There are three main countries that hold the most economic and military power over the world: the United States, Russia, and China, followed by Germany and the United Kingdom. Surprisingly, India is not even on the top ten. They hold their number at 12 despite being the country with the highest population of 1,428,627,663 people.

Every single one of these countries are competing for the most global influence and some of them have alliances, such as Russia and China with BRICS, and the United States with NATO. Their hatred for each other has been known since the cold war, but they avoid war due to the impact it would have on the entire world- “mutually assured destruction.”

Still, instead of having peace, these countries like to partake in wars called proxy wars. Proxy wars have increased in activity in recent years. To put it in simple terms, it is where two parties are fighting, and each of those parties are supported by a third party. This means they can fight each other without technically fighting, because they are only supporting the parties. It is just a show of power, and shows who can last longer while thinning out their supplies.

There are other ways to compare countries, such as who are the top manufacturers. China has 28.4% global manufacturing output, United States 16.6%, Japan 7.5%, followed by Germany 5.8%, and India – 3.3%. Another way to compare is out of the nine countries that have them, who has the most nuclear weapons: Russia 5889, United States 5224, China 410, followed by France 290, and United Kingdom 225.

You can compare them with their military personnel as well. The United States has a 0.0699 Power Index, 2,127,500 total military personnel, Russia 0.0702, 3,570,000, China 0.0706, 3,170,000 followed by India 0.1023, 5,137,550 and South Korea 0.1416, 3,820,000, with the last measurement as the HDI Index. It’s a measurement of how developed a country is. Most larger countries have lower HDI due to more landmass and population. United States 21# 0.921, Russia 51# 0.829, China 79# 0.768 and in the front, you have Switzerland 0.962 and Norway 0.961.

The United States is the clear winner here, but we must achieve worldwide peace and end all the needless competitions which tend to lead to pointless wars and unnecessary deaths. Who will be the one to solve this problem and achieve peace?