Quick descriptions of the G7 countries

this video was brought to you by the great courses plus stay tuned for information on how you can get access to a special free trial and keep the learning going so when i was a teenager i was really fascinated by the g7 that super elite group of powerful countries that meet every year i was so fascinated in fact that when i was on my high school student council i even organized a student council g7 by convenient coincidence there were exactly seven schools in my district so it all worked out perfectly so the actual g7 was founded in 1976 and its seven members are usually described as the world's leading industrialized democracies controversially there is no specific set of criteria regarding what makes a country good enough to be in the g7 but generally speaking g7 countries are uniquely economically powerful in terms of like the strength of their currencies and banks and corporations and so on and this economic strength gives them a great deal of foreign policy power as well anyway here is the list america canada great britain france germany japan and italy and today i thought i would do something a little different and just do my best to summarize each of the g7 nations tell you a bit about what i know about their political culture and my understanding of the role that they play in the modern world i admit this is going to be a bit superficial at times and a bit heavy on conventional wisdom but i'm hoping you guys will be able to fill in any gaps if you think i missed something major in any case here is my crude guide to the group of seven all right so let's talk about germany first it is the wealthiest country in europe and a nation with a very unique sense of its place in the world modern-day germany is of course very much shaped by specific policy choices made both outside and inside the country after the fall of the third reich in 1945 in order to formally renounce its militaristic past postwar germany embraced a fairly radical foreign policy doctrine of non-aggression and non-intervention and this consensus has been quite rigidly enforced ever since here is a striking example in 2010 germany's figurehead president was forced to resign simply for saying that the german military was a legitimate tool that could be used to protect the country's economic interests that would be an extremely boring opinion to express anywhere else on earth but in germany it was considered deeply taboo for violating the post-war consensus what all this means in practice is that despite its size and power germany is a country that's often largely excluded from big geopolitical debates that involve either implicit or explicit threats of force like say what to do about syria or north korea instead german power mostly plays out through its leadership in major financial alliances particularly the economic institutions of the european union during the so-called eurozone crisis of the 2010s for instance when many european countries were tottering on the brink of bankruptcy germany was the nation usually framed as managing the continent's economic recovery strategy even exerting borderline receivership over places like greece a lot of this too was seen as being bound up in the country's post-war mindset wherein germany's history of abusing its neighbors assigns them moral obligation to help them in times of crisis though of course german help isn't always well received domestically we think of germany as having somewhat placid politics a stable democracy on guard against any sort of political extremism again for the obvious historical reasons chancellor angela merkel a moderate conservative who has been in power for 15 straight years being a leading symbol of this i would say the german domestic controversy that's best known abroad involves the issue of economic inequality particularly the economic and social divides that still alienate western germany from the east which of course was an independent country from 1945 to 1990 as well as the division between native-born germans and immigrants germany actually has the fastest growing immigration population of any g7 country in part because non-discriminatory immigration is yet one more way the country is said to be overcoming the legacy of the third reich all right after germany let us talk about canada the country where i live canada is the smallest member of the g7 and its inclusion in the group was said to be done at the explicit request of u.s president gerald ford who wanted a strong u.s ally in there to balance out all the europeans that unto itself says a lot of canada which is a country very similar to the united states and very firmly in the american economic cultural orbit canada does the vast majority of its trade with the united states and the two countries are probably among the most indistinguishable on earth but this closeness has always fostered a great deal of canadian anxiety and an ongoing canadian obsession with demonstrating difference from and superiority to america some of this plays out in the foreign policy realm where a certain sort of canadian really likes this idea of canada being a more moderate conciliatory country than the us one very happy to work through multilateral institutions in a kind and selfless manner as prime minister trudeau once told the un we're canadian and we're here to help but that said on most of the big questions canada's foreign policy is quite similar to america's in part because canadians share a lot of the same basic cultural and moral assumptions canada was an active participant in the u.s led war against radical islamic terrorism the country is a strong supporter of the state of israel and canada shares many of america's anxieties about the rise of china internally canada is a very diverse country with the most famous drama of its diversity coming from tensions between its population of english speakers and french speakers however these days i would say that is a much less front of mind concern than it used to be and is now mostly confined to beefs between youtubers and speaking of the french let us now go to actual france france used to be one of the world's great imperial powers and that history has helped keep france a very outward facing country to this day the fact that france used to run much of north africa in particular has kept that region a big part of both foreign and domestic politics in france even now the french are known for their pride and a lot of french people do hold at least some residual affinity that some aspects of their culture remain present in africa french presidents accordingly often make a big deal about upholding the bonds of the so-called francophony community which includes a lot of military support and even a french willingness to intervene militarily in its former colonies now and then but on the other hand the brutalities of french colonialism in africa have fostered an ongoing legacy of resentment towards french people that can often be quite unlike anything else i remember once hearing an interview with christopher hitchens where he was talking about visiting the countries of northern africa and he said that one thing you learn very quickly as a white person in that part of the world is to always tell everybody that you're not french but in any case ongoing interest in africa is but one manifestation of this long-standing idea that french foreign policy must be distinctly french and particularly distinct from whatever the british and americans are doing france famously pulled out of nato's military command structure in the 1960s because it was seen as a threat to french sovereignty and they only recently rejoined amid much controversy and of course the french were very vocally opposed to the anglo-american invasion of iraq in 2003 france's former empire has also been responsible for much of the ethnic diversity that characterizes modern france especially paris north africa remains the largest source of the country's steadily growing immigrant population which has in turn also been the source of a lot of well-known racial and religious strife in the country this tension is often framed as being a very particularly french thing and is often attributed to the idea that the french have unrealistically high expectations of assimilation but in many ways domestic tension over immigration is one thing that pretty much every g7 country shares way on the other side of the world we have the nation of japan the only asian member of the g7 japan is a country with a lot of similarities to germany in some ways its crushing defeat in world war ii also created a powerful consensus that the country should embrace a pacifist foreign policy forever and instead exercise its global influence through the strength of its economy in some ways japan has historically gone even further than germany getting closer to outright isolationism where the country's government rarely even expresses firm opinions on foreign policy debates we don't ever really think of japan as a country that has much to say about the israeli-palestinian situation for instance however in recent years there's also been a growing sense that as china becomes more powerful japanese foreign policy should become more aggressive in asserting its interests in the pacific particularly under the recently departed prime minister shinzo abe who's been described as japan's most powerful and nationalistic leader since the war there has been increasing talk about japan ditching some of the pacifist provisions in its constitution that limit the way it can use its military japanese domestic politics are probably the most tranquil in all of the g7 japan is in fact often described as being an almost sort of pseudo one party state given that their elections are not very competitive the same party almost always wins and they don't really have a culture of the same sort of aggressive political debate you see in other places that can be attractive of course but it's also often interpreted as a symbol of japanese apathy and stagnation as we all know from watching back to the future part two there was a time when japan's economic might was so strong it seemed plausible to believe they could someday take over the entire world i was monitoring that scan you just interfaced you are terminated but as you can see from this chart since the 1990s japanese economic growth has been pretty lackluster which is often blamed on a decline of japanese innovation and creativity but that said a big surprise since the 1990s has been the amount of cultural influence japan has accumulated which as we shall see can be a very important source of global power as well which brings us to the good old usa and what is there to say here america is the richest country in the world and also the most powerful militarily like the main character in a sitcom pretty much everything important that's happened over the last few decades has revolved ruined it in some way american foreign policy has traditionally been very righteous and moralistic which comes out of america's revolutionary tradition of seeing itself as a place founded to defend liberty and democracy we shall pay any price there any burden meet any hardship support any friend oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty this in turn can make it very easy to criticize american foreign policy since it sets such high standards for itself the constant growth of american military power after the end of world war ii has made it easy for the u.s to intervene as it sees fit in countries all over the world staging invasions and overthrowing governments but pretty much everyone seems to agree that america's track record of success with its interventions has been pretty hit and miss the american war in vietnam during the 1970s and the american war in iraq during the 2000s in particular are now leading symbols of how america's moralizing military crusades can easily descend into morally ambiguous quagmires that said while american foreign policy is often deeply controversial america is also kind of like japan in that it exercises a great deal of what they call soft power through its culture american movies and tv shows and music are generally all very high quality and this is one of america's great aces in the whole for building up international goodwill america has the biggest population in the g7 and it is also the most diverse full of literally every kind of person on earth this makes it an extremely complicated democracy with very intense elections that feature very intense jockeying for power just because there's so much at stake in controlling a country that large the conventional summary of american domestic politics these days is just that it is a very divided country not just along racial lines which is the standard american way but also with men against women educated versus uneducated young against old city versus rural everyone who's one kind of way versus everyone who's not all right now let us go to america's former colonial master great britain america and britain are quite different places in a lot of ways but they share more than enough history and heritage to have a very affectionate geostrategic alliance what the brits like to call the special relationship and one of the big understood subtexts of this relationship is this idea that britain and america exist on a kind of continuity with post-war america having happily inherited the foreign policy role that britain played during the glory days of its gigantic empire which is to say the globe's preeminent economic military cultural superpower unafraid of throwing its way to ruined but the loss of britain's imperial might is also said to be a long-running source of existential anxiety for britain since it's very used to thinking of itself as standing above and beyond other countries the british empire didn't fully dissolve until at least the 1960s meaning it's still something a lot of brits have some degree of conscious memory of even if it's only through like some war their grandfather fought in or some colonial job their dad had the idea of britain just being another european country is always an awkward fit and as we all know resentment against this idea eventually culminated in the messy divorce that was brexit the unprecedented british decision to leave the european union but we also know that that decision was extremely controversial inside britain itself and divided what's often seen to be britain's more urban and globalist-minded professional class from a more inward-looking smaller town working class the brits have all sorts of nicknames for the two sides of these debates you know are we going to be a grand global britain or a pathetic little england and stuff like that lastly we have italy the country i must confess i know the least about so italy has an economic political and social culture that's quite distinct from the other g7 countries which is usually credited to the fact that it comes from a unique southern european tradition while the other six member states are mostly part of a shared western european culture even japan is to some extent as a result italy is a place that has a lot of distinctive challenges that are often considered to be uniquely italian i don't think it's all that controversial to say that italy has a lot more corruption and sclerosis in its government than its g7 peers and a lot more political instability as well the italian parliamentary system is quite famously chaotic with lots of political parties and coalitions that are constantly shifting often over fairly minor matters while most countries only change their leader once every four or five years at minimum italy often has a new prime minister every single year and they rarely have time to become internationally famous with maybe one exception and i suspect this has something to do with why the country has a hard time making its mark in the foreign policy realm just because foreign policy is something that's often very much bound up in the personality of the head of the country and if the head of the country is always changing it's hard for that country to establish a clear voice however despite all this italy still remains one of the world's major economic powers with a particularly strong trade-based economy centered around the export of various high-end luxury goods like clothing cars and food this can also be seen as a form of soft power since the high quality of italian goods has played a large role in building the country's global reputation just like american movies or japanese video games not all of italy is equally well off however and a long-standing cleavage in the country is the wealth of the industrialized north versus the much poorer more agrarian south but much like tensions over immigration we could also say that geographic inequalities are also one of the most common characteristics of g7 nations so don't feel too bad italy so how are those summaries what not good enough you want something more in depth what do you think i am today's video sponsor the great courses plus the great courses plus is a subscription service where members get access to thousands of hours of recorded video lectures by some of the world's top academics we're talking professors from elite universities as well as experts from places like national geographic and the smithsonian if you're interested in taking a deeper dive into any of the countries i talked about today the great courses plus has got you covered long time viewers of this channel may know that i lived briefly in japan a decade ago and i had really wanted to go back this year but the next best thing was watching this amazing series of video lectures the great courses plus made about japanese culture which offered a really thorough analysis of 24 different things that make japan the way it is including their post-war emergence as an economic superpower or if japan's not your jam how about an expert tour of italy's most historic sites or a history of european colonialism or a four-star generals analysis of how america fights its wars whatever you're into our friendly friends at the great courses plus have a special deal just for you if you use the following url or click on the link below you can get access to a special free trial and start checking out everything the site has to offer anyway in closing let me ask a question to any of you who come from a g7 nation what do you think is the most important thing to know when it comes to understanding how your country behaves in this modern age and on a related note are there any myths about your country that you think the rest of the world needs to get over already let me know in the comments do not forget to give the great courses plus a try and i will see you all next week [Music] you

Channel: J.J. McCullough

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Id: tB1glV6sJ1g

Length: 19min 30sec (1170 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 20 2020