The results are surprising...
Along with a few expected names at their expected place, we have:
Cut the obvious about "world's most powerful country", what we have is the analysts at one of the most influential think-tank placing the US president at fifth rank... assessing US influence as very much diminished even as their comment says the opposite "most influential country"!#5- Barack Obama – Even at a time when Washington is focused almost entirely on Washington, the elected leader of the world’s most powerful and influential country carries a lot of water. The Obama administration will watch the eurozone from the sidelines and keep commitments in the Middle East to a minimum, but the United States will continue to broaden and deepen security and commercial relationships in East Asia, and Obama’s decisions on how far and how fast to move will be crucial.
In the past, this used to be called Lese-majesty, and it was severely punished.
Lese-majesty square two. The comment precises this ranking as partly the result of "Russia's personalized system" (albeit not the only country where identity of the leader is important), however it remains that those analysts strongly linked to Western largest political and financial centers say that Putin has consolidated more "regional power" than anybody else on the planet.#2- Vladimir Putin – In Russia’s personalized system, Putin is still the person who counts. He isn’t as popular as he used to be, and his country has no Soviet-scale clout or influence, but no one on the planet has consolidated more domestic and regional power than Putin.
And Putin is second to... nobody:
The notion of G-Zero world was coined by Bremmer, expressing current situation of all the world's leaders being preoccupied with regional issues at best, none of them raising to face the issues of humankind as a whole. Description of a massive failure of the most influential leaders to even try agreeing on any policies to face the challenges of the times...#1- Nobody – In a G-Zero world, everyone is waiting for someone else to shoulder responsibility for the world’s toughest and most dangerous challenges. The leaders you’ll see named further down this list are preoccupied with local and regional problems and don’t have the interest and leverage needed to take on a growing list of transnational problems.
Is not Bremmer correct?
The ball is rolling, and the world with it. America used to be the reference for a large part of the world, the SU serving as secondary counter-reference. Then America seemed to have become the global leader, the "hyperpower", the "indispensable nation" that would be the sole reference and define the future. Now fading of that reference and leadership (which had begun long time ago but was not readily apparent) leaves... "Nobody" in charge.
The world is more and more multipolar. But everybody is concerned with his particular piece of reality. No "concert of nations" has yet emerged for the most important countries / groupings to define a consistent coordinated leadership.
The ball is rolling... the ball of all nation's and people's hopes, fears, instincts, worries, knee-jerk reactions, policies blind to all but regional concerns... in face of the most serious problems than the world ever faced since WWII, and possibly for a longer time still.
The "concert of nations" will re-emerge. But not before the ball wrecks a lot of damage. And then further damage.
We human beings learn. But from our errors only.