How did the U.S. rise to a global superpower in only 250 years but counties that have been around for 1000s of years are still under-developed?

Question

The U.S. was a developing country for *maybe* only 100-150 years. After that, the U.S. became arguably the largest economic, military, academic, manufacturing powerhouse the world has ever seen.

Yet, countries that have been around since ancient times are still struggling to even feed or house their population.

How is that possible?

In: 17182

Answer 1

The type of land it has, and not really being subjected to two world wars on its own territory.

Wars in a country’s territory really screws up the development, as rebuilding has to commence after the war is done. There is also funding the war.

Also some of those 1000 year old countries were super powers at a time. Spain, UK, china, ect. Thing is stuff happens that shifts the balance one way or another to make it fall from grace.