How can one sovereign state have more power and influence compared to another state?

Military power, economic power, having a common history and culture as those countries which are to be influenced, and geographic location which gives one country control of commercial choke points (e.g., the Panama Canal, the newly-opened Northwest passage through northern Canada, the Suez Canal, the pipeline routes which take much of Central Asian and Russian oil and natural gas through Russia to get to eastern Europe or the Indian ocean, etc