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They will be A superpower. Whether they will be THE superpower in a hegemonic situation the way the British were in the mid to late 19th century or Americans in the late 20th is a little more flexible a question. There's still the US and India to consider 50 years from now as other multi-polar powers the way the British were in the early 20th and the Soviets were in the mid 20th.
I personally think they will be the leading superpower. They will have the largest economy and it's going to be scary.
To have a dictatorial Communist regime considered a global superpower is a nightmare that I shudder to think of actually becoming a reality. It would almost be as scary as having an Islamic Theocracy as the worlds leading political entity . . .
Either case scenario would be very detrimental to the Human inhabitants of Planet Earth.
There is no 50yrs. The world will end yesterday.
May 11th 2011.
I truly believe you will all go to heaven…….honest.
So now…………you wont need money or material possessions……..passer all o’er here.
Car keys please….thaaaaaank ya!
To a point yes, it is true they were not as powerful as believed at the time or by themselves.
However they were capable of projecting power on a global scale (rather than a regional), both through military and diplomatic leverage. This is more or less what is required to be a "superpower" in IR terms. I'd say they were at least as powerful throughout the mid 20th century as the fading British empire post WW1 through WW2 and more so than the German Empire pre-WW1 even if they lacked the economic power necessary to sustain themselves.
If nothing else, STS, you are consistent.
Economically and militarily the Soviet Union was an absolute zero. Hitler's NAZI Germany had them all but defeated in WW2 until the USA came to their aid with extending the "lend-lease" deal to include them. If we hadn't, they would have fallen within a year. Even in WW1 they had their backs against the wall by the Kaiser's army when they sued for peace after the Russian Revolution. The American political machine, which was in the throes of the progressive idiots (which is why we are in the dire straits we are in today), were trying desperately to give Communism a viable credence on the world stage after WW2(thanks in most part to FDR and his Communist cronies)which caused the rest of the free world to have a false fear of the Soviets and ignore the Communist Chinese which ended up with the so-called "cold war" which almost bankrupted the entire free world as well as bankrupting the Soviet Union.
I do not fear the Chinese. Fear can cause a lot of hardships more so on a national level than on an individual level. The Chinese government has seen what a disaster uncontrolled military growth programs can cause, like what happened to the Soviets, so I do not believe they will allow that to happen within their borders. After all, they have well over a billion people to take care of and manage so they will be rather reluctant to take on the whole world. The age of Genghis Khan thinking is long past.
I think you have your WW2 history a** backwards. USSR already had T-34s in the field, more troops in the field, and winter at its side in 1941. The war for Hitler was lost in the snow outside Moscow with less than 6 months in. Lend-lease had barely moved the needle by then at all. End of story. (note, I never indicated that they were a great power during WW1. I was comparing the Soviet Union of WW2 and the Cold War to the German Empire of WW1, not Czarist Russia of WW1 to the Kaiser. In fact I completely would agree they were not at that time. That's not "mid-20th century" however.)
They were basically fighting that war on their own for 3 years and were already in Poland when we landed in France. Lend-Lease certainly saved England, or at least allowed it to keep fighting for its imperial possessions, and certainly gave Stalin a big chunk of useful logistical support (trucks and supply planes) but they also manufactured more tanks (and better ones at that, T-34s were the basic models for German Panther tanks and most post-war MBTs up until the 1980s when reactive armor appeared) than any other country, almost as many combat airplanes as even the US, and had more troops than anybody else in the field. And they didn't have to fight Japan until 1945. They're the only country fighting on just one front (other than deporting and shooting political prisoners, something the Nazis were doing just as prolifically, if not more so in Eastern Europe). I don't see where they were about to lose in 1942 anymore than the US was about to lose to Japan in 1942. The very thought is preposterous. We helped out their supply lines. Yes, clearly that saved the Soviet Union from total defeat… There's a reason the Soviets ended up owning half of Europe for half a century. And it's not because we gave them some trucks and engine parts.
As for their post-war might, they had at least as many nuclear warheads as the US by the 70s, more even during the 80s, and a huge military, especially their army and navy. Nuclear weapons stockpiles were basically the calling card announcing great power status. The existence of all of Western Europe and the US as a military alliance of NATO was necessary to keep it out. I'd say they had power projection ability militarily as a result. Economically they may have been a disaster, but they had plenty of guns and plenty of ability to influence global politics. That's a superpower. They don't need to invade other countries and create or even possess imperial designs to be so called.
Note also, I never said China should be feared. I said they would be a superpower. I don't think most countries go around afraid of the US. Neither would most countries fear China.
As far as your progressive idiots giving communism a viable credence and whipping up fear.. so you're saying that Joe McCarthy was a progressive idiot? Examining the history at the time I'd say the fear was very real, very widespread, and largely expressed by people who were anything but progressive idiots. They were people very much like you. Transplanting you back to the 1950s in your current form, you'd almost certainly be a Bircher.
Yup! You are consistent!
Too bad you weren't alive during that time.
I was.
John Birch was not the evil monster that you have been told he was . . . . .
The point about Birch was more to do with the lack of "progressive idiot" credentials that he possessed (imagine my lack of surprise that you're going to be defending him …… after I already predicted this would be the case in my previous post. The Glenn Beck greatest hits machine rolls on I take it?. If William Buckley thought the guy was an evil monster and Dr Strangelove was a parody of it, I'd say that's good enough for me to think the guy was a nutjob. Explains why you'd like him).
Anyway, if your point was that somehow it was those progressive idiots who inflated the Soviet threat, then your point was completely and blatantly wrong (and indeed, you're already admitting you were wrong with your own retorts). It was people like McCarthy and Birch who did that. The "progressive idiot" camp was and is still busy underselling the threat the Soviets posed, not amplifying it as you suggested. It's not that hard to find a libertarian complaining about the lack of attention paid to the destructive power of the Soviets and Maoists in their day. It's a lot harder to find a progressive doing so.