A typical Israeli street scene. US News ranked the Jewish state as among the world’s most powerful countries. Photo: Flickr.

Israel is among the world’s most powerful countries, according to a new study published in U.S. News & World Report on Wednesday.

Ranking #8 out of 60 in the “power” category, Israel scored below the US, Russia, China, Germany, the UK, France and Japan in the study, which was developed by WPP and the Wharton School, in consultation with U.S. News.

But the Jewish state emerged as more powerful than Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Canada, Iran, Australia, India, Italy and Pakistan, among a long list of others.

“Power” – one of nine sub-categories — was defined by the study as “a leader, economically influential, politically influential, strong international alliances, strong military.”

Israel scored lower on the “Overall Best Countries Ranking,” reaching #25 out of 60 – behind Russia and ahead of Greece — with Germany being #1.

The authors of the study explained the results and methodology:

Behind a country’s wealth and success are the policies that create possibilities, the people that drive the effort and the history that shapes the environment and perspective.

Globalization has expanded a country’s presence beyond its physical borders, and the 2016 Best Countries rankings seek to understand a nation’s worth beyond hard metrics.

The 2016 Best Countries report and rankings are based on how global perceptions define countries in terms of a number of qualitative characteristics, impressions that have the potential to drive trade, travel and investment and directly affect national economies. Sixty nations were measured in the inaugural report.

Countries were ranked according to a set of 65 attributes presented in a survey of more than 16,000 people from across the globe.

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Attributes were grouped into nine subrankings that rolled into the Best Countries ranking: Adventure, Citizenship, Cultural Influence, Entrepreneurship, Heritage, Movers, Open for Business, Power and Quality of Life.

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We narrowed the world’s nations down to a statistically manageable group by looking at how a country’s performance in a number of key business, economic and quality of life indicators compared against others.

The 60 countries in the 2016 Best Countries rankings are the only countries whose achievements reached four reputable benchmarks: the United Nation’s top 100 countries in terms of 2013 gross domestic product, the World Bank’s top 100 countries in terms of 2012 international tourist arrivals, the top 100 countries in terms of foreign direct investment inflows from the United Nation’s 2013 World Investment Report and the top 150 countries of the United Nation’s 2014 Human Development Index.

Those that did not reach all four of these benchmarks and those that did not report these statistics were not included.