There have been a number of discussions on the forum about "Who is the Greatest Nation in the World?" Now as far as that question goes: I don't know if I care, truthfully. But if it's discussion worthy, we might as well discuss it based upon hard facts. So here goes:

Top 30 Largest Militaries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._active_troops
Nation Active Service Personnel (Total including reserves and paramilitary)
(It is worth noting that several nations have an enormous "paramilitary" force of questionable effectiveness, but it gets thrown into the second total regardless. Go to the above link for a more complete listing.)
1 People's Republic of China** 2,255,000 (7,024,000)
2 United States** 1,426,710 (2,338,210)
3 India** 1,325,000 (3,773,300)
4 North Korea** 1,106,000 (5,995,000)
5 Russia** 1,037,000 (3,796,100)
6 South Korea 687,000 (5,209,000)
7 Pakistan** 619,000 (1,449,000)
8 Iran 545,000 (12,285,000)
9 Turkey 514,850 (4,463,550)
10 Vietnam 484,000 (9,564,000)
11 Egypt 450,000 (1,109,000)
12 Myanmar 428,250 (500,250)
13 Ukraine 361,000 (1,473,500)
14 Indonesia 316,000 (923,000)
15 Thailand 306,600 (625,300)
16 Syria 296,000 (536,500)
17 Republic of China (Taiwan) 290,000 (1,965,000)
18 Brazil 287,000 (1,687,600)
19 Germany 284,500 (683,150)
20 France** 361,085 (380,328 )
21 Japan 239,000 (309,149)
22 Italy 230,350 (534,350)
23 Colombia 207,000 (336,000)
24 Eritrea 202,000 (452,000)
25 Morocco 196,300 (396,800)
26 Saudi Arabia 199,500 (234,500)
27 Mexico 192,770 (517,770)
28 United Kingdom** 187,970 (421,830)
29 Ethiopia 182,500 (182,500)
30 Iraq 179,800 (179,800)
33 Israel* 168,000 (584,050)
* Nuclear weapons undeclared status (Israel)
** Nuclear weapons declared status

Top 30 Most Populous Nations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population
(By itself, it is not a significant measure of "how powerful" a nation truly is. However, it is relevant for two reasons: 1- It represents the raw potential of a nation. 2- Many nations who are otherwise be considered powerful are extremely limited by their lack of population. Examples: Israel and North Korea.)
Nation Population (Percentage of the World's Population)
1 People's Republic of China 1,320,955,000 (19.8%)
2 India 1,169,016,000 (17.52%)
— Europe European Union 492,964,961 (7.39%)
3 United States 303,004,000 (4.54%)
4 Indonesia 231,627,000 (3.47%)
5 Brazil 187,223,000 (2.81%)
6 Pakistan 161,343,500 (2.42%)
7 Bangladesh 158,665,000 (2.38%)
8 Nigeria 148,093,000 (2.22%)
9 Russia 142,499,000 (2.14%)
10 Japan 127,750,000 (1.91%)
11 Mexico 106,535,000 (1.6%)
12 Philippines 88,706,300 (1.33%)
13 Vietnam 87,375,000 (1.31%)
14 Germany 82,314,900 (1.23%)
15 Ethiopia 77,127,000 (1.16%)
16 Egypt 75,498,000 (1.13%)
17 Turkey 74,877,000 (1.12%)
18 Iran 71,208,000 (1.07%)
19 France (including overseas France) 64,102,140 (0.96%)
20 Thailand 62,828,706 (0.94%)
21 Dem. Rep. of Congo 62,636,000 (0.94%)
22 United Kingdom 60,587,300 (0.91%)
23 Italy 59,131,287 (0.89%)
24 Myanmar 48,798,000 (0.73%)
25 South Africa 48,577,000 (0.73%)
26 South Korea 48,512,000 (0.73%)
27 Ukraine 46,205,000 (0.69%)
28 Spain 45,116,894 (0.68%)
29 Colombia 44,000,000 (0.66%)
30 Tanzania 40,454,000 (0.61%)

47 North Korea 23,790,000 (0.36%)
96 Israel 7,184,000 (0.11%)

Top 30 Gross Domestic Product
List by the International Monetary Fund
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP
(If you are unfamiliar with what GDP is,it is simply a measure of of how much a nations economy currently produces.)
Rank Country GDP (PPP) $m
— World 66,228,669
— European Union 13,881,051
1 United States 13,020,861
2 People's Republic of China 9,984,0621
3 Japan 4,170,533
4 India 4,158,922
5 Germany 2,558,908
6 United Kingdom 2,121,766
7 France 1,934,677
8 Italy 1,790,895
9 Russia 1,727,349
10 Brazil 1,701,183
— Arab League 1,560,770
11 Spain 1,214,930
12 Mexico 1,171,506
13 Canada 1,156,463
14 South Korea 1,155,565
15 Indonesia 959,834
16 Republic of China (Taiwan) 691,189
17 Australia 680,154
18 Turkey 660,837
19 Argentina 621,070
20 South Africa 606,407
21 Iran 601,675
22 Thailand 597,380
23 Netherlands 573,328
24 Poland 566,886
25 Philippines 462,166
26 Pakistan 422,943
27 Saudi Arabia 396,673
28 Colombia 378,435
29 Belgium 364,649
30 Ukraine 356,228

================================================== =======
Top 35 Most Technologically Advanced Nations
ranked by The EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit) & IBM
http://gpmgroup.info/2007/04/27/the-most-technologically-advanced-countries/
rank Country score (of 10)
1 Denmark 9.00
2(tie) United States 8.85
2(tie) Sweden 8.85
4 Hong Kong 8.72
5 Switzerland 8.61
6 Singapore 8.60
7 United Kingdom 8.59
8 Netherlands 8.50
9 Australia 8.46
10 Finland 8.43
11 Austria 8.39
12 Norway 8.35
13 Canada 8.30
14 New Zealand 8.19
15 Bermuda 8.15
16 South Korea 8.08
17 Taiwan 8.05
18 Japan 8.01
19 Germany 8.00
20 Belgium 7.90
21 Ireland 7.86
22 France 7.77
23 Israel 7.58
24 Malta* 7.56
25 Italy 7.45
26 Spain 7.29
27 Portugal 7.14
28 Estonia 6.84
29 Slovenia 6.66
30 Chile 6.47
31 Czech Republic 6.32
32 Greece 6.31
33 United Arab Emrites 6.22
34 Hungary 6.16
35 South Africa 6.10
Sigificant Nations that were not in the top 35
43 Brazil 5.45
54(tie)India 4.66
56 China 4.43
57 Russia 4.27
63 Pakistan 3.79
67 Indonesia 3.39
69 Iran 3.08 (ranked last out of the 69 nations)
================================================== =======

Okay, sorry about leaving this incomplete. I was dragged away unexpectedly on a work-related crisis. From what I have so far, it should be pretty obvious that the greatest nation in the world is currently the United States. Other nations are rising and some are falling, but to if someone asks the question "who is the second most powerful nation in the World" that facts and statistics would seem to produce a limited number of options.

While China and India have enormous populations and enormous militaries, they are also still technologically backwards compared to Europe and the United States.

Germany, the UK, Japan and France are technologically advanced, but have significantly smaller populations and standing militaries.

China, Japan and India are certainly the next most potent when it comes to the size and power of their economies.

For the most part, the military technology runs parallel to the nations overall technological rating. Obviously, this does not make Denmark a contender for world Superpower status. But the technological development of any given nation inevitably impacts the quality of their military hardware. Russia might be considered a notable exception to this parallel. During the Cold War, Russia developed an overall tendency to absolutely kill themselves to keep up or ahead of the USA and NATO in military tech. But the overall technological development of the USSR and Russia was always far behind that of the Western nations. Since the breakup of the USSR, Russia (and many other former Soviet states) have continued in that same tradition. So while Russia is not as advanced in their military technology as NATO, they are significantly better in military technology than they are in technology overall.

As for Russia, their loss of population and their much smaller military (since the end of the Cold War) are very significant, yet it is most probably impossible to effectively show or rank their military technology -- which is currently much better than that of India and China.

I'll let this one stay open, if you can keep the discussion civil and base it on facts (like he's done now..)

LOL, I guess that nobody is interested in discussing "Who are the Greatest Nations in the World and Why?"

Oh well, it was a thought.

I found it quite interesting and informative, but I was not greatly surprised by any of the rankings.

Personally I don't see a lot to discuss, if it's correct it can be taken as read. If it's not correct it's not really going to set the world on fire. Either way I don't have the resources to either prove or disprove it, so it's pretty much cut and dried. Obviously someone has put a lot more time and effort into it than I am willing to expend, so basically I just accept it.

South Korea on the technological scale is a little low.
If you came here you'd know what I mean.
This country's got other problems but technology isn't one of them.

So based upon this information, Three Most Powerful Nations in the world would be as follows:
1.) The United States
2.) China
3.) ... not sure, several possible choices there: Japan, Germany or India all strong choices. A decent argument could be made for Russia, especially in light of it's nuclear weapons status.

That's what I'm trying to eek out here. Who are the big power player nations of the world? Who is up and coming? What details are not taken into account by these rankings?

For example, you can probably claim that Germany and France have a stronger standing by virtue of their central role in the European Union ... IF you feel that strengthens their power ranking.