I struggle with the "could not do it without military hegemony". I think the issue is military. Coca-cola achieved significant domination of world markets after WWII by piggy-backing on the distribution channels of the US Army. (essentially the troops were given morale boosting shipments of coke, later bottling agreements were put in place)

So it is reasonable to argue that Coke has achieved its position on the back of The American Military, but not reasonable to say it achieved it because of US military action.

An awful lot of US influence is down to pure dollar spend, which mostly comes through military related channels.

Is the US' international reach down to its military, or its money?

I would argue that had the last 50 years seen a global spend by the US Forestry Commission equal to that of the US military-industrial complex, then we would see Occupy! marches burning effigies of Yogi Bear.

>>So it is reasonable to argue that Coke has achieved its position on the back of The American Military, but not reasonable to say it achieved it because of US military action.

it's more reasonable to assume that Coca-Cola made most of its money by creating local factories in developing nations which struggled with getting clean water.

This pushed the use of Coca Cola as a health conscious choice. On top of that, the labor was near free by western standards, the syrup price lock is so low, and the shipping is handled by the natives.

Coca-Cola has also been accused of massive civil liberties violations due to their opportunistic nature in South America.

This is usually too fringe for me to post, but http://killercoke.org/

It's not just Coke, though obviously they're an interesting case that's particularly close to home in e.g. Mexico. But many american companies have gotten contracts to privatize water resources and blatantly break the contracts, sometimes even providing people with worse water than what they were already getting.

However, I don't think any of that would have been possible without the american military, though to say that Coke is so successful because of military action is rather absurd. Yes, it's probably true, but Coke's actions are so far removed from the military action (that happened decades, if not a century, ago) that it's a little dramatic and silly.

> Is the US' international reach down to its military, or its money?

You can't ignore the interrelation of the two. One of the things that made the U.S. rich was our being a superpower allowed us to remodel the world in our image after World War II, making it a market for American goods, and one that operated on American terms. Another was the period of relative peace that we have had over the last 60 years, peace that has been the result of American military hegemony and peace that has allowed international trade and markets to flourish.

If the U.S. had not spent the last 50 years being the dominant military power, do you think it would still be the dominant economy? Money by itself doesn't protect you, it only helps you buy guns. Guns, in turn, let you back every market transaction with the implicit threat of force, and fend of other people who have guns who might find it more convenient to simply take things by force instead of engage in market transactions.

> Is the US' international reach down to its military, or its money?

I think it's down to the military, to be honest (Note: I'm completely biased by my own affiliation with the Navy).

However Coca-Cola may have got their start, they are now a multinational and can't be claimed to have any great allegiance to U.S. interests.

The military is what gives the U.S. the clout to work diplomacy and lead policy amongst the nations. I think the best example of this is the South China Sea which is looking increasingly resource-rich. China has expressed great interest in this region (right up to the borders of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, etc.), and is currently on a crash program to greatly expand the PLAN (People's Liberation Army Navy).

This is one of the driving reasons that President Obama and the DoD have enacted a "strategic shift" to the Pacific/Asia area because even in areas where the U.S. doesn't have a direct economic interest, the U.S. has indirect economic interests, in keeping natural resources within the effective economic control of their allies.

China has already heavily clamped down on rare earth production as a tool of economic and international political policy, so they've already demonstrated that they are willing to use monopolies on natural resources to their advantage (I'm not saying this to complain; just calling it how it is).

Money has substantial underpinnings in psychology (which is to say its value fluctuates wildly depending on what people think it's worth). And, sometimes you can't simply buy a country off. China is the example now, but for much of the period you discuss the example was the U.S.S.R. The Marshall Plan was successful in helping Europe recover, but the U.S.S.R. didn't allow its satellite nations to participate, and this isn't even going into the U.S. and Allied military efforts that kept the U.S.S.R. from expanding even farther.

When diplomacy fails the last resort for a nation's interests is the military, and the perception that its services are actually available.

I agree with rayiner on this much; Americans on average are very well off compared to much of the rest of the world. I would go further to say that Americans don't understand that their great advantage was never automatic. Not in the past; not in the future.

Now, given that the U.S. military was off doing what it was doing it would be foolish to claim that the follow-on economic effects weren't also important in U.S. hegemony, but I don't think economic factors played the major role.

Since the founding of the nation, the US Navy has played a different role than most imperial navies played. It rarely interferes in the trade between any other two nations, and has focused on international commerce being relatively safe and unfettered.

It's a more productive role, but it also means that American businesses have to be able to compete on their own merits, rather than being able to rely on exclusive access to markets.

Creating the conditions where businesses are free to thrive is a little different than being responsible for their success, though.