Quora Answer: What Countries Do You Consider to be First World?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “What countries do you consider the be First World?”

Whether a country is First World or not, is not a matter of opinion, but fact.  A country was considered First World when it explicitly supported the United States against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.  First World nations included all of NATO, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, and Japan.  Second World nations were the Warsaw Pact, and the entire Communist bloc of countries such as China, North Korea, and Vietnam, even though they were not Warsaw Pact.  Every other nation in the world was officially non-aligned, and part of the Third World.

In the course of the Cold War, some of these nations switched between being non-aligned to supporting either side.  Some of the Second World nations, such as China and Vietnam, moved towards non-alignment.  Vietnam was officially non-aligned, as part of ASEAN.  Some nations, such as Singapore and South Africa, were officially non-aligned, but politically and militarily very much in the First World sphere.

If, however, you are referring to countries that are developed, there are nations that are obviously developed, such as Western Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand.  There are nations that moved into developed world in the last few decades, such as Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore.  Much of the former Second World nations are still at developing nation and emerging market status.  There are nations that are nominally considered developed, but due to the unevenness of their infrastructure development, their corruption and socioeconomic problems, might be considered to have fallen back into developing status, such as much of Central and South America, including Mexico.