Editing 2010s (section)

====International relations====
[[File:The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi with other BRICS leaders at a meeting, on the sidelines of G20 Summit 2015, in Turkey on November 15, 2015.jpg|thumb|[[BRICS]], a supranational economic cooperative comprising five major [[Emerging market|emerging national economies]]—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—grew to represent over 3.1 billion people, or about 41 percent of the world population by 2015.]]
China was increasingly called a [[superpower]] in the early 2010s, including at the 2011 meeting between President [[Hu Jintao]] and United States President [[Barack Obama]]. By the end of the decade, China overtook the U.S. as the world's largest trading nation and the country filing the [[World Intellectual Property Indicators|most patents]], dramatically expanded its [[List of countries by level of military equipment|military]] and landed its lunar rover ''[[Yutu (rover)|Yutu]]'' on the moon, ending a four-decade hiatus of lunar exploration. In 2018, [[List of countries by military expenditures|global military spending]] reached its highest level since 1988, late [[Cold War]] levels, largely fuelled by increased [[Military budget|defence spending]] by the United States (4.6% increase to $649 billion) and China (5% increase to $250 billion). Together, their budgets accounted for half of the world's total military spending.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.trust.org/item/20190429105059-m8xz0 |title=Global military spending at new post-Cold War high, fuelled by US, China – think-tank |date=29 April 2019 |publisher=Reuters |access-date=29 April 2019 |archive-date=30 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190430014523/http://news.trust.org/item/20190429105059-m8xz0 |url-status=dead}}</ref> In 2019, the [[Lowy Institute]] [[Asia Power Index]], which measures the projections of power across eight indexes in the Indo-Pacific, ranked the United States at #1 with a score of 84.5 and China #2 with a score of 75.9.<ref name="auto1">{{cite web |url=https://power.lowyinstitute.org/countries |title=Asia Power Index &#124; Countries |website=power.lowyinstitute.org |access-date=29 May 2019 |archive-date=9 November 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181109132254/https://power.lowyinstitute.org/countries |url-status=live}}</ref>

Along with the United States and China, [[Russia under Vladimir Putin|Russia under President]] [[Vladimir Putin]] steadily increased its defence spending and continued to [[2008 Russian military reform|modernise]] its military throughout the decade. This included the development of the [[T-14 Armata]] main battle tank and the fifth-generation [[Sukhoi Su-57]] jet fighter. Russia also exercised its [[power projection]] capabilities in its 2014 [[Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation|annexation]] of [[Crimea]] and interventions in [[Russian military intervention in Ukraine (2014-present)|eastern Ukraine]] and the [[Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War|Syrian Civil War]]. Russia also waged [[information warfare]] campaigns against its geopolitical foes, [[Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections|interfering]] in the 2016 U.S. elections via [[2016 Democratic National Committee email leak|hacking and leaking emails]] of U.S. political party leadership and by spreading disinformation via the [[Internet Research Agency]]. Other alleged Russian intelligence operations included the [[2016 Montenegrin coup attempt allegations|2016 Montenegrin coup plot]] and the [[Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal|2018 Skripal poisonings]], both of which were attributed by some to the GRU's [[Unit 29155]]. Collectively, these activities—and the Western-led efforts to combat them—have been referred to as marking the beginning of the [[Second Cold War]].

The [[European Union]] went through several crises. The [[European debt crisis]] caused severe economic problems to several [[eurozone]] member states, most notably [[Greece]]. The [[2015 European migrant crisis|2015 migration crisis]] led to several million people entering the EU illegally in a short period of time. There was a significant rise in the vote shares of several [[eurosceptic]] parties, including the [[Lega Nord|League]] in Italy, [[Alternative for Germany]], and the [[Finns Party]] in [[Finland]]. As a result of a [[referendum]], the [[United Kingdom]] became the first member state in the EU's history to  [[Brexit|leave the Union]].