Quote Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat View Post
@Viking: now I get it. We read two different things in the question. You: 'what constitutes America's strength?' Whereas I read: 'what is the cause of America's strength?'.
We're talking about different things.

This being the case, I would agree with both you, and surprise, with myself. For your case, one can argue that America historically shared many characteristics with Northwest Europe. In which case, for both areas the same causes led to their rise in the past two centuries. And the overriding cause for the difference in strenght between Norway and the US is sheer size.

And I also agree with myself that size matters not. Brazil has almost the same area and natural resources as the US. And 200 versus 300 million people. Yet, Brazil is not a superpower, and America is.
Hm, well. Since we were discussing America's strenght in particular; I was thinking the US vs. the rest of the Western world.

Brazil lacks the economy and technological standard that the Western World has; and that was among the factors that I listed; and these two are of course, very important. Also, one must be realistic when it comes to how much area that actually is in use and that taken into use without too much trouble; Brazil has much of its land occupied by the Amazon Rainforest. Another interesting country is Japan with a massive popluation and great economy, but with little physcial space.

Why does then Brazil not have the economy and technological standard? I don't know much of Brazil's history, so I'm not fit to answer.