ABSTRACT
After World War II, the attention of US policymakers was focused on the immediate problems caused by the conflict: the reconstruction of Europe and the rehabilitation and rebuilding of Japan. Other areas of US concern were the underdeveloped nations, specifically the colonial possessions of their wartime allies, where nationalist wars of liberation were either under way or beginning to flicker to life. According to the Department of Commerce, the most immediate economic problem for the nation after 1945 was that of converting a wartime economy—“sustained by the overriding governmental demand for goods and services”—to one “again dependent upon the extent and character of private demand.” In a world shrinking in time and space, our experience in three foreign wars in less than half a century and the persistent threat of Communist power in many parts of the earth demonstrate the need for collective action with nations which share aspirations for world peace.
