Regional Powers and Tensions

Abstract

We live in a world in which all the component states are, according to international law and convention, equal. Yet they range in size of population from China with over 1 billion inhabitants to the Pacific island of Nauru with fewer than 10,000. Their armed strength varies from the intimidating superpower might of the United States to the military impotence of the forty or so micro-states. In wealth too, whether measured in gross national product (GNP) or GNP per capita, a huge gap separates the richest from the poorest states.