> understanding what global superpowers do in the modern era, as long as you have a more flexible definition Yeah, absolutely. I remember a certain sense of en

> understanding what global superpowers do in the modern era, as long as you have a more flexible definition Yeah, absolutely. I remember a certain sense of enlightenment as undergraduate when a professor laid out the way the US projects military power - not through direct land occupation and control, but through deployment of a network of semi-permanent bases from which force can be rapidly unleashed on flexible terms, as well as through "advisors" that can co-opt local armies to carry out US objectives. Coupling that with direct and indirect shaping of cultural and economic consensus across allied nations, it's hard to define the role of northamerican states with a word different from "empire".