<Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article focuses too much on specific examples without explaining their importance to its main subject . Please help improve this article by citing reliable, secondary sources that evaluate and synthesize these or similar examples within a broader context . (March 2016) </Td> </Tr> <P> Superpower is a term used to describe a state with a dominant position, which is characterised by its extensive ability to exert influence or project power on a global scale . This is done through the combined - means of economic, military, technological and cultural strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power influence . Traditionally, superpowers are preeminent among the great powers . </P> <P> The term was first applied post World War II to the British Empire, the United States and the Soviet Union . However, after the end of World War II and the Suez Crisis in 1956, the United Kingdom's status as a superpower was greatly diminished, leaving just the United States and Soviet Union as superpowers . For the duration of the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union came to be generally regarded as the two remaining superpowers, dominating world affairs . At the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, only the United States appeared to fulfill the criteria of being a world superpower . </P> <P> Alice Lyman Miller defines a superpower as "a country that has the capacity to project dominating power and influence anywhere in the world, and sometimes, in more than one region of the globe at a time, and so may plausibly attain the status of global hegemony ." </P>

Who were the superpowers during the cold war
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