How should the Republic of Korea become a powerful nation?

 after reading the rise and fall of economic power I.In a modern society where the preface world has entered a competitive system, the question of whether we become a great power or not is not just a matter of rich and poor, but of survival. Our ancestors mainly used history as a mirror to find the right way to govern. Unlike the West, in the East, history has lasted for thousands of years under the basic premise that the nature of man and society remains unchanged as a governing science, not just a humanities science or a romance of the rich. I think the concern about how to become a powerful country is a concern that young people who want to become leaders of this land should have. We are proud to have achieved our present national wealth through high education enthusiasm despite our narrow land and scarce resources. However, in light of its long history, countries that do not have strong markets and factors of production could easily be seen to collapse if they build barriers to their resources and markets, even if they can become strong countries through short-term rapid growth. Therefore, in the West, the European Union has already been created and each country has built regional barriers, exclusively sharing markets and production factors. However, our reality is very hopeless because we have not even formed an inter-regional consultative body yet. In order to become a superpower as soon as possible, we must not lag behind the trend of this era. II. Causes of Decline in Strong Countries 1. Among the premise countries are production factors such as natural resources, labor, etc., and market factors such as population and purchasing power, namely countries rich in hinterland and those not. Traditional powers such as the United States and China and alliances between countries such as the European Union are examples of the former, while general countries such as Korea, Japan and Germany and city-states such as Singapore and Monaco are examples of the latter. In this article, the former will be referred to as a strong country, the latter as a strong country. However, according to the times, the size of the area that a capital can have is also expanded with the development of transportation, so there are countries that were located in a powerful country in the early period, unlike general practices today, in this article. France was a powerful country at the time of competition with Venice, but France as today's individual country competing with the United States is defined in this article as part of a strong country.   2. Lack of hinterland (1) - Urban countries dependent on brokerage trade are basically hard to have a population of more than a million. By the 16th century, when France had a population of 16 million and Germany reached 10 million, Venice, the most populous city-state, also had a population of only 1.45 million, including the territories. (Cities of the Sea) This conclusively boils down to the fact that they didn't have a market to consume goods produced by city-states. In addition, unlike territorial states, urban countries have limited the scope of the country to cities, and resources have to be procured from abroad except in extremely exceptional cases. Stronger countries, not urban countries, also have differences in degree. Except for Japan, which has a population of more than 100 million, there are no countries that can neglect exports and operate the economy, and even in this case, all strong countries have to import resources and a lot of labor from other countries. In the early stages of economic development after excessive consumptive actions, including war, strong countries achieve industrial advancement through faster growth than powerful countries and influence among countries as advanced countries. The growth factor of most of the strong countries is that they exist in areas away from the axis of confrontation between countries or in areas where they are buffered. Large amounts of capital and high-quality labor are initially introduced into these small countries to avoid pressure through non-economic factors such as powerful emperors and monarchs' wars. Strong countries develop in stability between the confrontations of powerful countries and essentially succeed in acquiring strong economic power by developing high-end industries through comparative advantages based on free trade and low-end industries against large countries. However, if the powers become interested in national wealth, such a niche strategy will lose its place. Large countries are increasingly trying to use their resources and labor to their industries, increasing the price competitiveness of their goods in the form of direct trade with foreign markets without going through intermediary zones, and using all methods, including force, to attract high industrial technology. In the 17th century, ships from England and the Netherlands traveled directly to Sicily, Naples, Sardinia, and Catalonia with goods carried by Genoa. (106P) In 1464, King Louis XI ordered French bankers to move from Genoa to Lyon. (105P) The British castigated the Dutch's intermediary role in boosting their industries through navigation laws, three wars of English war, France's tariff war, and the Dutch invasion. (152P) 3. Lack of hinterland (2) - Too much obsession with land. Small countries often suffer from chronic land shortages and population density. The Netherlands, a territorial country, not to mention an urban country, has a population density of 313 people per square kilometer, which is by far the best country in Europe. Under these circumstances, movable assets such as goods and stocks continue to grow as the country grows, but real estate cannot grow except in very exceptional situations such as territorial expansion wars and reclamation. Therefore, real estate always becomes a high-income product with rising prices. Venetian merchants also became obsessed with land rather than trade and speculation occurred in the latter stages. (98P) During the Napoleonic Wars, Venetians easily surrendered despite their natural fortresses, including the possession of the lands outside the river of the agricultural aristocracy, which became the absolute majority of the Venetian oligarchs. (Sea City Story) In the Netherlands, oligarchs, instead of taking risks at sea, neglected to lose maritime rights by taking their income from homes, land and securities. (167P) In neighboring Japan, the famous bubble economy was due to overheating property markets. Although there were certain limitations in the economic role of real estate, the continuous rise in real estate prices regardless of economic factors is a major cause of weakening the country's competitiveness. 4. Lack of hinterland (3) - The most decisive external factor in reversing the position between a great and a small nation in the absence of a powerful army is war. Until the wars of the Middle Ages, wars were dominated mainly by knights and mercenaries, and countries with more financial power became countries with more war sustenance and war mobilization capacity. By the end of the Middle Ages, battles between high-value mercenaries were formalized like horse racing. (my friend Machiavelli) It was France that broke this trend after the Hundred Years' War with Britain. France was centralized through the Hundred Years' War, and in the War of the Confederacy, 30,000 troops were mobilized to defeat Venetian troops and march to Rome.(99P) It was not the Italian mercenaries who stopped France, but the conscripts of Habsburg. The Turks, which were more modern than Europe at the time, mobilized hundreds of thousands of troops to rob Venetian maritime colonies such as Crete Cyprus and fulfilled their requirements. (Sea City Story) The peak of this trend was in France during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, where the French lost most of their officers due to the departure of the aristocracy, but through endless conscription, they annexed Prussia, Austria, Italy, and Germany. It is the best example that monetary wealth does not play a big role in the face of conscripted powerful force. 5. Failure to divide roles - Countries that are competitors but have not become cooperators can think of a coalition of strong countries as a way to overcome these problems. However, in history, the small powers never thought of a coalition, although they competed with each other. According to the relationship between Genoa and Florence Venice, Florence and other Italian city-states may have grown into the biggest power since the Renaissance by breaking away from the continuous attacks of France and Habsburg if they had formed an alliance with the Mediterranean and the Black Sea through sailing ships. The Hanseatic League of Northern Europe maintained its primitive trade practices beyond draft (138P) and Germany was also forced to be thoroughly swayed by the interests of the neighboring powers through the Thirty Years' War and the Napoleonic Wars until the Frankfurt Conference failed in 1840. (CAMBRIDGE – German history) In modern society, barriers between countries seem to be gradually decreasing, but it is still difficult to continue cooperation when national interests differ.(360P) The problems of the EU, which once seemed to be the axis against the United States, suggest this well. The European Union once seemed to emerge as a new alternative, but not long ago the EU Constitution was rejected in France, and the conflict of interest between the leading and latecomers within the EU is very serious. In relation to Germany and France, which are the two pillars of the EU, the majority of Germany's agricultural press money will be received by France, the same leading country, not by the latecomer, is one of the contents that intensifies the conflict.     7. Result of Failure II. Italy's cities collapsed in the face of the Spanish French Turks. 2. Northern European cities failed to systematize and gave up their position to the Netherlands. 3. Netherlands's strongholds. 4. Worlds against the U.S. III. 1. Escape from small countries. 1. Federalism. Our Choice 1. Threats Can Be Absorbed by China's Rapid Growth ex) Taiwan's Rearmament 2. Short-term : Choice and Concentration Strategies between Individual States 3. Long-term : Ignoring States, Political Concepts in the Economy, and focusing on regions. Conclusion Far from Greek city-states past Italian city-states Netherlands all countries against powers like BRICS and the United States today would be good examples. The EU-style loose federal system can never be an alternative.