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Welcome to the Guardian Long Reed, showcasing the best long-form journalism covering culture, politics and new thinking. For the text version of this and all our long reads go to the

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America's Undying Empire. why the decline of US power has been greatly exaggerated, by Tom Stevenson. In recent years, the idea that the United States is an empire in decline has gained considerable support,

some of it from quarters that until very recently would have denied it was ever an empire at all.

The New York Times, for instance, has run

columns that describe a remarkably benign American empire that is in retreat or even

at risk of decline and fall.

Yet the shadow American power still casts over the rest of the world is unmistakable.

The US has military superiority over all other countries,

control of the world's oceans via critical sea lanes,

garrisons on every continent,

a network of alliances that covers much of the industrial world, the ability to render individuals

to secret prisons in countries from Cuba to Thailand, preponderant influence over the global

financial system, about 30% of the world's wealth, and a continental

economy not dependent on international trade.

To call this an empire is, if anything, to understate its range.

Within the American security establishment, what it amounted to was never in doubt.

...