ISO, On militarism and hegemony... The end of the last century has undoubtedly heralded the beginning of diminishing relevance of military might in global politics, I believe. Replaced by economic ties, the 21st century will see increasing irrelevance of militarism in the formation of alliances, hegemony and power politics. This not to say that militarism will be completely wiped out from global politics, but I foresee it playing far less significance than economic and social (include religious) issues. From Nepal, to Palestine, to Iraq we can see that the state armies with far better training and far better equipments are hopelessly failing to quell their counterparts who are armed merely with rag-tag armory. I mean, what good is militarism in today's world if an army of over 160,000 (based in Iraq) GPS-carrying, body armour-wearing, backed by unsurpassable state-of-the-art heavy machinery, troops, finds itself helpless in even controlling -- let alone defeat -- only a few-thousand strong counterparts who are barely armed with old, worn out AK-47s, RPGs (Rocket Propelled Grenades) and IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices)? Even the old STRONG allies (France, Germany and the US, in the case of Iraq) are now facing increasing rifts between themselves because of conflicting economic interests -- their old alliance based on MILITARISM to counter the Soviet threat is all but completely irrelevant now. More recently, even Iran, whose army would obviously be considered primitive compared to the US', was undeterred -- vis-a-vis their nuclear programs -- by the prospects of being attacked, either covertly by Israel or opening by the US. In the end, the Iranians prevailed by astutely using diplomatic, and I strongly suspect economic, tools with the EU. Therefore, I strongly doubt that China's military backwardness -- as compared to the West or Russia -- may be an obstacle towards their aspirations of becoming a superpower. Then again, I suspect that it should be fairly easy to rapidly modernize one's army if it's economy is strong and it's coffers full. On hegemony... Yes, at the outset (I have yet to do more study on this) I too would believe being a hegemon would be a criteria to becoming a superpower. Nevertheless, don't you think China already is, or is in a rapid pace to be, a hegemon at least in the South-East Asia, if not Asia (considering Japan as it's closest potential rival)? By virtue of it's rapidly growing economy and the strong ties with other countries, neighbors or otherwise, this growth brings with it, I think it's not quite unfathomable that China be considered a hegemon in the region.