Washington uses dollar to maintain global hegemony

Since the establishment of the Bretton Woods system in 1944, the US dollar has been the global reserve currency. Even when the United States terminated convertibility of the dollar to gold, effectively bringing the Bretton Woods system to an end and making the greenback a flat currency, the dollar's global hegemony continued.

Since 1971, the dollar's hegemony has been based mostly on one fact: almost all commodities in the world, especially oil, are traded in the dollar. Despite the growing economic problems of the US, including the stagnation of the income of the middle class, increasing inequality, and the ballooning of the country's national debt, the US has maintained its position as the largest economy in the world with high per capita GDP.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War ushered in a new era of US hegemony. In the 1990s and the 2000s, thanks to its economic and military power, the US adopted an assertive and aggressive foreign policy of "promoting democracy" across the world marked by NATO's bombing of Serbia, American invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the destruction of Libya.