Yes, Bretton Woods was in place because it was already acknowledged that the U.S. would be the victor.
Fortunately guys like Gen. George Marshall and Gen. Dwight Eisenhower learned enough at West Point that retribution after a was fools errand (e.g. Treaty of Versailles). Also, the experience of the U.S. Civil War showed the way forward. The "Era of Reconstruction" was the next required step. Called the Marshall Plan. You can't have world peace if 3/4 of rhe world is starving. I think not. So the Marshall Plan was very effective through the 1950's and into the 1960's.
the scheme wast that the U.S. Dollar was the default currency, and other nations were encouraged to accumulate a large amount. So manufacturing sprang up in these second and third world countries. The "wealthy" Americans would buy all of their finished goods. And all these second and third world countries could accumulate a stable economic foundation (U.S. Dollars)
It's a variation of mercantilism, (but we were not exporting raw materials to them) and worked OK at that time.
In fact it worked so well that American manufacturers started building factories in the Pacific Rim, and elsewhere, just to lower their rising cost (esp. labor).
But back in the U.S. Unemployment started rising, opioid use soaring, and standard of living was dropping. My guess is that G. Marshall, D. Eisenhower, etc. assumed whoever was in charge politically ("the adults") would step in, take the punch bowl away. Can you imagine anybody (R. Nixon & H. Kissinger, any POTUS since) announcing "everybody has to get a job, no more freebees".
But none of that happened.
So now the U.S. has been bilking the framework of the Marshall Plan for many decades.
We are going into Act IV of it, washed up on the rocks, with no ADULTS in charge.
We have to sit and wait. And hope we all don't get nuked.
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