Comments by "Ralph Bernhard" (@ralphbernhard1757) on "Henry Stewart History"
channel.
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@Teapot69 PART II
"What actually occurred was that Britain and other countries became hopelessly indebted to the United States once again (edit: during World War 2) ... “We have profited by our past mistakes,” announced Roosevelt in a speech delivered on September 3, 1942. “This time we shall know how to make full use of victory.” This time the U.S. Government would conquer its allies in a more enlightened manner, by demanding economic concessions of a legal and political nature instead of futilely seeking repayment of its wartime loans (of World War 1). The new postwar strategy sought and secured foreign markets for U.S. exports, and new fields for American investment capital in Europe’s raw materials producing colonial areas. Despite Roosevelt’s assurances to the contrary, Britain was compelled, under the Lend-Lease agreements and the terms of the first great U.S. postwar loan to Britain, to relinquish Empire Preference and to open all its markets to U.S. competition, at a time when Britain desperately needed these markets as a means by which to fund its sterling debt. Most important of all, Britain was forced to unblock its sterling and foreign-exchange balances built up by its colonies and other Sterling Area countries during the wartime years. Instead of the Allied Powers as a whole bearing the costs of these wartime credits to British Empire countries, they would be borne by Britain itself. Equally important, they would not be used as “blocked” balances that could be used only to buy British or other Sterling Area exports, but would be freed to purchase exports from any nation. Under postwar conditions this meant that they would be used in large part to purchase U.S. exports." (page 115/116)
"By relinquishing its right to block these balances, Britain gave up its option, while enabling the United States to make full use of its gold stock as the basis for postwar lending to purchased generalized (primarily U.S.) exports. At a stroke, Britain’s economic power was broken. What Germany as foe had been unable to accomplish in two wars against Britain, the United States accomplished with ease as its ally." (Page 117)
"Furthermore, under the terms on which it joined the International Monetary Fund, Britain could not devalue the pound sterling so as to dissipate the foreign-exchange value of these balances. Its liability thus was maximized – and so was America’s gain from the pool of liquidity that these balances now represented." ("Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire." -- Michael Hudson, 2nd edition 2003)
In case that seems a bit technical, here is the "nutshell version": Just like the bank takes your house if you don't pay up in the real world, the British Empire was run into the ground by the "best friends" USA, who stole the Empire's markets; hidden behind a whole lot of "technical jargon", thereby taking the means London had to pay its debts. A suitable micro level example would be the bank having an eye on your house, then making sure you get fired so you can't pay your debt. On the macro level the term is "debt trap diplomacy", and on the (privatized) propaganda level the means is "projection: accuse somebody else of being something which one is oneself", and that "being" has started waaaaaay earlier as a matter of own policy. A "debt trap" the Allies walked into after 1916, after they had spent all their own money, and squeezed as much out of their colonies as they could get away with, but refused to come to terms at the negotiating table: another factor usually associated with the Central Powers.
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"At the end of the war [WW2], Britain, physically devastated and financially bankrupt, lacked factories to produce goods for rebuilding, the materials to rebuild the factories or purchase the machines to fill them, or with the money to pay for any of it. Britain’s situation was so dire, the government sent the economist John Maynard Keynes with a delegation to the US to beg for financial assistance, claiming that Britain was facing a "financial Dunkirk”. The Americans were willing to do so, on one condition: They would supply Britain with the financing, goods and materials to rebuild itself, but dictated that Britain must first eliminate those Sterling Balances by repudiating all its debts to its colonies. The alternative was to receive neither assistance nor credit from the US. Britain, impoverished and in debt, with no natural resources and no credit or ability to pay, had little choice but to capitulate. And of course with all receivables cancelled and since the US could produce today, those colonial nations had no further reason for refusing manufactured goods from the US. The strategy was successful. By the time Britain rebuilt itself, the US had more or less captured all of Britain’s former colonial markets, and for some time after the war’s end the US was manufacturing more than 50% of everything produced in the world. And that was the end of the British Empire, and the beginning of the last stage of America’s rise."
[globalresearch(dot)ca/save-queen/5693500]
§§§footnote
If you wish to know more about exactly how the British Empire was "being dismantled," then get back to me.
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@Teapot69 President Jimmy Carter called the USA the "most violent nation in the history of the planet."
Do you know why?
Spend 15 or 20 minutes reading below, and then get back to me.
PART I
"During World War II, study groups of the (US) State Department and Council on Foreign Relations developed plans for the postwar world in terms of what they called the "Grand Area," which was to be subordinated to the needs of the American economy. The Grand Area was to include the Western Hemisphere, Western Europe, the Far East, the former British Empire (which was being dismantled), (§§§footnote) the incomparable energy resources of the Middle East (which were then passing into American hands as we pushed out our rivals France and Britain), the rest of the Third World and, if possible, the entire globe. These plans were implemented, as opportunities allowed." SOURCE: GEORGE KENNAN AND THE HISPANIC-LUSITANIAN WORLD: A CONTEMPORARY REFLECTION Antonio Luis Ramos Membrive
US strategist in these think tanks lay out the scheme of what was going to be the new post-war reality, as a "Grand Area" as an almost exclusive "back yard", and under their "natural rights" for the USA to control. Every part of the new world order was assigned a specific function. The more industrial countries were to be guided as "great workshops". Those who had demonstrated their prowess during the war (would now be working under US supervision/finance). More, undeveloped regions were to "fulfill its major function as a source of raw materials and a market" for the industrial centers, as a memo put it. They were to be "exploited" for the reconstruction of Europe (The references are to South America and Africa, but the points are general.)
To further quote the article: "These declassified documents are read only by scholars, who apparently find nothing odd or jarring in all this." Note, all words in quotes were actual words used IN THIS OFFICIAL US DOCUMENT, and the thesis and its quoted sources can all be downloaded for free, from the www, and using these key words provided for your search engine.
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After around 1940, ... (quote) "Alvin Hansen envisioned a joint Soviet-American domination of Europe that anticipated Henry Kissinger’s subsequent “Partnership of Strength.” Hansen observed in 1945, at the outset of his study of America’s Role in the World Economy, that the great new postwar fact would be “the rise of Russia on the one side of the globe and the economic and military power of the United States on the other. A happy geographical accident (§§§footnote) – two great powers occupying vast continents and controlling vast resources in areas that are noncompetitive – this fact must be set down as a dominating and directing force in the future course of history. We are confronted here with a completely new constellation of forces. *Within this framework the role of France, Germany and ENGLAND of necessity must be something very different from that set by the European patterns of past generations..."
"During the war its diplomats had come to recognize that given America’s economic supremacy, a more open international economy would not impair the U.S. economy, but would link the economic activity of other non-Communist countries into a satellite relationship with the United States. It was unlikely that in the foreseeable future foreign countries dependent for their reconstruction on the inflow of U.S. resources could interfere in U.S. domestic policies. On the other hand the reverse, an extension of U.S. influence over other countries, was visibly possible. Thus, whereas America had boycotted the League of Nations after the First World War as a threat to its domestic sovereignty, it no longer feared multilateralism. Quite visibly, the more open and interlinked the postwar international economy became, the greater would be the force of U.S. diplomacy throughout the world."
From "Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire.", Michael Hudson, 2nd edition 2003
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The discussion topic is too narrow, and can only serve as data to figure out the big picture. Simply a look at a small pixel of the larger image, and therefore too "compartmentalized".
Europe lost its top tier position a long time ago, as global leaders because their leaders could not find a suitable balance of power between the states, which was equally acceptable for all. Note that with Versailles and many other bad choices, ALL Europeans lost.
WW1 and WW2 was one struggle which roots go back a 1,000 years: the battle for continental supremacy between France and The Holy Roman Empire, with Russia off to one side of that, and Great Britain off to the other. This is how the quote "peace for 20 years" (Foch) should be interpreted.
WW1 and WW2 was simply another "30 years war" with the difference being that Atlanticists (the naval powers) stepped in and supported France as the "favored nation" as a proactive divide-and-rule strategy of intended global control and domination.
In the end ALL Europeans lost and became subjected to the American Century, whose post-WW2 Truman Doctrine was simply more divide-and-rule, to drive a rift between Europeans. After the Cold War this "rift" was simply "ruled" to be further east, as new frontierlands to systemically convert, and the desirable status quo of "Europeans set up against each other per outside ruling" was moved a few hundred miles eastwards.
Read Mackinder (1904), which found its logical continuation with the Truman Doctrine, and Churchill's Iron Curtain.
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