Waning Days for a Sole Superpower?: If the results of a recent nine-country survey are any indication, the US will no longer be the only world superpower by the year 2020. It will share superpower status with China. According to an international poll conducted by the Gallup and TNS-EMNID opinion research institutes for the German Bertelsmann Foundation, the number of people who consider the US a superpower will drop from 81 percent today to just 57 percent in 14 years. About 45 percent consider China in the world power class today, while the number rises to 55 percent in 2020. (Here’s the foundation Web page featuring the “World Powers in the 21st Century” report. And, this is the survey itself and conclusions.)
The Senate Armed Services Committee this week released the full text of its version of the 2026 defense policy bill—often referred to as the National Defense Authorization Act—that would allow the Air Force and Space Force to spend billions of dollars more than the services had sought for next year.