The US became the largest economic power in the world around the 1880s or 1890s. At that time in Europe, Italy and Germany had just recently become unified countries (both in 1871, in fact), and the only major European conflicts since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 were the peripheral Crimean War and a series of short (less than a year), decisive wars related to the unifications of Germany and Italy.

While the US is conventionally excluded from great power analysis (the preceding form of superpower analysis) due to its noninvolvement in European affairs, it was unquestionably one of the major economic engines of the world in the era before WWI.