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Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

There's really 3 things going on, none of which have anything to do with the military.

1) convenient defaults. People trade in dollars for the same reason they speak English - because it's mutually convenient between two different countries with their own language and currency. This is partly due to sheer size and partly due to successful cultural export.

2) clearing and settlment. This is not well developed globally, so in practice a lot of smaller countries, foreign banks, and multinationals keep US bank accounts so they can more easily handle payments. This system plays by US rules, which is why the EU is constructing a parallel one to trade with Iran.

3) "eurodollars". I don't fully understand this aspect but apparently this market is coming under regulatory pressure.

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There were a series of interviews I listened to a while back that form a nice primer for understanding the eurodollar system:

https://www.macrovoices.com/edu

The reason I bring up the military has to do with external influence. The US has a solid internal system of governance (as per other comments), but it would be worth nothing if other countries could intimidate it through military power.

It goes further than that. The US is quite able to intimidate (or outright depose) governments it perceives as hostile to its interests. Even in friendly countries the presence of its military gives something of a check on internal politics, before we even get to outright cloak-and-dagger stuff (which has been influential on the political course of numerous US allies).

One of the more comical illustrations of this is that the US passed a law during the Bush administraron authorizing invasion of the Hague if US officials were to be tried in the ICC. Less amusing is story after story of US-authorized violence to depose governments perceived as hostile to US business interests and slaughter supporters of the deposed governments.

> One of the more comical illustrations of this is that the US passed a law during the Bush administraron authorizing invasion of the Hague if US officials were to be tried in the ICC.

You might find this comical, but many dutchmen find it absolutely abhorrent that the US is willing to enact suchs an aggresive policy into law, especially as the dutch have been close allies with the US for a very long time.

Sorry, that was a poor choice of words. It's just such an over-the-top form of strong-arming (and so seemingly unnecessary; what were the risks that the ICC was really going to go after US officials in the first place?) that it seems cartoonish.

  authorizing invasion of the Hague if US officials were to be tried in the ICC

Source? That would be unnecessary given that the US can simply opt out of jurisdiction of the ICC in any given case and has done so several times through history.

It's called the Service Members' Protection Act, although it's often known as the "Invade the Hague Act." https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2009/0213/p05s01-woeu...

And why do you suppose those are the "convenient defaults"? You ever notice how air mail always has labels in French? That's because French used to be this default. Surely you must agree that there is some political reason why the "convenient default" should become a different language.

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