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A superpower is a state with a dominant position in international relations and is characterised by its unparalleled ability to exert influence or project power on a global scale. This is done through the means of both military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power influence. Traditionally superpowers are preeminent among the great powers (i.e as the USA is today). The term first applied to the British Empire, the United States of America and the Soviet Union. However, following World War II and the Suez Crisis in 1956, the British Empire's status as a superpower was greatly diminished; for the duration of the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union came to be generally regarded as the two remaining superpowers, dominating world affairs. Since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, only the United States of America appears to fulfill the criteria of being a world superpower.[1][2] Alice Lyman Miller defines a superpower as "a country that has the capacity to project dominating power and influence anywhere in the world, and sometimes, in more than one region of the globe at a time, and so may plausibly attain the status of global hegemony."[3] There have been attempts to apply the term superpower retrospectively, and sometimes very loosely, to a variety of past entities such as Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient China,[4] Ancient India,[4] the Persian Empire, the Ottoman Empire,[5][6] the Roman Empire,[7][8] the Mongol Empire, the Portuguese Empire, the Spanish Empire,[9][10] and the French Colonial Empire.[11][12] Recognition by historians of these older states as superpowers may focus on various superlative traits exhibited by them. |
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