MY EMPIRE Follow

In the lexicon of euphemism, the word "superpower" was always useful because it did little more than recognize the obvious. The United States of America was a potentate in itself and on a global scale. It had only one rival, which was its obvious inferior, at least in point of prosperity and sophistication (as well as a couple of other things). So both were "empires," in point of intervening in some countries whether those other countries liked it or not, and in arranging the governments of other countries to suit them. Still, only a few Trotskyists like my then-self were so rash as to describe the Cold War as, among other things, an inter-imperial rivalry.