Nation building is a common topic these days. People complain about America’s half-assed attitude toward it. My opinion on it, is either go all the way or don’t go at all.
So my question is, why couldn’t a modern day Marshall Plan be use in say, Latin America, the Middle East or Southeast Asia? What are the pros and cons of this? Why do we bother implementing half-assed solutions that make things worse when we once accomplished it with a resounding success.
What factors made it possible at the end of WWII that make it not attainable today.
One factor that made the Marshall Plan so attractive to the Europeans post WWII was the fact that they didn’t want Stalin to take over their country. The best way to avoid such a takeover was to a) closely ally with the Americans, and b) rebuild their country’s economies quickly so that popular sentiment didn’t welcome such an event. In other words, it seemed to them like “Be subordinate to someone either way - let’s choose the Americans rather than the Soviets.”
With the threat of military conquest all but vanished today - these days, most countrys’ threats are internal rather than external - I don’t know that any of these nations would be quick to invite American money if strings are attached.
Moreover, in Europe, the U.S. was engaged in RE-building, not in building. Western Europe had already been industrialized before WW2, and had the skilled, educated people to make an advanced society work. All they needed was the reconstruction of their infrastructure.
Starting from scratch in a Third World nation is a different challenge entirely.
One problem with a Marshall Plan-style operation in the Middle East, at least, would be the fact that several countries there are extremely militaristic. Recall that before we instituted the MP in Europe, we had just spent four years beating the tar out of the violent and militaristic nations there. Trying to put something similar in the Middle East right now would be akin to launching the Marshall Plan in 1941 - wouldn’t work too well. Now, if we blast the hell out of Iraq, and send Saddam packing, then a nation-rebuilding operation there would probably be extremely successful.
El Jeffe, I wasn’t referring to Iraq, or at least not to Iraq at the moment.
Duck Duck; like Afghanistan in the 80s. But in general we’ve been giving up on countries as soon as it seems to take too many resources or when we’ve gotten our cheap oil. For instance we pursue our war on drugs in Columbia but we don’t really commit any kind of resources to building up Columbia’s economy.
mswas, you mentioned the Middle East specifically, and I was using Iraq as an example of a Middle Eastern nation where a Marshall Plan wouldn’t work right now. In general, the places in the ME that could most benefit from such nation building are the ones that would be least receptive to it. Iran is another one - the people there would love to westernize, and to grow economically, but until the ruling party there (the Ayatollahs, not the figurehead president) changes or is deposed, nothing we could do would be of any use.
We have tried to pour money into countries like Colombia since the Kennedy administration (and perhaps sooner). The US has spent a fortune on incentives to Colombian farmers to grow products other than coca, and the incipient FTAA represents yet another effort to improve the infrastructure in Latin American countries.
But this has its problems. In countries like Brazil and Paraguay, ineffectual, cash-hemorrhaging regimes are extremely popular. Since they are democratically elected, there isn’t a whole lot of nation-building we can do. We (US government, IMF, NGOs, multinationals) continue to pour money into regimes whose biggest problems are their immense public debts. Other than bailing them out of these debts outright, a new Marshall-style plan won’t be able to do a whole helluva lot.
With respect to the Middle East, I think a plan along these lines would work marvelously well in Iran in perhaps ten or twenty years. By this time, there should be two friendly generations of educated Iranians who are tired of domination by the mullahs. More importantly, they want jobs, lots of jobs. A huge influx of foreign capital might just be what they need.
Maeg, yeah Iran was something that I thought of. Also, if we do depose Hussein then I guess Iraq would be a good place, I seriously hope we don’t give up on Afghanistan and decide to stay there for the long haul. A westernized Afghanistan would be amazing.
On another note, I am very interested to see what Aesean will do. What if we focused on bringing those nations up?
George Marshall is one of my personal heros, even more so after reading a couple of his biographies. He was also someone who was extraordinarily well trusted. Stalin said of him something to the effect that he was the only America he he could trust. (I could dig up a cite.)
Part of what caused WWII was the terms of Germany’s surrender after WWI, leaving millions of people unemployed. That was fine with France et al. since they figured an impoverished country couldn’t make trouble for them.
After WWII, Germany was in ruins. Forward-looking folks thought – wait a minute – if impoverishing a country turns them into our enemy, would making them rich turn them into our friend? The idea of helping enemies appealed to a great many people, for philosophical/religious reasons, as well.
Now we’re faced with a different situation. Iraq, Saudi Arabia aren’t poor. In some ways they’re very well off.
If you ask foreigners about the Marshall Plan, apart from pointing out that was a long time ago, many view the whole thing, believe it or not, as another American ploy to control the world! Americans who feel proud about the Marshall Plan are in no doubt what its purpose was: charity, helping out, avoiding conflict. It’s something Americans feel good about.
So, there are a number of things that won’t work about a modern Marshall Plan: our enemies aren’t poor, there’s no George Marshall that everyone trusts (unless… Colin Powell…?), and we may not have the amount of cash that’s necessary to fix all the global trouble spots.
What the United States needs is get involved on the world stage, and listen to everyone’s concerns, instead of viewing the natural order of the world as from a Texas viewpoint.
France was very disappointed in Germany’s poverty because it was relying on vast reparations in order to rebuild. Unlike that of France, Germany’s infrastructure escaped WWI unscathed.
Germany’s poverty and legendary inflation is due in part to the injustices of the Versailles treaty. The influence of this settlement is consistently overrated, however.
Due to France’s relative weakness and billions of dollars of U.S. Loans, Germany turned into an economic power once more by 1923 that was dictating policy to the nations that defeated it.
For whatever reason, most people believe that German postwar “hyperinflation” was caused by the enormous reparations dictated in the Treaty of Versailles. This is manifestly untrue. Rank poverty and hyperinflation were caused by the ludicrous and illegal Franco-Belgian invasion of the Saarland, Germany’s most productive industrial region.
Instead of resist the French or continue to work the steel mills, the workers simply stopped. All revenue and productivity from the Saar was cut off. 150,000 workers were removed from their homes. The workers had to be paid, and new homes had to be found for them.
Naturally this general strike in Germany’s richest region persuaded the German government to print more money. This annihilated the German economy, as citizens everywhere lost faith in German currency.
In 1923 Gustav Streseman, one of Germany’s most brilliant statesmen since Bismarck, became Chancellor. The workers returned to their jobs, the mark was replaced by the Rentenmark backed in gold, and in 1924, by means of the Dawes Plan, reparations were renegotiated.
With an additional investment of about 25 mm gold marks, Germany became vastly profitable, and the next five years marked the “Golden Age” of Weimar.
I believe this analysis ignores much of the realpolitik that infused the Marshall Plan, namely, containment of the Russian sphere of influence and the reincorporation of Germany into the west.
It was a bit of both. Drawing up the battle line in Europe against the Soviet Union, opening foreign markets, there is no point trying to separate the charitable from the underhanded.
“Factually dubious”?? hmmmm. Interesting turn of phrase.
The U.S. loans and allowing Germany some slack on repaying war debts happened some five years after WWI was over. Until then, Germany was in a bad situation. After the 1929 crash, it was again in a desperate situation. Both these situations, along with the intentionally humiliating Versailles Treaty, helped bring Hitler to power, and to cause WWII, as I said.
Americans saw the Marshall Plan as an unselfish way to avoid future war. Americans are rather naive in this respect – true – believing that if everyone had what they did, the world would be prosperous, happy, and at peace. “Realpolitik” is a phrase George Marshall would have rejected, at least as I understand it as meaning “sleep with whoever you need to to get what you want”. Marshall viewed the pain and suffering of people in post-war countries, and responded in sympathy, not, by-and-large, for gain. His letters and telegrams are extant. His aims are pretty clear.
As for the main point of my post, that the Marshall Plan could not work again with the Arabs: What would you propose? We give billions to Saudi Arabians, who drive Mercedes? To the Iraqis, who have the fourth largest army in the world (last I heard)? To Kuwait, which has one of the largest GNPs in the world?
They aren’t looking for money. They want their concerns to be dealt with. And if I could venture a guess, they would like some creative suggestions about how to fit into the modern world. But not money. They have it.
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Here are some examples of America not really committing any resources to building Colombia’s economy:
A $1.3 billion assistance package for security and development in implementing “Plan Colombia,” designed specifically to thwart narco-trafficking through decreasing instability and poverty.
A 5-year,$222.5 million U.S. Agency for International Development agricultural assistance package helping farmers make the transition from drug crops to legal ones.
Implementation of 40 “Casas de Justicia,” or community legal service centers,
Satellite “human rights units” throughout Colombia to assist police and prosecutors in responding rapidly to suspected human rights violations.
More than $4.5 billion in direct U.S. commercial investment in Colombia.
$11.1 billion in two-way trade between the U.S. and Colombia in 2000.
$3.6 billion in U.S. purchases of Colombian oil, making it our seventh-largest oil supplier.
