One problem with arguments that bemoan or cheer the end of the “American Century” is that there never was one. Despite the United States’ moment of economic and atomic predominance after World War II, the United States immediately faced strategic challenges from the Soviet Union, and soon from Communist China, among others. If anything, American citizens felt less safe from foreign adversaries in 1945 than they had a decade earlier.
The Cold War meant that deadly conflict continued. Five years after the Japanese surrender at Tokyo Bay, American soldiers were again in combat in Asia. Between 1950 and 1953 more than 33,000 Americans died on the Korean Peninsula, which remained divided near where the conflict had started. Hostile, aggressive governments in North Korea, China, and North Vietnam redoubled their efforts to undermine U.S. interests, especially around Japan. U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy frightened a majority of Americans into believing that communists were infiltrating all aspects of domestic society. Some American Century.
The reality is that, throughout the Cold War, American military power rarely produced the battlefield dominance that leaders and citizens expected. More often than not, American soldiers and their proxies fought to a standstill against smaller, determined adversaries in Korea, Lebanon, Cuba, Vietnam, Angola, and elsewhere. Similarly, generous foreign aid rarely gave U.S. leaders the leverage they wanted. Cold War historians have chronicled in detail how allies from Paris and Bonn to Tokyo, Tehran, and Tel Aviv resisted and manipulated Washington while benefiting from American protection, markets, and resources. The allies realized that the United States needed them, and they could play to a mix of fears, hopes, and hubris among American leaders. There was always a threatening adversary to justify continuing to send aid to allies, despite their resistance to Washington’s demands for reform and loyalty. Very often, smaller partners pulled the United States into projects and conflicts that did not serve American interests. Vietnam, a former French colony, was the most infamous of many examples.
Washington’s international leadership was always limited, uncertain, and contested. It was most effective when it facilitated cooperation, often among a diverse group of allies and former adversaries. In Western Europe, the United States helped to build institutions for economic integration and collective security through the Marshall Plan, the European Coal and Steel Community (later the Common Market and the European Union), and NATO. In East Asia, Washington nurtured economic development, trade, and security cooperation among Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. On a more global scale, the United States helped create the United Nations and its associated agencies that constructed webs of technical and political cooperation across issues from atomic energy and peacekeeping to health, education, and communications. Through the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, also U.S.-led institutions, the United States helped to bring numerous countries together to address global poverty and economic instability.