<P> Brazil and India are widely regarded as emerging powers with the potential to be great powers . Political scientist Stephen P. Cohen asserts that India is an emerging power, but highlights that some strategists consider India to be already a great power . Some academics such as Zbigniew Brzezinski and David A. Robinson already regard India as a major or great power . Others suggest India may even have the potential to emerge as a superpower . </P> <P> Permanent membership of the UN Security Council is widely regarded as being a central tenet of great power status in the modern world; Brazil, Germany, India and Japan form the G4 nations which support one another (and have varying degrees of support from the existing permanent members) in becoming permanent members . The G4 is opposed by the Italian - led Uniting for Consensus group . There are however few signs that reform of the Security Council will happen in the near future . </P> <P> The political scientist, geo - strategist, and former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski appraised the current standing of the great powers in his 2012 publication Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power . In relation to great powers, he makes the following points: </P> <P> The United States is still preeminent but the legitimacy, effectiveness, and durability of its leadership is increasingly questioned worldwide because of the complexity of its internal and external challenges...The European Union could compete to be the world's number two power, but this would require a more robust political union, with a common foreign policy and a shared defense capability...In contrast, China's remarkable economic momentum, its capacity for decisive political decisions motivated by clearheaded and self centered national interest, its relative freedom from debilitating external commitments, and its steadily increasing military potential coupled with the worldwide expectation that soon it will challenge America's premier global status justify ranking China just below the United States in the current international hierarchy...A sequential ranking of other major powers beyond the top two would be imprecise at best . Any list, however, has to include Russia, Japan, and India, as well as the EU's informal leaders: Great Britain, Germany, and France . </P>

Which of these countries was considered the most powerful at the end of world war i