United States Aid to South and Southeast Asia, 1950-1960

Abstract

THE FOREMOST FACT of global history since the end of World War II has been the simultaneous growth of four trends, contradictory and complementary: the fragmentation of longestablished, large political entities; the division of the world into three unstable, conflicting groups espousing communism, anticommunism and neutralism; the thrusting of private enterprise into a defensive position worldwide; and the multiplication of international cooperative groupings, with various political, economic, and military objectives. The first three tended to work against United States diplomacy, as a have nation jeopardized by extreme instabilities. The fourth became her principal tool in what may be called a diplomatic holding operation. To any general statement on the cooperative groupings exception of course can be taken, because of their multiple variables. But whether a group's main objective started as political, economic, or military, its activities spilled over into each of the other two fields.