Quick Fix: Barring a sea change in immigration policy and/or the native birth rate, the only way the United States is going to remain the world's superpower for longer than a handful of years is to ramp up both its quality of education and level of technological sophistication.
We look at the United States, China, Japan, India and Russia and tweak their respective education and technology scores, to see the impact on their relative power by the end of the Bush second trim...I mean, second term.
Ask yourself how likely it is that the next four years will see encouragement for education and scientific progress by the current government.
Ask yourself how likely competitor societies will be ramping up their learning and science skills.
And are you happy with the answers?
Today's number-crunchies
We're comparing all the different combos of technology and literacy for the five major individual powers (USA, China, Russia, India, Japan) and tweaking their scores up or down one point, just to see what the impact would be on
- Overall Power Rating (the second column)
- Aggression index (the percentage)
- Military Power (the final figure)
We then rank the various scenarios against one another, to get an idea of the range (and reach of possibilities).
The "5" scenario is the middle-of-the-road. 1-4 represent better than expected improvement over current conditions. 6-9 represent degradation in learning and science.
And here's the data
COUNTRY RATING TECH LIT Agg MilScore
United States1....406....027....010....063%....258
United States2....389....026....010....059%....229
China1............388....023....008....068%....263
United States3....373....025....010....054%....203
China2............369....022....008....062%....229
China3............351....021....008....057%....198
United States4....332....027....009....070%....233
United States5....319....026....009....065%....207
United States6....305....025....009....060%....183
China4............303....023....007....077%....233
China5............288....022....007....070%....203
China6............274....021....007....064%....176
United States7....266....027....008....078%....209
Japan1............260....028....010....070%....183
United States8....256....026....008....073%....186
India1............251....021....007....066%....166
Japan2............250....027....010....065%....163
Japan3............250....027....010....065%....163
United States9....245....025....008....067%....165
Japan4............240....026....010....061%....145
India2............238....020....007....060%....143
China7............228....023....006....089%....203
India3............225....019....007....054%....122
China8............217....022....006....082%....177
Japan5............213....028....009....078%....166
Russia1...........207....027....008....057%....118
China9............206....021....006....074%....153
Japan6............205....027....009....072%....148
Russia2...........199....026....008....053%....105
Japan7............196....026....009....067%....131
Russia3...........190....025....008....049%....092
India4............189....021....006....077%....145
India5............179....020....006....070%....124
Germany..........179....025....010....064%....115
India6............169....019....006....063%....106
France...........164....025....010....062%....102
Russia4...........162....027....007....065%....105
United Kingdom...156....026....010....067%....104
Russia5...........155....026....007....060%....093
Italy............150....024....010....057%....085
Russia6...........148....025....007....055%....082
Canada...........146....026....009....042%....061
India7............136....021....005....091%....124
Korea, South.....136....025....010....065%....089
India8............129....020....005....083%....107
Spain............125....024....010....057%....071
India9............122....019....005....075%....091
Russia7...........122....027....006....075%....091
Argentina........120....023....009....044%....052
Russia8...........117....026....006....069%....081
Russia9...........112....025....006....064%....072
Taiwan...........108....025....010....062%....067
Turkey...........100....022....008....061%....061
Ukraine..........096....023....009....060%....058
Thailand.........095....022....008....061%....058
Australia........095....026....009....057%....055
Chile............094....022....010....035%....033
Poland...........094....025....009....068%....064
Netherlands......093....025....010....059%....055
Mexico...........090....021....007....064%....057
Egypt............089....021....008....060%....053
Romania..........083....023....009....049%....041
Thoughts
- The United States has its work cut out for it.
- The lower end estimates for all countries tend to be more aggressive
- combinations of high tech with low education are the worst, but low education does not support overall power well.
- The USA is favored to retain eminence for another four years (drrr!) but any negative surprise will throw the Chinese into contention.
- In the lower-realm scenarios for the USA, not only China but India and Japan leap ahead of the Americans, not in forty years but in four.
Moral of Story
Eff with the curriculum that has made America great at your collective peril.