Dickson C. Igwe. Photo: VINO/File

Germany and Japan, the two main adversaries of the Second World War, were powerful military and industrial machines in their own right after a determination to match the USA in terms of industry and enterprise. Japan had started this process as far back as the late 1800s, when imperial ambitions began. Japan had been an industrial power from the early 1900s.

The reason Japan was able to completely subdue the Asian Pacific, including China, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Burma, Indonesia and the islands of the Pacific, such as the Solomon Islands

However, unlike the USA, Germany and Japan were limited in the scarce natural resources such as oil and iron ore that fueled war-making machines of the time.

The USA, on the other hand, was a self-sufficient country in terms of energy, minerals, and agriculture that are critical in war. In fact, the USA was so abundant in its providence it could supply its allies with everything they could possible need to exist in a time of war.

After the war ended with victory for the USA, Britain, France and Russia, the USA rebuilt the war-devastated world through Dollar debt.

Countries borrowed heavily from the USA that in turn supplied them with Dollars produced by the Federal Reserve. This debt to the world was valued in Dollars and repaid with interest using Dollars produced by the USA.

The USA could afford to take on the debt that it lent to others. This it did by adopting vast deficits. The difference between the US cost of borrowing and the cost of borrowing of alien states was the profit margin of the Dollar.

The US furthermore had the power to produce this debt currency, as foreign governments post the 1945 War were desperate to have the US backing for their economies. They therefore borrowed from the US, which in turn borrowed from investors and consumers in the form of US debt stock.