ABSTRACT
The collapse of two of the three main challengers to Anglo hegemony in the Indian Ocean (Japan and Germany) left a bipolar struggle between Russia and the Anglo world, now dominated by the United States. Already in the interwar period, American business interests had been rapidly growing in the Indian Ocean area. American products were pouring into Malaya, which had been enriched by a rubber-growing boom during World War I. Such new imperial enterprises as Persian Gulf oil drilling depended on American capital. This fact was of special importance as the Middle East was providing the West with 70 percent of its oil by 1951.
