Previous world powers came to pre-eminence when less of the world was known and later world powers are nuclear and haven't really directly invaded, fought or attacked like the British did.

This map brings it home more than most https://i.redd.it/75nqzhfp42r21.png and it only covers a single instance for many of those countries, the British (English first, rest of UK later) and the French spent most of a millennia beating each other up when they had no one else to fight - I mean Churchill gave orders to shoot French military if necessary months before the end of WW2 (between VE and VJ day) during the Levant Crisis.