More specifically, the end of the Cold War left the United States as the undisputed superpower. This claim was not a rhetorical exaggeration. In 1991 the United States generated 26 percent of global GDP with less than 3 percent of the population. The dollar was the global currency; English was the global language. Militarily, America spent more on defense than the next twenty nations combined, projecting its power abroad with over 600,000 combat troops and support garrisons in more than forty countries. No imperial power in recorded history, neither the Roman empire nor the British empire at
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