Bretton Woods Was a Security-For-Trade Bargain

The core of Bretton Woods was the US military making the global oceans safe for anyone's commerce regardless of who they were or what they did, in exchange for those countries siding with the US during the Cold War; this let defeated nations emerge with trade access as if they were the world's most powerful empires, while America deliberately did not invest its own economy in the network so as not to become just another conquering empire.