A hyperpower is a state that is militarily, economically and technologically dominant on the world stage. In a modern context, it is used to describe the United States. Previous examples of hyperpower include the British Empire, the Mongol Empire, and the Roman Empire. In academic international relations literature, the term hegemony is much more common.

Origin

After the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, some political commentators felt that a new term was needed to describe the United States' position as the lone superpower. Ben Wattenberg coined the term "omnipower" in 1990 and Peregrine Worsthorne used the term "hyper-power" on June 8, 1991. French Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine popularized the term "hyperpower" in his various criticisms of the United States beginning in 1998.

While the quintessentially Cold War term, superpower, continues to be widely used in the post-Cold War period to apply to the United States, it can be argued that it no longer captures the huge expansion of that "distance" between the United States and all other countries.

Popular culture

• Nine Inch Nails named the first track of their politically inspired album Year Zero "Hyperpower". The concept album is set in a near-future dystopian United States.

See also

• American Empire

• Americanization

• British Empire

• French Empire

• Hegemony

• Pax Americana

• Pax Britannica

• Pax Hispanica

• Pax Ottomana

• Pax Romana

• Pax Sinica

• Portuguese Empire

• Spanish Empire

• Superpower

• Westernization