Originally Posted by
ThrashMetalFtw
Sweden tried to do this during the 17th century, and were considered a Great Power for about 100 years. How did they do this? By having the most modern, best military in the world. The Swedish Empire controlled Finland and parts of modern Latvia/Estonia/Lithuania, aswell as having territory in northern Germany.
Sweden was highly innovate, super militarized and very aggressive before Prussia made it cool. If anything, 18th century Prussia was just a carbon-copy of 17th century Sweden. Prussia however, didn't border Russia, and that was Swedens downfall. Despite beating Russia, Poland/Lithuania and Denmark at the same time in the Great Northern War in the early 18th century, Sweden had a really small population, about 1mill, while Russia had about 20mill at the same time. This basically meant that once Sweden lost a single decisive battle, they had lost the war, while Russia could afford to simply raise new armies.