India - 3rd most powerful nation in the world

Recognising India's growing clout in the world, an official United States report on global governance has declared the country the third most powerful nation after the United States and China.

The new global power lineup for 2010 compiling the world's most powerful countries/regions recognised India as the third most powerful country behind the US and China, and predicted that its clout as well as that of China and Brazil would further rise by 2025.

'Global Governance 2025' -- a follow-on to the National Intelligence Council's 2008 report -- was jointly issued by NIC of the powerful Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the European Union's Institute for Security Studies.

In 2010, the US tops the list of powerful countries/regions, accounting for nearly 22 per cent of the global power. The US is followed by China (more than 12 per cent), European Union (more than 16 per cent), India (nearly eight per cent), and less than five per cent each for Japan, Russia and Brazil.

According to this international futures model, by 2025 the power of the US, EU, Japan and Russia would decline while that of China, India and Brazil would increase, even though there would be no change in this listing.

By 2025, the United States would still be the most powerful country of the world, but it would have a little over 18 per cent of the global power. The US would be closely followed by China (nearly 16 per cent), European Union (14 per cent) and India (10 per cent).

The report concludes that three effects of rapid globalisation are driving demands for more effective global governance -- economic interdependence, the interconnected nature of the challenges on the international agenda, and interwoven domestic and foreign challenges.

According to the 82-page report, more effective global governance is critical to addressing 'threats such as ethnic conflicts, infectious diseases, and terrorism as well as a new generation of global challenges including climate change, energy security, food and water scarcity, international migration flows and new technologies,' which are increasingly taking centrestage.

Complicating the prospects for effective global governance over the next 15 years, however, is the shift to a multi-polar world, particularly the shift in power towards non-state actors, it says.