With rising nationalism and patriotism around the world, particularly in my home country of the United States, it's common to hear politicians claim their country to be the greatest in the world, appealing to these sentiments. But that brings up an interesting question: which country actually is the "greatest"? Is there a way to determine this objectively? The answer is no, there isn't, especially with how vague that is. That doesn't mean I can't try. Here are some statistics that could help determine what country is the greatest. Of course, it all depends on what you value in a country.
First let's look at brute strength. If you measure by military power, it seems clear that the United States does the best. America spends more on its military than any other country. If that's how you want to measure greatness, I think you have your answer. This is not a good way to judge a county's greatness, imo.
Economic factors are surely important. The US economy is currently largest in the world, with China expected to surpass the US very soon, but per capita figures are probably better to use.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... 4rank.html
Qatar is richest by gdp per capita, but Qatar along with many other countries near the top are tiny countries known for their number of millionaires and billionaires. Norway is the first country on that list that you can see on a map without squinting. Raw GDP per capita points to Qatar, but that doesn't necessarily account for other factors.
http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/HDI
HDI more fully encompasses standard of living in countries. Income, life expectancy, education, and many other factors are taken into account in the index. Norway has the highest HDI, followed by Australia, Switzerland, Denmark, and the Netherlands.
https://lif.blob.core.windows.net/lif/d ... f?sfvrsn=2
In addition, Norway is also ranked highest on the Legatum Prosperity index, followed by Switzerland, Denmark, New Zealand, and Sweden.
The same index says that Canada has the highest personal freedoms, and that Hong Kong has the highest level of safety. The index contains a wide variety of othe information as well.
http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking/
This particular index measures economic freedom. Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, and Australia rank as the most free economically.
http://worldhappiness.report/
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/16/travel/wo ... d-nations/
Finally, it wouldn't be complete without determining which countries are the happiest. Denmark is the world's happiest nation, followed by Switzerland, Iceland, Norway and Finland.
It's impossible to say objectively which country is the "greatest", but, what is the greatest nation to you? It all depends on how you measure greatness. Please explain and don't just give an answer just because it happens to be your home country. If you can find links to other indexes or things like that to add to this, that would be appreciated.
Edit- just a reminder to explain your answer
