Shift of world hegemony
Author:Jialing?
In recent centuries, with the opening up of global shipping routes, several prosperous maritime powers have been born. Among them, the United Kingdom is relying on the power of the industrial revolution,
From a remote Western European island nation to a colonial hegemon, it is the country with the largest land area in human history.
After entering the 20th century, as a new round of industrial revolution has been popularized in most Western countries, new powers have sprung up.
France and Germany, the old powerhouses of the European continent, are catching up; japan in East Asia has just won the Qing government's victory over the Qing government, which has already exposed its ambitions to plot Asia and even the world; the United States, once a British colony, has expanded its territory several times in just over a hundred years after independence, and its industrial potential is unfathomable.
In this way, Britain's status as the world's boss began to be shaken.
With so many challengers to hegemony, why did the United States succeed in the end?
In fact, at the end of the 19th century, the United States had already surpassed Britain economically to become the world's first.
However, the latter has not dominated the world for a year or two, and it still tends to be invincible in military strength. However, at that time, the United States relied on various opportunities in the 20th century to finally achieve a complete reversal of comprehensive national strength.
▲ In 1907, the emerging United States sent the "Great White Fleet" to sail around the world, peacefully showing its muscles, but its overall military strength was still inferior to the Royal Navy
I. World Wars:
The great powers fell, and the United States was fed
The existing theory generally believes that the historical node of the United States surpassing the United Kingdom economically was in 1894, but it is worth mentioning that there was no concept of GDP at that time, and these data were a combination of the industrial capacity of the two countries at that time (such as steel, etc.) and pushed back to the conclusion.
From today's point of view, it is an indisputable fact that the United States rose to prominence among the world's great powers at the beginning of the last century, but from the perspective of Britain at that time, it may not be aware of this.
Since the defeat of France and Napoleon, Britain has always placed its strategic focus on the immediate Europe due to geographical factors.
So throughout the 19th century, the United States pursued an isolationist policy and was able to make a fortune in that era of information blockade.
Bell and his telephone, the United States and Germany firmly grasped the Second Industrial Revolution at the end of the 19th century, while Britain, on the other hand, failed to lead the trend again
At that time, although the United States was developing rapidly economically, just like the rising sun, it also owed a bunch of debts to European countries.
Before World War I, Britain remained the largest creditor of the United States, which owed $830 million.
Militarily, the U.S. Army has only 250,000 men, and its overall strength is lower than that of established powers such as Britain and France. However, the outbreak of war has brought the United States the first opportunity of the new century.
Since the main battlefield of the First World War was in Europe, and in its own nature itself was an evil war between imperialism due to the "uneven division of the spoils". Wilson, then president of the United States, in order to appease the people and seek his second term,
It declared America's neutrality toward the war, that american youth would not go to the battlefields of Europe to make senseless sacrifices.
The First World War, an evil war between imperialism
Although it did not participate in the war, the United States was not idle in international trade. In the name of "neutrality," the bourgeoisie in the United States started business with the warring countries on the European continent, selling arms for huge profits.
Take, for example, in the early days of the war in 1914, when U.S. merchandise exports were $2.3 billion, soaring to $6.9 billion in just three years by 1917. The increase in foreign trade not only made the capitalists very profitable, but also greatly stimulated industrial production in the United States.
The French munitions depot in World War I was piled high with supplies purchased from the United States
By the time the war in Europe was fought in 1917, nations were already exhausted. The casualties of British and French soldiers were as high as millions, and the level of their domestic economy was seriously regressed, just at this time the October Revolution broke out in Russia, which was likely to withdraw from the war, and the Allies began to face the crisis of defeat.
Although the United States has trade with both camps, but the relationship with the Allies is relatively close, not only the sale of goods, but also a large number of loans, if the Allies at this time defeated, then these debts are likely to be written off, so the United States to participate in the First World War became inevitable.
In fact, the entry of the United States into the war directly reversed the entire war situation, and the German-Austrian allies quickly disintegrated.
American soldiers who fought at the end of World War I in 1917
The Allies won world war, and the defeated Germany and Austria-Hungary either experienced turmoil or were divided. But for the two victorious powers, Britain and France, it was also a crushing victory. The biggest winner of World War I was the United States.
Throughout the war, Britain invested 32 percent of national wealth, France 30 percent, Germany 22 percent, and the United States 9 percent.
By the 1920s, the United States alone generated as much electricity as europe combined, and steel production accounted for more than half of the world's production. After the war, the United States transformed from a debtor country to the world's largest creditor country, the status of the us dollar rose, and the international financial center gradually shifted from London to New York.
▲ At the beginning of the last century, New York, the United States, its prosperity has far exceeded the imagination of the world
Twenty years before the end of the First World War, the more brutal World War II began, and its scope and number of countries participated in the war far exceeded the former. The Axis powers, led by ambitious Japan and resurgent Germany, turned the continents of Europe and Asia upside down.
In fact, whether it was World War I or World War II, it was a global disaster, but only the North American continent was a lucky one.
The United States is surrounded by endless oceans, and its two neighbors, Canada and Mexico, were by the 20th century. Its unique geographical location made its homeland untouched by war, and the only place in World War II that was attacked by the Axis powers was Pearl Harbor, far from the mainland.
▲ The superior geographical location of the United States has protected it from the spread of world wars
Neither Nazi Germany's plans to unify Europe nor Japan's frenzied expansion in the Asia-Pacific region are in America's interest. So just like the First World War, the United States actually chose to take sides from the beginning.
But during the war, the United States not only had close relations with the Allies, but also traded with the Axis countries.
▲ U.S. strategic material exports in World War II
Taking Japan as an example, before it launched a full-scale war of aggression against China, 60 percent of its imports of strategic materials such as oil and steel came from the United States.
After the July 7 Incident, this number continued to soar to 75%. From 1937 to 1940, more than 90 percent of U.S. exports to Japan were military supplies and strategic raw materials, totaling $780 million. Japan is heavily dependent on resource imports, and the keys to this war machine have been in the hands of the United States from the beginning.
At a 5,000-person protest rally in Los Angeles in 1938, U.S. Congressman Scott appealed to the public: "Remember, when Japan killed one million people in China, 544,000 were killed by American accomplices. ”
▲ The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, but it is ironic that most of the fuel provided by aircraft carriers and aircraft in this operation and the raw materials for the shells dropped are mostly American goods imported over the years
Second, the collapse of the colonial system sounded the death knell for the British Empire
After the end of World War II, the United States has surpassed the former United Kingdom in both economic and military terms, becoming the world's first in name, and in stark contrast to bustling New York, the devastation on the two continents of Europe and Asia is devastated. For Britain, now that its own livelihood is difficult to maintain, how can it have the energy to manage a huge colony?
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill realized that the fate of the decline of the British Empire was irreversible, and the only thing he could do was to protect British interests as much as possible in the process. In addition to obstructing the two issues of "India's independence" and "return of Hong Kong," they have done everything possible. Churchill's shrewdness was also reflected in the post-war "Iron Curtain" speech, in which he created a Cold War atmosphere that provoked the cooperative relationship established by the United States and the Soviet Union in World War II and accelerated the formation of a bipolar pattern in the world.
Britain was able to cling to the thighs of the United States, ostensibly against the Soviet Union, but in fact took the opportunity to frantically suppress the uprisings in the colonies.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered the famous "Iron Curtain Speech"
However, the disintegration of the old colonial system was, after all, the general trend at that time, and could not be suppressed by force alone. The Second Middle East War, which took place in 1956, is a testament to this.
Although the two old colonial empires of Britain and France won the war, they were eventually forced by international pressure from the United States and the Soviet Union to return control of the Suez Canal to Egypt.
▲ The Second Middle East War launched by the Anglo-French coalition for the Suez Canal with Egypt
As an adversary of Britain and the United States, the Soviet Union naturally vigorously supported the independence of the colonies in order to gain strategic advantage with the United States in order to win allies on a global scale.
Another point is that although Britain and the United States can be regarded as a family, the United States itself was born out of the independence of the former British colonies, and Americans are very resistant to the old colonialism from a cultural point of view.
So it is interesting that the two superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union, which were opposing each other under the Cold War pattern, were surprisingly identical in their views on the disintegration of the British Empire's colonies, and even secretly contributed to the situation. After the middle of the 20th century, the independence movement around the world reached its climax, and almost every year a country announced its liberation from British colonial rule, and the "Empire of the Sun Never Sets" that had been active on the world stage for centuries came to an end.
Third, finance dominates the world, and the dollar is the only one
At that time, Britain's hegemony in the world relied on strong ships and guns that swept across the world and colonies all over the world (as a raw material market), for the former, the United States was even worse. but
The collapse of the British Empire proved that the old colonialism, though profitable for a while, was doomed to failure. What's more, judging from the international situation at that time, the rising nationalism of various countries did not allow the United States to follow the old British path.
During the two world wars, countries sent gold to the relatively safe United States for preservation, and the United States had 73.4% of the world's total gold reserves at that time.
Therefore, as early as 1944, the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference was held in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, led by the United States, which produced the Bretton Woods system, which formed a gold standard system centered on the US dollar, and the status of the US dollar officially replaced the british pound as the world currency.
After the formation of the Bretton Woods system, the US dollar officially replaced the british pound as the world currency
Although the Bretton Woods system gave the United States more international benefits, it was not a profitable business.
Its most fundamental flaw is that the United States does not have enough capacity to maintain the stability of the dollar and gold in special periods.
For example, in the 1960s and 1970s, the United States was mired in the quagmire of the Vietnam War, during which the United States repeatedly broke out of the dollar crisis due to the fiscal deficit, and countries sold dollars to buy gold, forcing the United States to stop selling gold to the outside world in 1971, and the gold standard system existed in name only.
But U.S. policymakers didn't give up, and in 1975, after many consultations with Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, the United States re-established a relationship that was in its own interests. This is a more reliable system than the gold standard, as ordinary people can not have gold, but can not rely on oil, and the dollar after directly linked to oil naturally ushered in the era of hegemony.
The hegemony of the dollar is based on the absolute military power of the United States, and the two promote each other, thus forming the so-called "sword business".
But as a non-renewable energy source, oil will always dry up one day, and the United States will inevitably look for the next alternative to protect the dollar's status as a world currency.
The oil-pegged dollar has become a tool for the United States today to draw on global interests
The British Empire, which flourished in history, capsized in the gutters of the 20th century and was overtaken by the former "little brother" of the United States. The objective reason is that the United States has made full use of its geographical advantages to make the national strength of the two world wars increase without decreasing.
But what really buried the British Empire was its once proud global colonies, the old colonialism was destined to be thrown into the garbage of history after the awakening of the nations, and the successful ascension of the United States to the throne was just a push along the water.
▲ Former US President Barack Obama claimed that "the United States will continue to lead the world for 100 years", but can it really get rid of the fate of the United Kingdom on that day?
Author: Jialing
(Don)