We musn’t overlook the most impactful financial leverage the US acquired from the war. Centuries of colonial wealth were transferred to the US as European allies, decimated by the war, depleted their treasuries to buy US weapons. The Nazis bombed the British empire into insolvency and nearly all of that wealth went to buying American weapons. By the end of the war the US held three quarter of the world’s gold reserves, allowing it to institute the Breton Woods system, making the US dollar the world’s reserve currency. This with America’s disproportionate manufacturing capacity left intact - more than 50% of global manufacturing from a nation with less than 10% the global population - and the Marshall Plan which contributed to persistent demand for American goods created a feedback loop which allowed America to become the world’s factory, banker and strongest consumer simultaneously.
American lore focuses on some type of intrinsic exceptionalism but the reality is the stars aligned for them in this particular period and they, credit to them, they took full advantage of it. Doubt it ever happens again though. The game’s different when you’re at the top, as I’m sure they’re all too familiar with now.
We musn’t overlook the most impactful financial leverage the US acquired from the war. Centuries of colonial wealth were transferred to the US as European allies, decimated by the war, depleted their treasuries to buy US weapons. The Nazis bombed the British empire into insolvency and nearly all of that wealth went to buying American weapons. By the end of the war the US held three quarter of the world’s gold reserves, allowing it to institute the Breton Woods system, making the US dollar the world’s reserve currency. This with America’s disproportionate manufacturing capacity left intact - more than 50% of global manufacturing from a nation with less than 10% the global population - and the Marshall Plan which contributed to persistent demand for American goods created a feedback loop which allowed America to become the world’s factory, banker and strongest consumer simultaneously.
American lore focuses on some type of intrinsic exceptionalism but the reality is the stars aligned for them in this particular period and they, credit to them, they took full advantage of it. Doubt it ever happens again though. The game’s different when you’re at the top, as I’m sure they’re all too familiar with now.