How Power Correlates to War
The idea of measuring the power of a nation is an intricate process with multiple dimensions. That is because the very idea of what makes a country powerful has many different implications. An example of the multitude of variables at play include a nation’s military, sphere of influence, and economic health. Is a strong nation made more from military force or political authority?
One study that tries to answer the question of what makes a country powerful comes from the Correlates of War. The COW project is a collection and analysis of data, related to several topics involving international relations. One of those fields, the National Material Capabilities, calculates the capability of a country’s armed forces based on six criteria: military spending, military personnel, urban population, total population, iron/steel production, and energy consumption.
Using their most recent dataset, I found that a nation’s economy tends to increase the most during periods of warfare because of the expansion of their military.
The United States of America for example, reached their highest Composite Index of National Capability (CINC) during the late 1910’s and early 1940’s. Those two periods are approximately the time when America entered World War One and Two. Naturally, the number of people that joined the military and military spending increased exponentially, but energy consumption and iron and steel production also grew significantly and continued to grow afterward as well, as shown in the graphs below.
This progression makes sense, as involvement in a major conflict such as both World Wars would require the mobilization and contribution of the entire nation, in what is called a war economy. During these economies, more resources would need to be produced to help with the war effort, which created more jobs and increased currency in circulation. The roaring twenties, after World War One, enjoyed great economic expansion as a result and only came to an end because of the Great Depression.
It can be argued that The United States is a very specific situation that cannot be applied to other countries. However, China and Canada also had their CINC scores increased during World War Two, as well as One in China’s case. As seen in the graphs below, Canada saw a massive increase in the production of iron and steel, and both Canada and China had an increase in the consumption of electricity. Both nations also experienced the same trend of having their economic growth keep going even after the war ended just like The United States did.
The kind of impacts war has on a nation’s infrastructural progress is very significant because of how fast it propels their societal ecosystem forward and how it sets it up to continue improving beyond the primary event. It brings up a lot of moral quandaries regarding war like, can war be a successful industry? Is there ever a time when the potential economic benefit of war outweighs the horrific consequences? The original idea behind the Composite Index of National Capability was to measure a form of a nation’s power to determine a common cause for war, however the desire for power, itself, is ultimately the impetus of all conflict.
Sources:
National Material Capabilities (v5.0)
Singer, J. David, Stuart Bremer, and John Stuckey. (1972). “Capability Distribution, Uncertainty, and Major Power War, 1820–1965.” in Bruce Russett (ed) Peace, War, and Numbers, Beverly Hills: Sage, 19–48.
Singer, J. David. 1987. “Reconstructing the Correlates of War Dataset on Material Capabilities of States, 1816–1985” International Interactions, 14: 115–32.
