The Marshall Plan had several purposes. First, the American economy needed outlets for export, and second, the entire European and Japanese economies were in ruins and debt from the war. The Marshall Plan provided much-needed trading dollars. The plan was also intended to counter the attractions of Soviet Communism and probably saved western Europe from following a socialist path. The infrastructure of Europe, including a large number of homes and factories, had been destroyed by the war.

Well before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, US war planners were envisaging the defeat of Germany and Japan and the break-up of Europe's various Empires. They imagined the creation of small independent nations, umbilically tied into the US dollar and planners drafted blueprints for the United Nations. The ideologies of Pax Americana, Providential Exceptionalism and Universalism led a large group. The move of America to rule the world was rampant ambition over any specific political or economic need. This blog outlines the new global infrastructure the US set up post-1945 to rule the world.