text: To be a super power, a country needed to be very strong militarily, economically and in global values.\n\nThe People's Republic of China is often considered a rising major power due to its large and stable population, its rapidly growing economy, and its rapidly growing military spending and capabilities.\n\nSimilar to China, India has a population of over one billion, nuclear weapons, the world's 2nd largest land-force and 4th largest airforce, as well as a thriving economy (4th largest in PPP). India also enjoys the advantage of a large and well-educated English-speaking workforce. The biggest obstacle: India is still a "developing" country in many respects with poor infrastructure, a huge poor and under-educated lower class that has a tremendous gap with the middle and upper classes; widespread corruption, brain-drain, social and ethnic tensions as well as potential conflict with its neighbor and rival, Pakistan. Despite India's widespread poverty, the Indian middle class consists of approximately 200 million people and poverty levels have been falling consistently since the '90s, though in rural areas, where most Indians still live, there has been little improvement. Today, approximately 20% of India's population lives in absolute poverty. It is thought that India's democratic foundations ensure some kind of long term government stability.\n\nRussia still possesses some attributes of a world power, notably including the world's largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, inherited from the USSR. It also has the proven ability to conduct manned space travel. Perhaps most importantly, it is the geographically largest country of the world and has control over a variety of strategic raw materials. Russia still has a clear capacity for destructive force, which in light of the current delicate political situation is not calculable beyond the medium-term. As one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Russia also has notable political influence in the world. However, Russia's economy is generally thought to be unstable and less competitive on a global scale. The population has been shrinking since the fall of the Soviet Union and is predicted to fall even lower within the next 10 years, due to drastically shortened life expectancies since 1990 and falling birthrates. Life in what was one of the safest places in the world has become rife with danger and insecure for most people. Furthermore, Russia is unable to control Chechen separatism and terrorism that is threatening neighbouring areas in the south and could lead to the break up of the south of the country. Russia is also unable to prevent illegal Chinese immigration into Asian Russia which may cause the eventual loss of that mineral rich region. A major brain drain of Russia's vast coterie of high quality scientists and engineers, a legacy of its excellent Soviet era education system, is also occurring and undermining Russia's long term economic development. Out of control post Soviet corruption diverts vast sums of government resources away from valuable programs. Corruption is also endemic in its business sector.