"It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace. Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos.".
These words, spoken on June 5, 1947 by Secretary of State George C. Marshall at Harvard University's commencement introduced what would later be known as the "Marshall Plan" or the "European Recovery Program" (ERP). A triumph in American foreign diplomacy, it was an agenda of economic aid spanning four years that would set Western Europe on the course of economic rehabilitation. Though his speech took on a sympathetic and benign tone , the motivations behind the 13 billion dollars that the United States funneled into the participating states were decidedly imperialist in nature. .
The above statement rests, of course, on the manner in which one defines imperialism. Here, the concept of imperialism will be understood as the practice, or advocacy of extending the power and domination of a nation either by direct territorial acquisitions or through the extension of its political and economic hegemony. Indeed, these types of imperialism differ greatly in their degree of aggression, but it does not necessarily follow that they differ greatly in the degree of power they bestow upon the imperialist nation. After World War II, the Soviet Union practiced what one might call "aggressive imperialism." It used force and threats to expand its territory and to align the political and economic needs of its satellite states with its own interests. This is evidenced by the violent Soviet reaction to the riots in East Berlin, as well as the uprisings in Poland and Hungary in the 1950s. The Americans on the other hand, used a different brand of imperialism. One that could be labeled "mild imperialism",(or realism) but granted them the economic and political power that they desired to "best protect democracy" .
