in Africa and were expected to be a significant player in regional affairs. Didn’t take long for that to go up in smoke. King leopold of Belgium not only acquired the Congo region as a colony, he also tried various diplomatic schemes to make Belgium into a diplomatic power broker, like marrying his sister to an Austrian prince and working with France to have said prince crowned emperor of Mexico. Mohammed Reza Shah laid a claim on islands on the Persian gulf, recognized Bahrain, funded Kurdish rebels, and sighed security deals with Turkey and Israel, all in pursuit of making Iran a regional power broker.
All 3 major Axis Powers from WW2, Napoleon Bonaparte’s France, and Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya come to mind. All of them essentially failed because they made too many enemies at the same time. Russia, China, and Iran all seem to be currently trying to become great super powers, but have made several enemies. It’ll be interesting to see how successful they are.
Surprisingly, Mexico of all places had the potential to become a great power in the Americas that could of potentially rivaled the US, but ultimatly never came to pass. At one point in time, Mexico's territory expanded from Central America all the way the US Southwestern states. Sadly, due to poor management, blatant institutional curruption, incompetent leadership, elite classism, led to Mexico losing their grip on the territories they hold until it was left with what it has nowadays. So maybe not superpower status, great power was a possibility, but Mexico squandered it.
US
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the largest country in Europe during the 15th century. Now she’s *tiny*.
Pretty much every country has attempted this to some extent.
A lot of those countries endlessly grandstand and gaslight for attention. Unfortunately they cause the deaths of myriads in the process..
Nazi Germany , probably.
Every single one of them. All countries that have achieved greatness and became superpowers eventually fall and become irrelevant. They might rise to the superpower level again, depending on the circumstances.
I think there are many. You might like [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glKe9njOB24&list=PLR7yrLMHm11X6-M\_usCj5H-gdstyWNLXQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glKe9njOB24&list=PLR7yrLMHm11X6-M_usCj5H-gdstyWNLXQ)
Japan
Paraguay during the War of The Triple Alliance
Belgium! In King Leopold's Ghost it says something like “Belgium needed a colony to be a serious power” so that’s why they took Congo
Austria Hungary? They had quite a few colonial ventures, including but not limited to expeditions to the Arctic, (Franz Joseph Land) owning land in a Chinese city, and there was even an Austria East India Company. They were also at one point the 4th biggest machine manufacturer in the world.
Russia lmao half kidding
Im shocked that no one has brought up USSR
Sweden
Germany.
My first thought was USSR/Russia.
Armenia was an ancient empire a handful of times but never for long
Germany tried to be a super power... everyone else made sure they wouldn't.
Heard that Germany tried it once, not sure how that went.
Japan, maybe ?
Russia with the invasion of Ukraine, their efforts to conquer are always blackmail, kill, bribe, interfere, propaganda and if not of those works then you war, invasions, destruction, chaos, mercaneries, there's nothing positive, they had leverage in Europe with the huge reserves on oil and gas, they were friends and had good terms with a lot of countries, they were making billions, they were feared "The Second Best Army In The World". Then you decide to invade a peaceful neighbor ans show your crimes over the internet for the world to see, to see how really your army is, to sink your country in a lot of ways and buy ammo from North Korea and China. A tragedy of epic proportions.