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American and European officials were willing to endorse principlesof Atlantic community and unity most explicitly in the 1941 Atlantic
Charter but they were less interested in supranational organization.
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A fourth position on postwar order was animated more directly by considerations of American geopolitical interests and the Eurasian rimlands.
This is where American strategic thinkers began their debates in the 1930s, as they witnessed the collapse of the world economy and the emergence of German and Japanese regional blocs. The question these thinkers ponderedwas whether the United States could remain as a great industrial power within the confines of the Western Hemisphere. What were the minimum geographical requirements for the country’s economic and military viability? For all practical purposes, this question was answered by the time the United States entered the war. An American hemispheric bloc would not be sufficient; the United States must have security of markets and raw materials in Asia and Europe. The culmination of this debate and the most forceful statement of the new consensus was presented in Nicholas John Spykman’sAmerica’s Strategy in World Politics.
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If the rimlands ofEurope and Asia became dominated by one or several hostile imperial powers, the security implications for the United States would be catastrophic.
To remain a great power, the United States could not allow itself merely to be a buffer state between the mighty empires of Germany and Japan.”
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It must seek openness, access, and balance in Europe and Asia. A similar conclusion was reached by experts involved in a Council on Foreign Relations study group, whose concern was the necessary size of the grand area that is, the core world regions on which the United States dependedfor economic viability.
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This view that America must have access to Asian and European markets and resources and must therefore not let a prospective adversary control
the Eurasian landmass was also embraced by postwar defense planners.
As the war was coming to an end, defense officials began to see that America’ssecurity interests required the building of an elaborate system of forward bases in Asia and Europe. Hemispheric defense would be inadequate.
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Defense officials also saw access to Asian and European raw materials and the prevention of their control by a prospective enemy as an American security interest. The historian Melvin Leffler notes that Stimson, Patterson, McCloy, and Assistant Secretary Howard C. Peterson agreed with Forrestal that long-term American prosperity required open markets, unhindered access to raw materials, and the rehabilitation of much if not all of Eurasia along liberal capitalist lines.”
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Indeed, the base systems were partly justified in terms of their impact on access to raw materials and the denial for such resources to an adversary. Some defense studies went further, and argued that postwar threats to Eurasian access and openness were more social and economic than military. It was economic turmoil and political upheaval that were the real threats to American security, as they invited the subversion of liberal democratic societies and Western-oriented governments. A CIA study concluded in mid-1947:
The greatest danger to the security of the United States is the possibility of economic collapse in Western Europe and the consequent accession to power of Communist elements.”