Sentence:  Out of that agreement , though not by any easy road , eventually emerged the present world hegemony of the United Nations ; suspicion between member states still existed , but it <WSD>was</WSD> of about the same low order of virulence as the twentieth-century rivalry between Arizona and California over water supplies . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)