One who had money was super power, it changes. The world understood that money doesn't rule the world... this was depicted clearly when America the super power was having 1000s of companies standing in queue filing bankruptcy...
The Power politics, international relations where nations strive hard to become the nxt super power... Though they are competing for the same position they conceal their interest... The nations had different approaches... And you should not forget that this hunger to rule the world or the hunt for becoming the most powerful man is not restricted to countries and dates back from the day man know to colonize. Everyone who had power from emperor to the small community head were having the same desire to expand their control space. This hunger for political power will never end, this runs beyond race and cult.
Long back they used only military power to show their position and technology always was there behind military power. From stone age, through Iron ages, fire power, air warfare till atomic upper hand was the trend. This almost came to end after World War II (Not exactly). During the firepower ages all big players stated to understand that the richest will become the super powers, so the hunt's objective was changed. During end of colonizations they started to reduce the control space but increase wealth in forms of gold and silver. Now the objective turned to other resources; Energy started to gain importance after the discovery of nuclear fusion, and invention of fusion and fission control techniques. All the money was poured in to further harness power from solar, wind and other resources too. Currently we are in the era of energy, the money value depend on Crude oil barrel value. Before oil was extracted at this rate the possession of Coal mines were of keen interest. Understanding the change we started from "Control Space" through "Gold and Silver" to "Energy".This will change again to green power. One who has food will become super power one day and this day is not far...
