German: A Tentative Evaluation of World Power

German, Clifford. 1960. A tentative evaluation of world power. Conflict resolution. Vol IV. No 1.

"Four basic dimensions have been selected and then modified and added in order to show the interplay of other factors and to obtain a sum total representing an estimate of total national strength. The four are; (1) national economy, which includes the resources of agriculture, minerals, raw materials and industry; (2) land and ((3) population (both used advisedly to avoid the implications of Raum and Volk); and (4) military power" 139). "Sheer area is undeniably a potent factor..." (139). "For the purposes of this article, the basis of calculation is the national area in thousands of square kilometers. This figure is divided by 5, 10, or 20, according to the effectiveness of national occupancy, represented by a scale of population density, and still further reduced in most cases by a third, a half, or two-thirds, according to the excellence or otherwise of communications. This is measured by the proportion of railroad mileage to area" (139). For population only uses working age population between fifteen and sixty.

 "Then, since food is literally a vital commodity, the number of the total population surplus to home produced food supply is deducted, or the hypothetical number of people who could be fed by a food surplus is added" (139);. Also adds something related to morale, which is basically a modified population for human capital productivity. "up to 50 per cent of the total working population may be added to represent this" (139). the economy is further broken down and manufacturing workers are counted as five times more. Also, energy consumption per capita is considered. Communist countries are given double the production because things are able to be controlled or orientated towards more strategic production as compared with Crude steel production is also considered and is added to both oil and coal production as well as hydro-electric production. Author also considers energy production as being a potential drag on material power for importing countries Considers nuclear weapons to double the sum total of other military factors. Order of great powers for 1958: USA, USSR, UK, China, West Germany, Canada, Japan, France, India, Poland, Australia, Brazil, Czeschoslovakia, Italy, East Germany, Argentina, Union of South Africa, Sweden, Belgium

Hohn: Four Early Attempts to Develop Power Formulas

Hohn, Karl. Four early attempts to develop power formulas (1741-1995). International Relations. 3-4. 2011. http://powermetrics.bplaced.net/earlyformulas.pdf

Reviews the history of power formulas. First there is the work of Submilch (1741) which argued that power is a factor of population times population density. Next there is the work of Friedensburg (1936) who argued that power is a factor of the supply of raw materials times population. Third, there is the work of Stewart (1945/1954) who argued that power was a function of population divided by the distance between one country and another. Fourth there is the work of Wright (1955) who argued that power is a function of population times secondary energy production.