Exactly. A so-called hyperpower can and will only exist in the future when one nation can successfully launch a nuclear first strike without fear of retaliation.
The overwhelming air strike capabilities that made Dresden and Hiroshima possible without fear of similar retaliation were past examples of a "hyperpower".
The irony is that the U.S. is being accused of "arrogance" and "bullying" when no other nation of similar power has ever used as much self-restraint.
When Russian buildings were bombed, Russia levelled Grozny. The U.S., on the other hand, has avoided civilian casualties to a degree never before seen in the history of modern warfare and still beats it's breast whenever CNN points out that a civilian may have been accidentally killed.
The existence of September 11 style terrorism in the U.S. is another example of U.S. self restraint. If this were the 1940's, the September 11 attacks would have resulted in FDR declaring all Arabs to be "enemy aliens" (just as the Japanese were so classified) and they would have been either thrown into camps or deported. End of problem.
"Low-tech" terrorism succeeds in the U.S. in spite of our "high-tech" military precisely because of the lack of "arrogance" and "bullying" that America's enemies and so-called allies accuse America of.
Agreed. And the demonstrated susceptibility of the sole superpower
to terrorist attacks with the resulting deaths of thousands brings into
question the utility of superpowerdom itself.