Great Power

In geopolitical studies a Great Power, in the formal sense, is one of the six states which were members of the Formulating Council of the Congress of Kethpor, or which have since been acknowledged by those states as peers. This group is broadly recognised as having a privileged status in interordinate relations. At the present time eight states are regarded as Great Powers:

• the Empire of Agamar;
• the Glorious Isvernian Empire (Azophin);
• the Lutoborian Imperial Realms;
• the Sacred Kingdom of Odann;
• the Savamese Empire;
• the United Commonholds of Siurskeyti;
• the Great and Universal Terophatic Empire; and
• the Zepnish Realm.

Definitions

As defined in interordinate law by the Kethpor Accords, whose parties constitute the overwhelming majority of the civilised states of Arden, the Great Powers are those formally recognised as such by the constituent members of the Formulating Council which set the agenda of the Congress of Kethpor in 1959. The privileged status of the four Vaestic empires recognised as Great Powers is formalised in the Panarchate, an institution that originated during the Terophatic-led reconstruction of Outer Joriscia in the aftermath of the Long War. The status of the Great Powers has been intermittently challenged in the decades since Kethpor, most prominently in Vaestdom during the Constellation Crisis of the 1970s, but to this day the Kethpor Accords form through consensus the basis for the practice of interordinate relations, particularly among the world-empires of Messeno-Joriscia.

The term "Great Power" is also used in a variety of academic senses. While it has been denigrated in some quarters as inherently subjective in this capacity, some efforts have been made to establish criteria specific to great-power status; these have largely been in terms of economic, military and political capacity, with the first of these perhaps acquiring greater significance since the end of the Long War. A widely-held definition of the term holds that a Great Power is one which has interests throughout the world – not merely in its own region – and has the will to intervene in whatever form it deems most appropriate to further those interests, whether or not these coincide with the interests of others over the same subject. While this is most often thought of in military terms, political will is also a significant factor here, with a Great Power being recognised as one whose responses to a particular stimulus must be taken into account.

History

Hegemonic powers in particular regions and cultural spheres have existed since antiquity, but the modern idea of several roughly or nominally equal powerbrokers may be traced to the formation of the respective early modern interordinate systems in Messenia and Joriscia. The Treaty of Spatzberg, colonial intrigues in Ascesia, and then the Reform wars provided for the recognition of symmetrical powers in Messenia, initially in terms of their participation in carving up the Palthic Empire and guaranteeing the Baldwinian system, and later as military peers in various interventions in the West and through Cairandom, sometimes linking together in the Concentration Wars or the Reclamation War. By the end of the 18th century, the Seranian Treaties and other less definitive dealings had made for the recognition of Siurskeyti, Odann, Zeppengeran, and the increasingly tightly knit Reformer states led by Quènie and Dordanie (soon to become Savam) as peers, while a customary, never-formalised balance of power was maintained between them. In Outer Joriscia, the cosmocratic tenets of Vaestism meant that there was great reluctance if not controversy over recognising the new disposition of power between several states following collapse of Great Neritsia, but after Lacre proclaimed its power separate from the former Neritsovid heartland in the Imperial War, the Chotarian Restoration, and the Lacrean ascendancy, this had become fait accompli. This was not formalised however until the Treaty of Tharamann of 1845 that unambiguously affirmed the existence of three distinct empires — Azophin, Lacre, Terophan — followed by the Purity Council of 1855 that admitted the wider powers of Vaestdom by regularising among others Lutoborsk, Agamar, and Zemay in the new paradigm of independent Banner-Empires.

Up until Kethpor, the recognition of powers across each sphere was a slower and less formal process. This primarily took place in the 19th century through the Heathen Wars, Spytihnev's incursions, and further imperial conflicts in Serania and Ascesia, which elucidated the powers as to their military and economic parity; inter-civilisational diplomatic studies in the period would recognise lists of actors with worldwide reach from both sides of Messeno-Joriscia, now the generally accepted idea of a Great Power. While powers from across cultures made particular agreements and alliances with each other on terms that implicitly amounted to peer recognition, such as the Agreement at Mudry (1802) or the Treaty of Ūsilinna (1889), it was at the end of the century, with the Treaty of Cataphon (1892), the Congress of Lyudodarsk (1893), and other congresses that a fully Messeno-Joriscian assembly of powers was gathered and recognised, but no definitive event or treaty established Great Powers per se and individual congresses only recognised equal stakes in particular regions — largely colonial. In this period the widely accepted Great Powers were Azophin (doubtlessly the foremost, thanks to the Azophine ascendancy), Agamar, Lacre, Terophan, Savam, Ceresora, Odann, Siurskeyti, and Zeppengeran.

The Long War saw the interordinate system overturned: Azophin had been almost destroyed and occupied in the Sea of Flames, Zemayan military prowess emerged in a heroic light to Vaestdom after defeating Lacre as punishment for the Thrall, Odann had been humiliated in the Gaste War and almost dismembered, and finally the Ceresoran Civil War thoroughly ravaged that country. The years without summers had caused global catastrophe and there were fears imminent economic and social collapse would cause a war of ghouls. The new interordinate system established by Kethpor thus cemented some victors' status as much as preserving those that had turned out less beneficially in the interests of maintaining order; the establishment of the Panarchate put ascendant Terophan alongside now-respected Zemay, but also with an Agamar still in turmoil after the Sakari Revolt, and a Lutoborsk that had been successively humiliated by other powers in the period, and seemed in no state to pursue power, being perhaps the most devastatingly starved Joriscian state in the nuclear winter. Multipolarity was reassured, definitively so when the Terophatic Ascendancy fell apart in the 1970s-80s following the Constellation Crisis.

After the Three Week War (1982) and the Congress of Molot (1983), Azophin returned to the ranks of the Great Powers and gained a seat on the Panarchate, at the expense of Zemay, while the Lutoborsk became more sincerely recognised with its economic recovery and ascendancy, as well as acquisition of nuclear weapons in the Holay War. Odann's reclamation of its title was less dramatic, primarily taking place with a carefully managed strategy of diplomatic and economic reconciliation to normalise Odann's relations with other Messenian powers, which allowed it re-entry to regular attendance at Great Power functions. In the 1990s however a more aggressive foreign policy, and involvement in a string of colonial conflicts during the Garden Wars, definitively put the image of Odannach resurgence into the public mind.

See also

• Secondary power
• Insurgent power