Pakistan ranked among world's most powerful countries

Pakistan has been ranked among the twenty-three most powerful countries in the world.

This is according to US News and World Report which released the latest edition of its annual “Best Countries” study.

The US has retained its position as the world’s most powerful nation, despite declining respect for its leadership. Its economic, political influence shapes the world, and a mammoth defence budget of about $600 billion and leading economy put it at the top.

The US was perceived as the most powerful, followed closely by Russia and China with the UK coming in fourth. The rise of China is quite remarkable as the country already has the world’s largest military, and experts predict it will be the world’s largest economy by 2050.

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The media organisation evaluated 80 countries across a range of criteria, including cultural history, citizenship, and quality of life.

Another key measure was “power,” which determines how economically and politically influential a country was and weighed the strength of its international alliances and military.

More than 21,000 business leaders, informed elites, and general citizens were surveyed with the goal of discovering how nations are perceived on a global scale.

The organisation states that the world’s most powerful countries are those that consistently dominate news headlines, preoccupy policymakers and shape economic forecasts.

The foreign and economic policy decisions of the countries can have ripple effects all over the world. Also, their military budgets are tracked religiously, and the international community expects them to honour their pledges.

The Power sub-ranking is based on an equally weighted average of scores from five country attributes: a leader, economically influential, politically influential, strong international alliances and strong military alliances.

These are the top 23 ‘most powerful’ countries in the world:
23. Qatar
22. Spain
21. Netherlands
20. Pakistan
19. Sweden
18. Italy
17. Australia
16. India
15. Switzerland
14. Iran
13. Turkey
12. Canada
11. South Korea
10. United Arab Emirates
9. Saudi Arabia
8. Israel
7. Japan
6. France
5. Germany
4. United Kingdom
3. China
2. Russia
1. United States of America