National Power Base as a Component of a Long-Range Forecasting Model

Abstract

Abstract : National power base is viewed as the material and human resources that are available to a nation. These resources are divided into a military dimension and an economic dimension. The military dimension is the nation's realized military power, that is, those resources, skills, and political will available at a given time to engage in military conflict. A nation's military power base index is constructed from the nation's population, its energy consumption, its GNP, and its GNP per capita. Future values of national power base are determined by two broad categories of variables. The first category includes variables external to the forecasting model, such as increases in population and growth in GNP, that have an impact on a nation's power base. The second category includes relationships with other central environmental descriptors that are expected to have an impact on the index. In the paper, international conflict, international alignment, and internal instability are the three descriptors that affect the rates at which military and economic power base change.