Germany is rising up as the locomotive of global growth. The U.S. is recovering and holding onto its global leadership. Turkey is transforming into a regional powerhouse. Korea symbolizes creative economy and multilateral diplomacy.

Two U.S. researchers have coined a new word, GUTS, to represent the four powers enjoying a fresh renaissance and propping up the supposedly declining developed world.

“(The four countries) are actually increasing their international influence, while the others are stuck in a rut,” Bruce Jones and Thomas Wright of the Managing Global Order program at the Brookings Institution in Washington wrote on the think tank’s blog.

At the height of a debt debacle, Germany has proven to be a key driving force behind the world’s largest economic bloc, they noted.

The U.S. economy is emerging, albeit slowly, from its worst post-World War II recession while maintaining its security and technological edge.

Turkey, as a bridge between Muslims and the West, has been increasing its role in the global power game.

In East Asia, Korea has risen to prominence on the back of its social dynamic, embrace of multilateral leadership and robust economic performance after the 2007-8 financial crisis.

The two experts characterize the West as “market democracies that are U.S. allies and have an approach defined by support for the existing international order with some reforms.” Korea and Turkey, consequently, belong in the West column, they note.

Despite the protracted slump in Europe, the West is not on the wane, they argue. Rather, it has created a two-speed West.

Though China has become a possible match for American might, its rapid economic ascent has somewhat shriveled its own geopolitical position and benefited the U.S., says Jones, who is also director of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University.

“It seems to me that China has overplayed its hand in its own region, causing doubt about its ‘peaceful rise.’ As a result, countries are looking to the U.S. for reassurance,” Jones told The Korea Herald via e-mail.

As for Korea, he singled out dynamic economic growth and “new creative engagement in driving multilateral processes” as some of its strengths.

The Group of Eight should be expanded to include Korea and Turkey to make itself more relevant, take on a wider range of issues and in turn harness its power, Jones and Wright suggest.

“The rising powers in the developed world will not always agree, but when they do, they will be hard to resist. And they will be important interlocutors for the BRICs as they engage the Western order,” they wrote.

By Shin Hyon-hee  (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)