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tion building. The specific sets of bargains and institutions also differed across the emer-
ging American-led order, particularly in the types of political and security relationships es-
tablished between the United States and its Western European and East Asian partners. As
this process unfolded, the United States increasingly took on hegemonic roles and respons-
ibilities. What was initially conceived as a sort of free-standing, self-regulating international
order eventually became a more explicitly American enterprise. The United States was not
simply a party to it; the U.S. economy, polity, and extended partnerships and commitments
came to form its core.
Fourth, several circumstances facilitated and reinforced the liberal character of the
American-led order. American ideas of postwar order were not imperial; quite to the contrary,
the original vision was for a system that would not be directly managed by Washington, D.C.
The United States was also offshore—removed from the immediate pressures and insecur-
ities of great-power politics in Europe and East Asia. This meant that when the Cold War
emerged, American allies in both regions worried more about abandonment than about dom-
ination. The United States could offer security assistance without threatening complete loss
of regional autonomy. The fact that the Western core of the order was built among democrat-
ic societies and organized around layers of institutions also helped by increasing the oppor-
tunities for reciprocity and voice. Finally, the array of client-state relations—which coexisted
with multilateral rules and institutions—created mechanism for side payments, reciprocity,
bargaining, and mutual adjustment.
The character and logic of the order was different from anything the world had seen be-
fore. It was both hierarchical and loosely rule-based. Its terms were more negotiated than im-
posed. And with a demand for American hegemonic rule, its supply was generated through
the provision of rules and institutions and the forging of an array of patron-client relations.
America and Postwar Order Building
No state in history has been so well positioned after a major war to shape international order
as the United States was in 1945. It emerged from the most violent and destructive war in his-
tory as the most powerful state the world had ever seen. While the other major states—both
the Axis and Allied powers—saw their industrial economies damaged and destroyed by the
war, wartime mobilization had lifted the United States out of depression. Its gross national
product increased 60 percent during the war, by the end of which the United States had be-
come the world's leading military power, producing more arms than the Axis states com-
bined and almost three times the amount generated by the Soviet Union. As Melvyn Leffler
notes: “In 1945, the United States had two-thirds of the world's gold reserves, three-fourths
of its invested capital, half of its shipping vessels, and half of its manufacturing capacity. Its
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