Successes and Failures: US Aid in the Postwar Era

Abstract

This chapter will first explore the factors in United States development aid policy which helped set the course for the economic advancement of South Korea and Taiwan, utilizing the same model that had been established in Japan. Subsequently, a transformation of US foreign policy that occurred during the Eisenhower administration reversed this trend. This reversal was part of the Cold War redirection of policy away from New Deal antifascism and toward containment of communism through alliance with native elites in Third World countries. The United States no longer pushed for redistribution of property and power through land reform in its affiliate states. Instead, it placed itself squarely on the side of the power elites in Vietnam and Central America. These countries therefore lacked the modifying and democratizing element of large redistributive land reforms which had set the course for the earlier East Asian successes.

For their historical research for this chapter we owe thanks to three students – John Kress, William Moser and David Nolan.