Opportunities And Challenges To A Global Community With A Future
The predominance of US economic, political and military power in the world was established at the end of the Second World War.1 With just 6.3 percent of the global population, the United States held about 50 percent of the world's wealth in 1948. As the only power that has used nuclear weapons on civilian targets, it demonstrated unchecked power and military might. The postwar world order was rebuilt with the United States at the core, including the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949 and Japan–US Security Treaty in 1951. The political order of major industrial powers, as well as some newly independent states, which were key in the containment strategy during the Cold War, were shaped in the image of the United States as vehemently anti-Communist bulwark economies.