Post-WWII: Marshall Plan, Cold War, Francoism, Decolonization

The Marshall Plan

• Marshall delivered a project to aid economic recovery in Europe.
• Marshall Plan Objectives:
  • Avoid the mistake of isolating the United States after the First World War.
  • Create a strong core of capitalist economies; this could curb the temptations of communism.
• The Marshall Plan provided aid credits to countries that benefited from it and was instrumental in their quick recovery.
• A prerequisite for inclusion in the plan was the acceptance of democracy and capitalism.
• The USSR and other Communist countries were left out, although in 1949, they founded the CMEA (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, also known as Comecon), a socialist economic cooperative body.

The Beginnings of the Cold War: The Korean War

• The Cold War marked international relations from the late 1940s to the beginning of the 1990s.
• It was a total clash of strategies and objectives between the U.S. and the USSR.
• An indirect reason was fear of nuclear war. The "balance of terror" expression accurately describes the situation.
• The first armed conflict of the Cold War was the Korean War.
• The Korean peninsula was divided into two separate occupation zones by the 38th parallel: the American south and the Russian north.
• The established powers supported two states related to each.
• In 1950, North Korean troops invaded South Korea.
• The United States and the Soviet Union sent aid to their allies.
• The war ended in 1953.
• Characteristics of so-called peripheral conflicts, characteristic of the Cold War:
  • The two superpowers fought indirectly without a formal declaration of hostilities.
  • Conflict was located in a very concrete area.

Ideological Foundations of Francoism

• A more structured theoretical body of doctrine took a Falangist form.
• It incorporated symbols of European fascism, such as the salute with the arm raised and the denial of liberalism.
• Traditionally, it was also part of Francoism, which was proclaimed heir to the glorious Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella.
• Strong militarism.
• Distinguishing the Franco regime was National Catholicism.
• The Catholic Church established a partnership with the new regime, and the regime returned all its privileges.

Consequences of Decolonization

• From an economic point of view: the former colonies continued to depend on their former metropolis.
• From the viewpoint of the colonizing countries: decolonization led to instability in governments, with disputes about whether to grant independence. The British accepted it better than the Dutch and French.
• In international relations: Asia and Africa became the major foci of global appeal. The withdrawal of the metropolis led, in many cases, to a fictitious division of territories, which caused many ethnic and religious conflicts that survive to this day. For example, the division of India into two states: India and Pakistan. Another confrontation would be in Rwanda between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups.
• The most important social consequence was the massive return of former colonizers to their countries of origin.
• Colonialism and underdevelopment led to decolonization, which was just political and military domination but not economic or cultural. Multinationals that will exert some control over these countries will be developing. Thus, over time the terms "Third World" and "Underdevelopment" have come to be equated.