I view it as US got strong by being late to WWII. Then every country in Europe, Russia was in shambles from the war. Japan got its expansionist hopes crushed by two atomic bombs, US’ new “don’t fuck we me I’ve got a delete everything button”.
Every other country was either recovering from being a colony, or not as far along industrially as US
>> I view it as US got strong by being late to WWII.
This is the wrong view. The US got strong because it was able to convert its considerable industrial might to wartime footing within a very short timespan (which was frankly an incredible undertaking), and also because its geographic isolation allowed it to focus almost fully on offense.
Every other country was either recovering from being a colony, or not as far along industrially as US