Are we still considered a "superpower"?

[kentuck]

What constitutes a "superpower"? Is it measured by military strength alone? Or does it represent respect, admiration, and benevolence in the eyes of people around the world? Have we lost our title as the world's only superpower? When did we lose it?

[MikeG]

1. OK, Who wants to find out?

[kentuck]

2. Good question MikeG....

I hope no one....Our military is stetched rather thin in Iraq right now and we are leaving ourselves somewhat exposed, I fear.

[MikeG]

3. We still got nukes.

And someone in power crazy enough to use them.

[Career Prole]

4. We used to call the USSR a superpower back in the days when we

pretty much hated 'em, so I don't think it's anything more than military might and the means to project it.
We're the last superpower standing, but I feel ashamed.
It's the bush* legacy.

[Djinn]

5. never had anything to do with respect or admiration

it's always had to do with power - so yes US is still a superpower.

[Kanary]

6. Bingo

It had nothing to do with respect and admiration when the old USSR was still a superpower..... only fear.

The rest of the world fears the US, and sees it as the country most to be feared now.

So, yes, the US is a superpower.

Until we get too big for our britches, and come tumbling down.

Kanary

[whistle]

7. Webster on-line definition....

...Superpower: Noun 1. superpower - a state powerful enough to influence events throughout the world

Synonyms: great power, major power, world power, power

[Spider Jerusalem]

8. Power more than anything makes a "superpower".

Actually, the United States constituted a sort of empire, from the end of WWII up through the Cold War years. Not quite the same sort of empire as the empires of old, true, but an empire nonetheless; our vassal states in Western Europe were used as proxies against the Russians, in most cases willingly supporting the NATO alliance and allowing US troops on their soil due to the perceived threat of evil Russia. Communism imploded in the early nineties, and the system of alliances made by the US muddled on, briefly, through the civil wars in Bosnia; but, now that US intersts are divergent from and in some cases diametrically opposed to the interests of Europe, those alliances are crumbling and America's erstwhile junior partners are re-asserting their own sovereignty in matters of defence and so on...and the perceived commonality of interests of the US and Western Europe/Japan (and the resulting cooperation on the part of our allies or client states in allowing US foreign policy to shape theirs) was really what allowed America to become a "superpower" in the first place.

As you've seen, Bush & Co. tried to get the rest of the world to buy into this "global war on terror" as a NEW shared cause, mainly to allow the US to maintain its global dominance (its imperium, if you will) through strategic coordination and direction of this "war on terror"...but most of the world decided they weren't buying.