296 ChaPter^6
In the last few decades, scientists and historians have begun to correct the
historical record. The bomb’s use, many contend, was an example of “atomic
diplomacy.” The bomb was not dropped to end the war–Japan’s days were num-
bered anyway–but to show off U.S. power, to send a message to the Soviet
Union that America would use its nuclear monopoly to shape the postwar
world the way it wanted. Thus was the beginning of American hegemony, a
concept referring to the global power that the Americans would hold in the
postwar world.Strategies for Power: Economic and Political
While the use and possession of the atomic bomb was the best example of
American military strength, a more important factor in the overall goal of
hegemony was economic, and U.S. officials began to plan for postwar eco-
nomic supremacy even before the war ended. In July 1944, the Americans
held a meeting with 43 other allied countries at Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire with the goal of creating an international economic system. Before
the war, recall, the world was devastated by depression, so the most important
priority for the U.S. and other western powers was to be sure that such an
economic calamity, much like the depression or the 2008-09 meltdown, did
not happen again.
At that conference, the great powers created the Bretton Woods System,
which would define the world economy for the next quarter-century or so.
This system had a two-fold purpose, to rebuild the capitalist global economy
after years of depression and war, and to prevent the rise of Socialist or
Communist economies and to thus establish the U.S. as the dominant world
economic power. The decisions made at Bretton Woods may seem difficult to
understand, but they are basic and it is important to study them as a way of
examining U.S. power after World War II. The U.S. was attempting a grand
project, creating a new international economic order, but it was also simply
trying to dismantle the colonial system, which did not respect the Open Door,
and create a Pax Americana, a world dominated by U.S. power.
At Bretton Woods, three key decisions were made: the countries repre-
sented there created the International Monetary Fund, or IMF; started the World
Bank [officially the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development];