The US used its power to establish a set of open global institutions which have been broadly beneficial.  As Robert Cox argues, American hegemony has been successful because the US has been able to maintain its dominance through a high level of global consensus by establishing a broadly accepted rules-based liberal international economic order, and has been able to shape other states’ preferences in a manner that has awarded sufficient benefits to these states while ensuring the dominance of the US.[1] This has been what John Ikenberry terms America’s “liberal grand strategy,”* which has enabled the US to construct a relatively benign and highly institutionalized multilateral system based on open markets, free trade, and the provision of ‘public goods’, such as collective security and an open international trading regime.[2] This has allowed other countries to prosper economically and also in terms of their security; the rebuilding and success of Japan and Germany provides important examples of this.  [1] Cox, Robert. ‘Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations, Millennium, Vol. 12, No. 2, 1983, pp. 162-175.,  Cox, Robert. “Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory”, in R.O. Keohane (ed.) NeoRealism and its Critics, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986)  Where the US has used military force, it has largely done it to uphold human rights and international peace, security and prosperity.[2] Ikenberry, John G. (2002), ‘America’s Imperial Ambition’, Foreign Affairs, September/October 2002.  *liberal grand strategy is a terminology that describes the USA’s long term policy goal- to promote its system to other countries.