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During the Cold War, the British Empire dissolved, leaving the United States and the Soviet Union to dominate world affairs. At the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States became the world's sole superpower, [6] [7] a position sometimes referred to as that of a "hyperpower". [8]
The United States was the foremost of the world's two superpowers during the Cold War. After the Cold War, the most common belief held that only the United States fulfilled the criteria to be considered a superpower. [182] [303] Regardless of the debate on its status as a superpower, the United States is considered a great power.
A potential superpower is a sovereign state or other polity that is speculated to be or have the potential to become a superpower; a sovereign state or supranational union that holds a dominant position characterized by the ability to exert influence and project power on a global scale through economic, military, technological, political, or cultural means.
The aftermath of World War II saw the rise of two global superpowers, the United States (U.S.) and the Soviet Union (USSR). The aftermath of World War II was also defined by the rising threat of nuclear warfare, the creation and implementation of the United Nations as an intergovernmental organization, and the decolonization of Asia, Oceania, South America and Africa by European and East Asian ...
The history of the United States from 1991 to 2016 began following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The dissolution signaled the end of the Cold War and left the U.S. unchallenged as the world's sole superpower. The U.S. took a leading role in military involvement in the Middle East.
A topographic map of the United States. The United States is the world's third-largest country by total area behind Russia and Canada. [d] [180] [181] The 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia occupy a combined area of 3,119,885 square miles (8,080,470 km 2).
The United States remained the world's foremost power until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, at which point it became the world's sole superpower. Opinions differ on when China's rise changed the United States' position from an uncontested sole superpower to a contested one. However, most agree that this happened sometime in the ...
1898 political cartoon: "Ten thousand miles from tip to tip."referring to the expansion of American domination (symbolized by a bald eagle) from Puerto Rico to the Philippines following the Spanish–American War; the cartoon contrasts this with a map showing the significantly smaller size of the United States in 1798, exactly 100 years earlier.