Contents
In 1945, the Allies have won the war. Two years later, the peace threatens to slip away from them. Europe is starving, the economy is in ruins, and communist parties are growing in several countries. The United States faces the question that the British strategist Basil Henry Liddell Hart later placed at the center of his teaching on strategy – the question of the Better End State: What does the peace you fought for look like?
A war won, a peace at risk
Situation
The winter of 1946–47 is exceptionally harsh in Europe. Coal is scarce, harvests fail and many cities lie in ruins. Trade between countries barely gets going. After the First World War, the victors had imposed heavy reparations on Germany, and the consequences had weighed heavily on the years that followed.
Link to the principle
The military victory has been won, but the end state is open. An impoverished, unstable Europe would be a worse state than before the war and a danger to the victors themselves.
A speech at Harvard
Situation
On June 5, 1947, U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall speaks at Harvard University. American policy, he says, is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. The aim is a working economy in which free institutions can exist. The initiative, he says, must come from the Europeans themselves.
Link to the principle
Marshall describes not a victory but a state of affairs: a decent living, stability, free institutions. That is the language of the Better End State. Yesterday’s enemy is treated not as a debtor but as part of the solution.
The program
Situation
On April 3, 1948, the law establishing the European Recovery Program takes effect. By mid-1952, according to the usual count, about $13.3 billion flows to 16 countries. Britain receives the largest share, followed by France and Italy; West Germany gets about $1.4 billion. The recipients must plan together and set up the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) for that purpose. Each country pays the value of the aid in its own currency into a counterpart fund, from which investments are financed.
Link to the principle
The means are tailored to the end state. Joint planning creates cooperation instead of competition, and the counterpart funds ensure that the money keeps working within the country. In Germany, this idea lives on to this day in the ERP Special Fund.
The other side
Situation
The Soviet Union refuses to take part and pressures the states in its sphere of influence to decline as well. In this way, the Marshall Plan also deepens the division of Europe.
Link to the principle
A better end state is always better from a particular point of view. Liddell Hart said so openly: the point is a better peace, even if only from your own point of view. For Western Europe, the plan brought stability; for the continent as a whole, it also brought a new dividing line.
What came of it
Situation
By the end of 1951, industrial production in the recipient countries is 41% above its 1938 level, and trade among them has almost doubled compared with 1947. Agriculture falls short of expectations. In 1961, the OEEC becomes the OECD. How much of the recovery is due to the Marshall Plan is disputed among historians.
Link to the principle
The Marshall Plan alone did not save Europe. But it set the direction: cooperation instead of retribution, reconstruction instead of exploitation. There has been no war between the states of Western Europe since. That is the yardstick the principle applies.
Key takeaways
Key lessons
- After a victory, ask: What should things look like afterward?
- Treat yesterday’s opponent as part of tomorrow’s solution.
- Tie aid to cooperation, not to submission.
- Make sure your means keep working within the system.
- Say honestly for whom the state afterward is better.
Summary
After the Second World War, Europe threatened to sink into misery despite the victory. With the Marshall Plan, the United States invested in reconstruction, including that of its former enemy, and tied the aid to joint planning by the Europeans. The result was not a perfect state, but a clearly better one than after the First World War. The Marshall Plan shows the principle of the Better End State: a victory counts only when the peace that follows holds.
Sources
- George C. Marshall: Speech at Harvard University, June 5, 1947 (George C. Marshall Foundation).
- Basil Henry Liddell Hart: Strategy: The Indirect Approach. London: Faber and Faber 1954.
- Alan S. Milward: The Reconstruction of Western Europe 1945–51. London: Methuen 1984.
